cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/45430198
This big bottle of spicy hot ketchup from Spain says it only lasts 1 month in the fridge after opening. Is the label lying?
- If yes, then an asshole designed the label.
- If no, then the ketchup is a crappy design because a family must be large and has to eat burgers, fries, and meatloaf every day to get through 560g.
Ketchup on the US market would be loaded with sugar and preservatives. But Europe and maybe the rest of the world is more inclined to have a higher proportion of pronounceable ingredients and fewer of them.
There is sriracha ketchup in the US which is shelf stable even after opening. Hot spicy foods are often that way, so apparently there is enough sriracha in that ketchup to keep it stable without refrigeration. Yet the cayanne pepper spiked ketchup from Spain is said to struggle to hold up even when refrigerated.
And? Are you saying Spanish ketchup is not exported? That the part of the label showing a Spanish producer is a lie?
Citation needed on refrigerated ketchup being unsafe after 1 month.
Not hot ketchup.
No, I’m just saying that it’s difficult to establish that’s Spanish ketchup when there’s nothing in the label saying so.
https://www.foodtimes.eu/consumers-and-health/tmc-and-expiration-date/
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/safe2eat/food-date-labelling
TL;DR: Depending on the food, it has a “use by” and a “best before” date.
“Best before” is for food quality, while “use by” is for food safety. Several tests are made to every product to determine what’s the time window in which they are considered “always safe”.
Not a food safety expert, but I work on the food industry. Every product has a different “use by” date because each product can become dangerous after a different amount of time. If there are tests showing that under certain conditions, ketchup becomes unsafe after one month of its opening, then the “use by” is a month after opening it.
Other products have a “use by” date much shorter, others longer. But it always depends on the lab tests they do.
You can’t see that the label is cropped?
Try again. First link is restricted access. 2nd link says nothing about ketchup being unsafe after a month in the fridge.
We are talking about a “use by” date. Hence why it is either an asshole design or crappy design.
Mate, I do not know every single ketchup label/brand. I am just saying that I can’t deduce from that label the ketchup is Spanish.
Try the archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250617162550/https://www.foodtimes.eu/consumers-and-health/tmc-and-expiration-date/
As I said, “use by” means there was a lab test in which the ketchup was deemed unsafe after a month opened. “Use by” dates are conservative in their duration because they must guarantee the food is safe for that amount of time under all normal circumstances.
What’s the point? Why do you care? Hence why I said “And?”
Still nothing there about refrigerated ketchup only lasting 1 month. Citation still needed.
They can just as well say “use by” one day later with that logic. It’s still a dick move.
Just like pills that expire in 1 year which actually take 10 years to decay. They want to sell you stuff and obviously marketing works wonders on you.
I don’t care. I just pointed it out, you seem to have taken it personally.
From the article:
Again, companies run lab tests to determine this because they can be held liable for lack of food safety. You should find that ketchup company and ask them to provide the tests that marked the product is unsafe after one month opened.
What’s the point in pointing it out?
Why would you say this? Make sense. You’re wasting people’s time by pointing out random shit without having a point. It’s this time-wasting threadcrap that’s the problem.
But that gives you too much credit. You wanted to try to suggest that I don’t know French from Spanish and where the ketchup comes from. That’s why you “just pointed out” the red herring.
That’s not what happened. By your own admission, they tested at the 1 month mark and quit. Law is not the point of contention. An asshole can be simultaneously legally compliant.
You said something that can’t be proved. I pointed out how it can’t be proved. Why did you say it if we can’t verify it?
You say it’s unimportant, yet you keep fighting over it when you could just have provided proof or simply ignored the comment after the first post. Looks like you want to die on that hill for no reason.
Are you mad because I pointed out that the ketchup couldn’t be determined as Spanish because the label was in French and there wasn’t any way to establish its origin?
If you want to die on that hill, be my guest. But then, let’s go back to it: if you can’t prove the origin of the product, it could be from anywhere. Why not Candian? Why not Chinese and imported to any French speaking country? Laws are very different on each part of the world. We are assuming it’s Spanish and it’s for an European region, but what if it’s not? What if it’s African?
My “admission” AKA the laws, say that if they run tests and find it unsafe after one month, they must write one month. Not more. I don’t work for that ketchup company, I can’t tell you what tests they ran and what they found to deem the ketchup unsafe after one month. That’s something you should ask them if you want to know as you are the one accusing them of asshole design. i just pointed out the law and what it says.
You are treating me as if I had some interests on that company or something mate. I’m just pointing out what the law says. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. But I don’t have to prove you anything. If any, you should ask the company itself for more information to know why they determined that one month is the “use by” date after opened.
It can be proved. I can photograph the whole label and consume more resources if needed. But it’s not needed. There is no point. Your red herring makes no useful point.
No you didn’t. You just pointed out the facts, which were a red herring. You are only just now making the false claim that it’s unprovable.
Why did I say it came from Spain? Because it gives some trivial context into the crappy/asshole design scenario. People might be interested in where a crappy design comes from. But verifiability is unimportant. I don’t give a shit if you cannot verify that it came from Spain. If it came from France, Belgium, or Switzerland, it would not change the asshole/crappy design.
I can prove a lot of facts that make no difference to the underlying thesis. Not worth the time.
Again, pointing out meaningless facts is threadcrap. It doesn’t matter that they are legally compliant. This is not a law community. It’s a crappy design community. Legal compliance is irrelevant in the sense that you convey. They could have legally made ketchup that is labelled to hold up for 3 months, but they chose not to. They chose to do a crappy design.