yeah, I thought so too. I threw out every salad dressing she had when I found them. They were just kinda ignored for many years on the bottom shelf, no one ever ate them, well if they did they probably would have died, so I guess we would have known.

i've noticed a gradual shift over the years to 'best-before dates' instead of expiry dates.

maybe people didn't like the finality associated with an expiry date?

something else i've noticed is that back in the day (10 years ago) milk used to have really rapid expiry dates (maybe 5-7 days from when you bought it) but now it's like two or three _weeks_ from the store to the bin.

is this real or imagined?

yeah milk seems to have about 2 weeks from the day you buy it, bread/bagels and the like seem to only have 4-5 days though, which sucks because there are 5 bagels in a pack and its usually reached or passed the date before I even eat one bag. Oh well, I usually keep those a week past the date anyways.