Thursday, December 14, 2006

Best read before 48 hours from date of posting..

Jet Airways has just served me a welcome drink of fresh lime. The little sticker on the bottle bearing letters of font size 6, says that the content is 'best for use before two days from date of bottling". Turning the bottle upside down (and spilling some of the juice on my shirt), I find the bottling date and am relieved to note that the juice is just a day old and therefore still in its state of bestness.

The fresh juice stimulates my brain and some important questions keep popping up. How can you call fresh lime fresh when it is two days old? How does one count the two days? Does the day of bottling get counted? What happens after two days? If the juice is not 'best' then, at least, it must be 'very good' or 'good"? After how many days, will the juice degenerate to a state of being unfit for human consumption? Why can't these juice bottlers be more specific and define a clear cut-off date? Are they talking about the shelf life which is a measure of the quality or the expiry date which is an indicator of the safety?

The medicine manufacturers are more specific. They have a clear date of expiry mentioned on the tablet strip or the bottle, though the nagging doubt remains whether the date of expiry pertains to the date the medicine would lose its therapeutic efficacy or the date on which the patient consuming the medicine would expire.

The carton of Tropicana in my refrigerator carries the instructions that immediately after opening it must be refrigerated and the fruit juice consumed within 5 days. It adds that the consumer must shake it well before use and must throw away the carton if found puffed. Pretty grim, it sounds to me. Caveat Emptor and all that. It makes you feel like Socrates gulping down hemlock.

4 comments:

Usha said...

absolutely! all these warnings make me rest in Unpeace all the time!

Raj said...

Usha, you managed to read the post within the 48 hour deadline. Good.

Anonymous said...

hey,

I've read the post, post the 48-hour expiry period you had warned the readers from.

Hmm the post still makes a good and fresh read :). I think you took after those juice manuacturers .. not giving a clear cut-off date ;)

Good post.

--Chitra

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