Many Nigerians are not in the habit of checking products’ expiry dates. For those who do, they do only for consumables (mostly food and drugs).
In fact, when it comes to cosmetics, toiletries, insecticides, disinfectants, body spray and other personal care products, the checking of the expiry dates on the product label is not taken seriously, yet the consequences of consuming or using any expired product can result in serious complications. When expired edibles are consumed, the consequential effect may not instantly manifest but it certainly does with time.
No doubt, we are what we consume! We are a reflection of what we daily feed the body with, whether internally or externally. To a large extent, a man’s health is determined by his nutrition, nourished, undernourished or malnourished. The reason is not far-fetched. The Greek physician, Hippocrates, who is regarded as the Father of Medicine, in 390 BC, established the strong nexus between food and medicine, and came up with a medical advice which has now become a general quote: “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”
It is scary to note that while concerned agencies are making efforts to thwart activities of peddlers of expired products, some re – labelled expired food and drugs would have made their ways to the markets without the agencies’ knowledge. Only the perpetrators nabbed in these nefarious acts made the news. So, the big question is: How do consumers identify and recognize re-labelled or re-validated food and drugs? Now, let’s attempt some answers to that multi-million naira poser.
Expiry dates and best-before dates are dates which are interchangeably being used by manufacturers to convey a date when a product is at its peak performance or no longer fit to consume. Technically, there is a slight difference: Expiry dates show the last day that is expected for a product to be used or consumed, while best-before date indicates that as from that date, the product’s freshness along with its quality is no longer guaranteed.
