On Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:10:50 +0100, Martin wrote:

Sell by:
The last date it should be on a supermarket shelf

For stock control.

Use by:
The last date you should consume it.

Operative word "should", more often than not stuff well past its "use
by" is still perfectly fine.

Best befo
Edible but not at it's prime.

This one ought to scrapped, can't people tell if something has gone
off? See "use by", I guess people have stopped using their brains,
this bit of food has been around a while, it might have gone off.
Does it look OK? Does it smell OK? Is the texture OK? Does it taste
OK?

Plus many people throw away stuff they used some of, because they
can
think about using it again a few days later.

Once you have had bad food poisoning you tend to think twice about using
reheated leftovers.

Properly cooked, kept in the fridge for a few days and thoroughly
reheated once is fine. Of course these days many people don't know
how to cook, store food or reheat it properly.

I read the OPs post to mean people bought the ingredients for a dish,
in the supermarket prepacked quantities, use the amount they need for
the dish and bin the rest. They don't keep it for use in another dish
a few days later.

We generate one small worktop compost bin of food waste/week, that
includes the things that occasionally make a bid for freedom from the
fridge or vegetable store. The average household thows out about
1/3rd of the food coming in, edible and inedible (peelings, skins
etc). I don't know how such households manage to chuck out so much.

--
Cheers
Dave.