When I was a kid, I'd be in the grocery store with my mom and see food labelled "grade A', "grade AA", or "grade AAA", referring to food quality. This was all I saw. One day in college when I was eating in the cafeteria, I saw a worker push a cart past with a box of food labelled "grade D: lowest fit for human consumption". I'd never heard of food that low, and was not happy they were serving us that.

Today, I bought a bottle of eggnog in the store. At the end of the ingredients was listed: "exhausted vanilla bean materials". I assume they don't even add flavor, just make the drink look like it has vanilla beans in it. Anyways, the existence of "exhausted" food surprised me, and thought I'd share.

Well, that means you are oblivious to the world around you, or you are trolling. The USDA was created in 1862 and meat and produce have been graded thusly since 1927. So...the more you know, I guess. Might need to touch grass as the kids say today. That's also not the meaning of exhausted. Exhausted beans or husks are ground residue of the extraction process when making extract.

Exhausted vanilla beans are basically the husk of the vanilla bean after the expensive and very intensely flavoured seeds (the "caviar") have been taken out. It still provides vanilla flavour and is perfectly fine to use it's just less concentrated. If you've ever made vanilla sugar by putting a dried vanilla bean in it, you've used exhausted vanilla bean material.

Eggnog made with vanilla caviar would be a some "gourmet shit" but also a lot more expensive...

Yeah, I think someone was just deciding to be more honest today, since you'd have to basically preserve vanilla in booze to keep it otherwise.

Part of the 'quality' is if it conforms to a specific size/shape for the purposes of shipping as well, and has no bearing on the product quality. But a lower quality can result in getting half as much since they don't pack well or they don't want to sell them.

Back early 2000's i visited my Girlfriend who's grandma had a apple orchard just across the street. Literally, 20 feet and you're in the orchard. Pickers would pick the ones that qualified for the highest value, and then left like 70% of the product behind, and i usually went for the absolutely huge apples....

Mmmm... were i 10 years older i'd have made a ton of apple cider or apple wine...

Though with the economy as it is. You'd be surprised what you can get if you do discounts first, and alternate food choices.

Items on discount are either too many, aren't selling, out of season, damaged (dented?), or too old. Depending on the store they can range from 10% to 50% off, or more. (25%-30% seems to be safeway's preferred discount amount).

Regardless, i've seen dozens of boxes of mashed potato flakes, and parmesan cheese for sale for like $1-$2 per box, usually off brand rather than name brand. Compared to $4+ for a name brand that isn't discounted. Best time to stock up.

As for canned and other foods; The oil seems to be what goes bad first. So potato chips or taco shells or the like will smell and taste bad LONG before most other things do. Otherwise canned goods you can safely consume i believe 2 years after the eat-by date. Actually quite a bit of food they can't sell may end up going to local food pantries.

Then there's just cheap food... Pick your poison. Ragu is fine, slightly sweet, but if you switch to Prego you'll have some issues going back to the cheaper stuff.

You can also if you have nearly no money to get (dry) Dogfood or Catfood. (I believe by law they have to be safe for human consumption; curiously in Futurama it was labeled Bachelor Chow...). It won't taste the best, but it will help you survive better than instant ramen, and get you to your next paycheck. When i worked at Fred Meyers there were 50lb bags for $20 (2003).

In the end though, if it isn't rotting and isn't damaged (where it counts) or toxic, you'll be surprised what you'd eat when the time comes.

If it comes in a box it aint parmesan.

Supposedly what we call parmesan cheese isn't really parmesan. Though i'd bet wine isn't wine if it comes out of a box too :P

Yeah, i've bought cheap wine mostly wanting the glass jug. (Gallon for like $12). Can't say i was impressed. Though soaking some meat for stirfry certainly was yummy.

Kinda funny i've bought more pickles wanting the gallon pickle jar than wanting the actual pickles.... $6 per jar.

Sounds like a weird kink tbh. ;)
Back to the parmasan. I know you can get the real deal there (presumably more expensive than here due to distance).
D.O.P. label Parmagiano Reggiano - try if if / when you can it makes all the difference (also lasts a long time if wrapped well in the fridge).

Don't tell OP about olive oil, white fish, saffron, basil powder, chili powder, tumeric powder, maple syrup, wasabi, truffles, caviar, Wagyu, and coffee in addition to the above examples with vanilla and Parmesan.

According to CNBC, 10% of all food in the US is adulterated - www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xTVMtkqv4

Apparently real wasabi is something like $105usd per gramme (or something daft like that). I know here its just regular horseradish paste with green colouring.

Edit: I think its actually $105 per 100g. Still too expensive for most people.

They are awesome storage jars... One thing i do is dry apples i get that i don't finish in time. Got jars and jars of apple chips.

Could be worse.

Watched a documentary on bread making back 200 years ago.... and the adulterated food was something like 60%. And the working conditions and making food was absolutely terrible.