How drinking sour milk didn't teach me anything

One night decades ago–when Mrs. Brad and I were still dating–we ate dinner at my parents' house.

I had my own apartment, but it was important to visit my parents so they could get to know my girlfriend. Mrs. Brad and I were getting serious.

My parents weren't warm and fuzzy. I was used to it, but Mrs. Brad (who was still a couple of years from officially becoming Mrs. Brad) was understandably nervous around them.

We sat down to eat dinner and I poured a big glass of milk (then, like now, I drank milk at most meals. It does a body good ®). Mrs. Brad similarly had a glass of milk. My parents probably had wine. We were eating roast or casserole or whatever people my my parents' age ate in the early 1980s.

Mrs. Brad took a sip of milk. Unbeknownst to me, she realized it was sour.

Meanwhile, I was telling some long-winded story and didn't see her react. I ate some food. Then I took a big drink of milk, chugging it down. It took a second to realize what was happening.

The milk curdled in my mouth. It was awful. It was sour. It was disgusting. I still swallowed it.

I lunged for the carton and read the label. The milk was two or three weeks past the expiration date. Making a face, I announced it to the table.

"This milk is way past the expiration date!"

"I thought it tasted off," Mrs. Brad said.

She hadn't said anything, although it was really my parents' fault for keeping milk weeks past the expiration date.

Disgusting. Decades later, I still remember the horror.

You'd think an experience like that would make me vigilant about expiration dates. You'd think I'd throw out food as soon as it passed its due date. You'd think I'd be nervous about eating old food.

You'd be wrong.

I thought about the Mrs. Brad Sour Milk Incident (which is what historians call it) recently while reading an article about food expiration dates. The article highlighted the confusion Americans have about food expiration date labels and why the confusion happens: There's little rhyme or reason to labeling. The rules are kind of made up and our reaction is to be overly careful.

According to an eight-year-old study, Americans throw out between $1,365 and $2,275 worth of food every year. A decent percentage of it is still good, but the fact that food manufacturers have varied standards to determine the date (switching between "use by" and "best by" dates as one example) means that we're not clear when to keep it and when to throw it away.

The article explained why proposed solutions don't work. It reminded us that our leaders tend to favor deregulation. As consumers, we buy more than we need and want new things to replace it.

Here's all I know: You'd think that a bad experience would change a person's perspective on it, but I survived the Mrs. Brad Sour Milk Incident. Decades later, I'll take a chance on milk that's past it's sell-by date. I'll eat fruit that's been in the fridge for a month. I'll take my chances.

The point: We don't always learn the lessons we should, even though I'll never forget the night at my parents house when I chugged down a glass of sour milk.

However, I don't trust expiration dates. Actually, I don't care about them. In a variation of the old saying, there's no use crying over sour milk.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.