Giving Compass' Take:

• Congress introduced a new bill to create a unified food date label system across the United States to reduce consumer confusion and stop unnecessary food waste.

• How can Americans continuously and sustainably understand their carbon footprint? 

• Here's why we need to reduce food waste by 2030. 

Bipartisan leadership has led Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Representative Dan Newhouse (R-WA) to introduce the Food Date Labeling Act (H.R. 3981) to Congress on August 1st. The new bill aims to standardize date labels across the United States to tackle the complex system of sell by, use by, and best before dates.

“Food labeling is important for consumer education, but the current practice is confusing and outdated,” says Rep. Newhouse. While many consumers use date labels as a reference of food safety, most dates only indicate the peak quality of a product. This not only leads to confusion, but to millions of tons of food unnecessarily thrown out. “This bill takes a step toward reducing food waste by helping consumers understand the meaning behind date labels,” states Rep. Newhouse.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), date labelling emerged in the mid-20th century when Americans began to move from rural to urban communities. Away from their food source and increasingly reliant on grocery stores, people lost their ability to judge the freshness of food and began to demand standards and verification.

Read the full article on the new bill to reduce food waste by Pauline Munch at Food Tank.