Did you read what they are replacing it with? I.e., "best if used by" (indicating the time the item is at its best quality), "best if frozen by", and "use by" (indicating when the food is and isn't safe to eat). Because those seem much more clear and useful to me than the useless "sell by" date.
The law standardizes language around expiration dates, aiming to minimize confusion about when food is safe to eat. More than one-third of food sold nationwide is wasted, the U.S.D.A. says.
We should be able to skim the headlines and get an accurate impression of the news items of the moment.
This headline seems intentionally misleading. It should have been clear to the publisher that it would be interpreted this way. Intentionally inflammatory clickbait titles poison the information ecosystem.
(That being said - yes, commenting on something you have not read does as well!)
I'm pretty sure food producers are the ones putting the "sell by" labels on stuff, with the hope that people will needlessly throw away food and buy more because of that label.
They don't want grocery stores to carry product that's too old because customers will try it and decide they don't like it, not realizing that it's old. And a grocery store worker won't know when to get rid of it unless someone tells them.
And from a grocery store's point of view, product that's on the shelf too long isn't selling. It's taking up space that could be used for something else.
>With 395,608 regulatory restrictions, California is the most heavily regulated state in the nation, according to the report. On average, states have 135,000 regulatory restrictions in administrative rules, with California's regulations more than doubling the national average.
Well despite all that regulation, they're an economic powerhouse, they must be doing something right. CA is far from perfect but at least they occasionally aspire to do something for the benefit of their citizens - not something I can say for my 'least regulated' state that mostly just saps money from the federal government.
Despite all their problems, Detroit was an economic powerhouse. Motor city was a world class city, and they bid to host the Olympics eight times between 1944 and 1972. Detroit was far from perfect, but it seems like eventually their bad choices caught up with them. Detroit is no longer the world class city or economic powerhouse it once was.
N=1 but I make a good amount of money and left California for a zero tax state.
I feel like the quality of life is similar between the two. I don't feel like I was getting anything for the 13%+ extra taxes I was paying in California.
Nearly every California program has a huge amount of wastage. California is a lot of talk (regulations, state programs, taxes) coupled with extremely poor execution.
Of course you expect to get something back. Cleaner streets, better public transit, fewer homeless, less crime, etc.
For example, I would be happy paying those 13% taxes in Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore! (Some even have lower taxes.) But I felt that money was being totally wasted in California.
I genuinely think CA is something like <10% as efficient with tax money as these countries, and it's largely because certain groups take it as a personal attack when you imply tax inefficiency is a problem.
Just because I'm buying something for someone other then myself it doesn't follow that I don't care how the money is spent. If my tax dollars are wasted it's no comfort to tell myself that the money would have been spent by someone else for someone else in any case.
I moved out of CA and overall, I myself get more for my money. All of those taxes didn't benefit me.
And just like you describe, it would've been ok if all of the tax money went to the people it was meant to be, but unfortunately CA is built upon n number of middle man companies who each take something off the top.
The taxes are collected one way or another, since places need roads and such. OP might find income taxes to be better than property taxes or sales taxes, depending on where they choose and what they get for their money.
"Past performance is no indicator of future success."
They did something right fifty years ago. Now? No. They're doing nearly everything wrong.
Top-two elections coupled with rigged ballots so voters can't really choose, and no one can prove anything (and it's against the law to try). Government program after government program that fails to solve basic problems because the money seems to up and disappear, and when the public calls for an audit the person doing the stealing gets to say "No."
187,084 homeless in California in 2024. 181,934 homeless in California in 2025 after 2024 spending of more than $2.5 billion (with a B) on homeless programs. They would have done better if they had just given every homeless person $13,363. It's the same expenditure.
Instead they spent $485,437 per person helped (5,150). The median household income in California in 2024 was $100K. So they spent four times the median household per person helped. Those are bad results.
They're driving out businesses. They're destroying the infrastructure that let them build the economic juggernaut of agriculture and tech (reservoirs left dry, water management mishandled deliberately, forest mismanagement contrary to decades of evidence).
Generally speaking, I've liked their food and consumer product safety regulations, and most of those have been emulating Europe, but most of the rest they've gotten wrong. They're still rich because of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but they're driving away tech, and while Hollywood has a long way to tumble, it's on its way to doing that to itself.
California has a significantly better climate to be homeless in, so you'd want a bus ticket from Minnesota or whatever to there too if you were homeless.
Because of the power CA has, many of the regulations they pass around health and safety end up benefiting other states because it's cheaper to simply implement it nationwide.
At first you might think "How the heck can a state have so many regulations!?". Even the ~40000 regulations of the states with the least regulations might seem like a lot. How the heck are people supposed to be able to keep track of all those regulations so they can avoid violating them?
But if you look closer there is a hint to what is going on. According to the US News article these are the 10 most regulated states: California, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana.
These are the 10 least regulated: South Carolina, Michigan, Wyoming, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho.
Note: the US News article says they had to omit some states due to limited availability of data. Also that list is from 6 years ago. I found a later list without those omissions.
It is mostly the same, with the addition of some of the states the US News list had to skip, and the order is quite a different in the two bottom 10 lists.
Combining the lists these are the most regulated states (in alphabetical order): California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
These are the least regulated: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming.
One thing that stands out about the first list is that most of them are major players in a variety of major industries. The second list doesn't seem to be nearly as diversified.
I bet if you dove into the details of regulations this would be a big factor. The top list has more regulations simply because they have more to regulate. In any given field they don't necessarily have more regulations than other states, but they have more fields that are big enough to need regulation. More diversity also means more conflict between different industries which will tend to increase the need for regulation.
A key aspect of this, and why we aren't overwhelmed with just keeping up with regulations, is it is the breadth of the regulatory systems that leads to the high counts. not the depth. You only have to deal with a few branches in this wide tree.
For example the US News article says that the most regulated industry is administrative and support services, such as unemployment services, collection agencies, and call centers. All of us not involved in such services can pretty much ignore that big chunk of regulation.
There is a similar thing with the federal tax code. The Internal Revenue Code is around 7000 pages, and the Federal Tax Regulations are another ~70000 pages. But a lot of that is because of the breadth of the US economy, and another contributor to the size is that the government uses per industry tax incentives and penalties as a way to encourage or discourage things that they want to influence. The net result is the tax code and regulations are full of things that 99% of taxpayers (individual and business) can completely ignore.
The salary requirement for job postings has been AWESOME. Saves so much time and you can see if your company is paying market rates, realize if you are underpaid etc. Definitely made my life better. Other states are following suit! Employers hate it, haha. California, Colorado, NY, Illinois, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Hawaii all have this law now.
In the end, standardization of this type of things can only be good even if the effect on waste is small. There is no need to create additional ways to confuse people.
> Experts say the term “sell by” is generally for retailers to know when to rotate inventory, compared with labels like “best if used by” and “use by,” which indicate quality.
...
> Under the state’s bill, “sell by” dates can still be included on products as long as they are “coded” — information that is aimed at retailers rather than consumers.
This is about obfuscating "sell by" dates so customers don't get confused. They might not necessarily add another date you can read easily. But maybe someone can write an app to read the codes?
This is a pretty nothing law when you look into it.
All it does is standardize "sell by" labels to be more transparent. The extent of the ban is the explicit phrasing "Sell By" which is itself confusing since the manufacturer has some estimated consumption interval that is tacked onto their actual expiration date. Sell By gives the customer has no idea how much padding they are adding to their estimate and when the thing actually goes bad.
All this law really does is it standardizes the labels manufacturers can use to "BEST if Used by" for quality concerns or "USE by" for safety concerns. A lot of manufacturers already do this, so it is a pretty minimal law There are probably more pressing issues in Sacramento, but a small improvement is always welcome.
Yeah. I'd agree. This is a pretty quick and easy law with very few downsides. There is also a "good house keeping" aspect to this. The habit of keeping a house clean and tidy makes it easier to do the bigger and more substantive improvements. I'm a bit surprised that New York Times is reporting on such a small law passed so far away or that there are such negative comments about such laws here, but such is life.
I don’t think it’s a nothing law. Not only does it help with reducing waste, but also a food safety thing.
“Best by” or “best is used by” or “expiry dates” are pretty clear: use the product before the date.
In my own case, we have a brand of bread that does “sell by”. There is not uniform standard on how many days after the date, the bread is safe to consume. Internet wisdom gives you a wide range.
The pad, no, but you do pay for the liquid that the pad soaks up from the overly hydrated meat. The cheaper chicken in my area is pumped full of salt water and is weighed as it's getting packed, but the pad absorbs a bunch of that water to keep the chicken from looking like it's sitting in a puddle.
48 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 39.8 ms ] threadThe law standardizes language around expiration dates, aiming to minimize confusion about when food is safe to eat. More than one-third of food sold nationwide is wasted, the U.S.D.A. says.
We should be able to skim the headlines and get an accurate impression of the news items of the moment.
This headline seems intentionally misleading. It should have been clear to the publisher that it would be interpreted this way. Intentionally inflammatory clickbait titles poison the information ecosystem.
(That being said - yes, commenting on something you have not read does as well!)
In any case I think the new way is better.
And from a grocery store's point of view, product that's on the shelf too long isn't selling. It's taking up space that could be used for something else.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-11-03/...
I wonder how many they've added in 5 years. Do all these laws improve peoples lives?
I feel like the quality of life is similar between the two. I don't feel like I was getting anything for the 13%+ extra taxes I was paying in California.
Nearly every California program has a huge amount of wastage. California is a lot of talk (regulations, state programs, taxes) coupled with extremely poor execution.
Some people might argue that it's not meant to be about what you personally get back. Social contract and all that...
I get your other points but this part was phrased in an unfortunate way.
For example, I would be happy paying those 13% taxes in Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore! (Some even have lower taxes.) But I felt that money was being totally wasted in California.
I genuinely think CA is something like <10% as efficient with tax money as these countries, and it's largely because certain groups take it as a personal attack when you imply tax inefficiency is a problem.
And just like you describe, it would've been ok if all of the tax money went to the people it was meant to be, but unfortunately CA is built upon n number of middle man companies who each take something off the top.
Where, pray tell, is this state with zero taxes? Próspera?
Incorrect. For high earners, tax burden differs dramatically between states, even when you consider all kinds of tax.
Already addressed in my other reply.
They did something right fifty years ago. Now? No. They're doing nearly everything wrong.
Top-two elections coupled with rigged ballots so voters can't really choose, and no one can prove anything (and it's against the law to try). Government program after government program that fails to solve basic problems because the money seems to up and disappear, and when the public calls for an audit the person doing the stealing gets to say "No."
187,084 homeless in California in 2024. 181,934 homeless in California in 2025 after 2024 spending of more than $2.5 billion (with a B) on homeless programs. They would have done better if they had just given every homeless person $13,363. It's the same expenditure.
Instead they spent $485,437 per person helped (5,150). The median household income in California in 2024 was $100K. So they spent four times the median household per person helped. Those are bad results.
They're driving out businesses. They're destroying the infrastructure that let them build the economic juggernaut of agriculture and tech (reservoirs left dry, water management mishandled deliberately, forest mismanagement contrary to decades of evidence).
Generally speaking, I've liked their food and consumer product safety regulations, and most of those have been emulating Europe, but most of the rest they've gotten wrong. They're still rich because of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but they're driving away tech, and while Hollywood has a long way to tumble, it's on its way to doing that to itself.
California has a significantly better climate to be homeless in, so you'd want a bus ticket from Minnesota or whatever to there too if you were homeless.
Praising CA is like being brokeass heroin addict in NYC, being proud of profitable burglaries because also rich people live in same city.
But if you look closer there is a hint to what is going on. According to the US News article these are the 10 most regulated states: California, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana.
These are the 10 least regulated: South Carolina, Michigan, Wyoming, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho.
Note: the US News article says they had to omit some states due to limited availability of data. Also that list is from 6 years ago. I found a later list without those omissions.
It is mostly the same, with the addition of some of the states the US News list had to skip, and the order is quite a different in the two bottom 10 lists.
Combining the lists these are the most regulated states (in alphabetical order): California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
These are the least regulated: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming.
One thing that stands out about the first list is that most of them are major players in a variety of major industries. The second list doesn't seem to be nearly as diversified.
I bet if you dove into the details of regulations this would be a big factor. The top list has more regulations simply because they have more to regulate. In any given field they don't necessarily have more regulations than other states, but they have more fields that are big enough to need regulation. More diversity also means more conflict between different industries which will tend to increase the need for regulation.
A key aspect of this, and why we aren't overwhelmed with just keeping up with regulations, is it is the breadth of the regulatory systems that leads to the high counts. not the depth. You only have to deal with a few branches in this wide tree.
For example the US News article says that the most regulated industry is administrative and support services, such as unemployment services, collection agencies, and call centers. All of us not involved in such services can pretty much ignore that big chunk of regulation.
There is a similar thing with the federal tax code. The Internal Revenue Code is around 7000 pages, and the Federal Tax Regulations are another ~70000 pages. But a lot of that is because of the breadth of the US economy, and another contributor to the size is that the government uses per industry tax incentives and penalties as a way to encourage or discourage things that they want to influence. The net result is the tax code and regulations are full of things that 99% of taxpayers (individual and business) can completely ignore.
The salary requirement for job postings has been AWESOME. Saves so much time and you can see if your company is paying market rates, realize if you are underpaid etc. Definitely made my life better. Other states are following suit! Employers hate it, haha. California, Colorado, NY, Illinois, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Hawaii all have this law now.
Another common-sense law I want is a holiday for elections so that more people can vote.
...
> Under the state’s bill, “sell by” dates can still be included on products as long as they are “coded” — information that is aimed at retailers rather than consumers.
This is about obfuscating "sell by" dates so customers don't get confused. They might not necessarily add another date you can read easily. But maybe someone can write an app to read the codes?
All it does is standardize "sell by" labels to be more transparent. The extent of the ban is the explicit phrasing "Sell By" which is itself confusing since the manufacturer has some estimated consumption interval that is tacked onto their actual expiration date. Sell By gives the customer has no idea how much padding they are adding to their estimate and when the thing actually goes bad.
All this law really does is it standardizes the labels manufacturers can use to "BEST if Used by" for quality concerns or "USE by" for safety concerns. A lot of manufacturers already do this, so it is a pretty minimal law There are probably more pressing issues in Sacramento, but a small improvement is always welcome.
In my own case, we have a brand of bread that does “sell by”. There is not uniform standard on how many days after the date, the bread is safe to consume. Internet wisdom gives you a wide range.
Absorbent pad adds to the price also hides the "purge".
Harder to find meat without thousand poked holes (tenderizing)
Can't tell if meat are colorized to hide browness.
Time for me to visit my local butcher for a quarter cow, butchered.
Also a bigger freezer chest too!