Calif. eliminates consumer ‘sell by’ food labels 58%
By OAN Staff Lillian Mann0%
7/1/2026, 6:15:57 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 16 faulty reasoning types, including Post Hoc (False Cause), Negativity Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 44% saturation with 184 hits. Analysis detected 1,097 faulty-reasoning hits from 418 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 54.9% and a BS Rank of 58% (9,186 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 58.00% of the article peer group.
To cut down on food waste and prevent unnecessary confusion for shoppers, California is drastically changing how grocery items are labeled under a new consumer protection law.
By banning misleading “sell-by” labels, California’s Assembly Bill 660 aims to stop billions of pounds of unspoiled food from needlessly ending up in landfills.
The legislation replaces inconsistent wording on packaging with standard, consumer-friendly labels.
Manufacturers selling in California are now required to use standardized labels: “Best if Used By” to indicate peak quality, and “Use By” to signify product safety.
Officials note that “sell by” labels often seen on food packaging are intended for retail inventory management.
However, such labels are often misinterpreted as a consumption safety label.
The new legislation introduces uniform terminology to clearly distinguish food freshness from health risks, addressing a major driver of food waste in California where consumers frequently mistake “best if used by” dates for safety warnings.
The measure emphasizes that while an item past this date may have passed its peak flavor profile, it remains entirely safe to consume and should not be needlessly discarded
Nick Lapis, director of advocacy at Californians Against Waste, which co-sponsored the bill, said food labels are the number one cause of household food waste.
He also added that the “sell by” date labels have been an ongoing issue at food banks in California since people think the dates mean the food has expired.
“We don’t need to build some kind of huge infrastructure and invest tons of money to solve this.
We just need companies to use the same words across brands,” he pressed.
There are over 50 different date labels on packaged food sold in stores, according to a 2022 report on food waste by the University of Maryland.
The information in the labels are largely unregulated and often do not relate to food safety.
“Consumers get confused and they just default to assuming that whatever date is on the package means ‘don’t eat it and throw it away,'” said Kumar Chandran, policy director at ReFED, a nonprofit centered on reducing food waste.
With no federal regulations dictating what information labels should include, the stamps have reportedly led to consumer confusion and nearly 20% of the nation’s food waste, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In California, that’s about 6 million tons of unexpired food that’s tossed in the trash every year.
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2speakers29%attributed speech295writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageKumar Chandran
38 attributed words31% of attributed speech89% writer coverage
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