Standardizing Produce "Sell By" Dates

I know that there have been major advances in preserving produce (e.g., those lettuce bags), which is a good thing in the eyes of many consumers and a bad thing in the eyes of the food purists (i.e., the "we should eat food in its most 'natural' state" people). But, I'm tired of trying to outsmart the "sell by" dates. I usually examine all of the lettuce bags and consider the visible state of the lettuce in conjunction with the "sell by" date. I try for the optimum: "sell by" date the furthest out and no brown, discolored, or wilty looking lettuce. This whole ordeal takes about 5 minutes- at once per week, that's 260 minutes per year.

At Costco, it takes longer because the lettuce boxes are larger and so require more extensive examination. Last week, I opened a box of lettuce that I'd purchased from Costco that had met my standards ("sell by" date 5 days out and no visible brown liquid or wilting leaves) only to find in the middle of the lettuce (directly under the label, making it impossible to see this section upon examination of the sealed container in the store) brown, oozing, wilting, soppy pieces of lettuce interspersed with perfectly fine lettuce. That led to 10 minutes of sorting through to try and pick out the salvageable lettuce, whereupon I gave up in a huff. I knew that even those pieces that were saved would bear the slight scent of must resulting from having been neighbors with a rotting piece of lettuce. There went my five dollars plus a portion of the gas cost to drive over there (the cost of the gas to drive back to Costco was the only reason I didn't return the nasty lettuce).

This experience has prompted my call for standardizing "sell by" dates. You should be able to purchase produce before the "sell by" date and know that it won't be rotten or nasty. Isn't that the point of the "sell by" date. If this were happening with meat and your steak got putrid smelling and oozed green slime, I'm sure there would be an outcry. Sure, you probably won't get sick from rotting lettuce as you might from rotting meat, but the point is the same: you should be able to trust the label on the food.

People may argue that it's hard to estimate the "sell by" date for produce. Then I say: don't put a date. I would rather not have a date and know that I was taking a gamble and would need to engage in deeper visual inspection than be lulled into lax visual inspection because of a "sell by" date.