[Coda]

Originally Posted by Voidbarker

try making a list of things to get, see what you can get on sale and ask if they've got anything that's about to go out of date. (best before means that food items will lose flavour, but should be good to eat, use by means that you HAVE to use it by then else it won't be edible.)

Ah, unfortunately it's not that simple. Those dates have no official meaning beyond "past this date, the manufacturer makes no guarantee about freshness, quality, or safety," regardless of the surrounding descriptive text.

It really depends on the product. Bread products, for example, are generally safe to eat past that date; they're just starting to get stale. Dairy products can be pretty highly suspect, on the other hand. Vegetables are almost always a matter of judging based on appearance and texture, because the expiration date is very frequently far sooner than how long they can actually last, but some kinds of produce will become unappetizing much more quickly than others.