Food you can still eat past their best-before date

According to Cosmopolitan, America throws away 7.2-million tonnes of food a year, and nearly all of it could have been eaten.

"The guidance of best before is only really to ensure that it's eaten when it's at its tastiest, for example – your apples might go a bit spongy if they're past their best before date but they're fine to eat afterwards," Kirsty Warren of Love Food Hate Waste told the publication. She added, however, that the most important date on the packaging is the use-by date, because it refers to actual food safety.

Here are some of the foods that can still be eaten even after the best-before date has expired, according to Cosmopolitan: tinned food, chocolate, bread, biscuits, crisps, fruit and vegetables, dry pasta, hard cheese, honey and jam, eggs and, of course, alcohol.

Also read: Six foods that are likely to give you food poisoning

But if you are wondering how you can tell if the food has really expired, look out for the following signs: bad smell, mold, change in texture, slimy film coating the food, and discoloration.