Shelf life can be defined in several ways, and may be much confused by the different labels that are attached to foods such as “use by,” “best by” or “best if used by.” Generally, shelf life refers to the time a prepared food item will remain fresh, remain healthy to eat, and keep its freshest taste. Eating foods with expired shelf lives is definitely not recommended, because shelf life could be treated as an indication that food will go bad after a certain time.

Confusion about shelf life can be attributed to the recent label on many foods in grocery stores that recommend a food is “best by” a certain date. This means the store or the manufacturer guarantees the food should still taste its freshest if the food is consumed before the best by date. This does not always mean that the food is bad after this date. In fact, manufacturers tend to want to undershoot the mark of safe food expiration dates so that people don’t get food that is stale or just simply doesn’t taste fresh.

Different packaging comes out different shelf life. For example, the shelf life of vacuum food bag is longer than common food packaging. While canned food could be stored with a longer shelf life than vacuum food bag.