Food Expiration

Since young, my mum had taught me the importance of food and its impact on health. My mum is very particular when it comes to eating the best to ensure that we are healthy. She would buy the freshest of things she can get hold on.. for perishables, the freshest food will be those that are still alive. whenever possible, she would buy live prawns, live fish, live crabs and only kill them as late as possible, such as when we are gonna cook and eat it. when me and my mum go grocery shopping where the food available are often mixed together with different expiration date, she teaches me to pick the freshest; the "premium quality" as i would call it. if we are buying milk, we'd choose the pack that can last the longest (the latest expiry date). the reason is not so much that we can keep it in our fridge for longer but because they are the freshest.

whenever i shop with friends or other people, they often ask me why i insist on buying the "lastest" when you can definitely finish up the food before it expires. well, i guess it's because i've been brought up this way, to choose the best quality products. i often muse to myself and ask: when you have a choice between 2 items that costs the same but are of different quality, why would anyone want to pick the one of lower quality?

being a life scientist myself, i should explain my rationale:
the moment living things die, they start to rot. period.
bacteria is everywhere in the air, and no matter how well the perishable food is packed, they contain live bacteria. what bacteria does is that they break down the food to produce acids, some of which are toxic. acids produced by bacteria in milk for example, causes milk to curdle and turn sour. the sourness is actually the taste of the lactic acid btw.. sure, the milk will take a couple of weeks before u see it curdle, but the process of it turning sour happens the moment the milk is squeezed out of the cow. the reason why u can drink it is because it will take that much time for the bacteria to produce enough acid to turn the milk sour. that is the threshold point when food "expires" and we deem it unsuitable for consumption.

many of us are taught that once u keep the food in the refrigerator, your food will stay fresh. wrong! lowering the temperature will only slow down the process of rotting. when the temperature is low, bacteria are still alive. the only difference is that they work more slowly. they are still trying to rot your food, but at a slower speed.

so the next time you buy your grocery, think about the stage of rotting of the food that you're buying. would you want to buy food that are already half rotten or food that are just beginning to rot? they all cost the same most of the time you know?

here's an interesting article that you guys might want to read. Click here.