The European Commission is to change the rules on expiration dates on food labels to avoid food waste.

According to Corriere Della Sera and Fanpage, the European Commission submitted a new proposal on food labeling yesterday.

Because most consumers do not fully understand the difference between "use-by" as an indicator of safety and "best-before" as an indicator of quality, the proposal says. It is therefore proposed that food labels should include "usually edible" along with "best before".

Consumers often throw out expired food, but many foods are actually edible days or even months after their expiration date. The Commission said the new labelling rules would help consumers understand the quality characteristics of food products to avoid food waste.

In fact, "best before" labels are often used for non-perishable foods such as pasta, potato chips, cans, and so on. But meat, fresh dairy products, fresh fruit juice and other foods are easy to breed bacteria after expiration, so they should not be eaten.