Undergraduate / 'uneducated and uninformed Americans' - topic of choice, college. Expiration Dates? [4]

Any opinions on this subject and the essay content appreciated. It would be for a topic of your choice essay for a college application.

Every bag of Frito-Lays chips expires on a Tuesday. Of course, when I say "expire" I don't mean that the bag of deep-fried, sliced potatoes ceases to exist, or runs out of fuel; rather that the bag of chips is no longer at its best quality, and may contain bacteria. However, if you were to be craving a bag of Lays, on any given Tuesday, and you realize the bag you are about to engorge is expired, would you still eat it? Would you put aside the common conception that you are about to eat disease causing bacteria and fulfill your stomach's desire?

Since I was a child, I had always had the strangest phobia of expiration dates. If there was a date on the package, I'd notice, and even if it still had a few days left in its prime condition, I would toss it down the disposal. This is because I had been manipulated into thinking that the looming date was paired with sickness and possible death. Apparently, I am not the only one that had this phobia, as 14% of the food Americans throw away is due to "expired" product. The conglomerates have us all convinced that a bag of chips, or a can of soda one day "old" is going to physically harm us. I find myself wondering that if this were truthful, then how did people fifty years ago, when this knowledge was unknown, not get massive outbreaks of food borne illnesses. We must take into account people like my 96 year old Bubbie. She is perfectly healthy, and even admits to consuming foods that are "old". As she would say, "If it's not growing fur, and it's not green, then it's safe to eat."

Nowadays, food isn't the only thing with expiration dates. Shampoo, toothpaste, and a multitude of other seemingly non-perishable items are printed with "use by" dates. When this was brought to my attention I was hit with a sense of bewilderment and disgust. Bewildered at the thought of my shampoo being too old to wash my hair, and disgusted with the idea of companies actually putting expiration dates on obviously non perishable things. The only motive I can see for this is money. By putting these dates on items, consumers are forced to throw away the product after its "expiration" and buy more, resulting in more money for the big corporations.

As uneducated and uninformed Americans, most of us abide by these dates and proceed to throw away the "old" items. However, it seems pretty obvious to me that most of these dates are made for months or even years before the product really does become unusable, resulting in the forfeiting of perfectly good food. This food could've been used to feed one of the 50 million starving humans worldwide, who certainly would not care about the "use by" date. The FDA, the conglomerates, and we consumers all need to change the way we use these dates, before we too expire.