Like most thrifty people, it pains me to throw away food. Seriously. I’m not above taking garnish home in a doggy bag.

If you want to save money on groceries, avoid food waste. You can avoid a large amount of food waste by questioning expiration dates. I’ve written about the folly of printed expiration dates in greater detail here.

Basically, most of them are pretty inaccurate. And, according to a Harvard study, this causes hundreds of billions of pounds of food waste annually. So how do you find more accurate expiration dates?

That’s where a little website called Eat By Date comes in.

“We are a group of contributors from the kitchen and classroom communities who set out to answer the question, ‘How long does food really last?’. From the best ingredients to the ordinary, we provide you with a diverse and informative perspective on food shelf life, food safety, expiration dates, recipes, substitutions, food storage and more. We are focused on helping you save money, eat healthy, and debunk the myth of expiration dates on food.”

Here’s how it works. You enter in your food item or browse their menu, and a whole page on that food item populates. This page tells you:

• How long the food item lasts
• How to tell if it’s spoiled
• How to extend its shelf life
• What to do when you have too much of the food item.

And their sources for all of this info come from really respectable and smartypants places, like the FDA and USDA. I mean, the FDA isn’t perfect. But Eat By Date isn’t  getting their info from Grandma, is what I’m saying.

Definitely bookmark this site if you want to save money on groceries.

Disclaimer, because the Internet can be crazy: I’m not suggesting you eat spoiled food. I’m suggesting you question whether you’re consistently tossing out perfectly good food.

Photo by Alex “Skud” Bayley.