You know “sell-by” dates? Also known as “use-by” dates, or the more euphemistic “enjoy-by” dates. Whatever you call them, it turns out most of them are marketing malarkey with a slim relationship to ensuring that food is actually fresh and safe to eat. A state-by-state brief prepared by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic reveals that sell-by dates are not government required or regulated but have become enshrined in our food and consuming culture that has forgotten how to buy smart, cook efficiently, and sniff out foodstuffs gone bad. Food waste and food rescue, are the new hot topics in the food conversation. And they should be. It’s becoming a moral dilemma. The magnitude of food left on the table is remarkable, especially in a world with so much food insecurity. Worldwide we lose almost 40 percent of the food we grow and process. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, 20 percent of all fish caught worldwide is thrown out before the boat even gets to the dock. Some of the problems are structural. Delays caused by labor, transportation and other factors keep food from getting to the consumer before it spoils.

A major step forward is to ignore the sell-by dates. Forget the date on the label. Use your nose and eyes as a guide instead.

But according to journalist Jonathan Bloom, author of “American Wasteland,” who spoke at a recent public forum presented by the Food Law and Policy Clinic, approximately 25 percent of all food waste occurs at the household level. The average American family of four throws away an estimated $2,000 worth of food each year. As a country, that means we waste about $100 billion of food annually. Jose Alvarez, a former president of Stop & Shop, was also a panelist at Harvard’s event. He says that as a nation we produce twice the number of calories we need to consume, and that has created a “culture of cheap abundance,” which has in turn “encouraged food waste.” Many drivers are beyond our individual control. But Alvarez suggests solutions to reduce food waste at the household level: buying smaller quantities, cooking more, becoming smarter about using our freezers to extend food life, and actually eating our leftovers. A major step forward is to ignore the sell-by dates. Forget the date on the label. Use your nose and eyes as a guide instead. Take a sip of the milk; turn limp vegetables into soup or stew. Sell-by dates began as a method of inventory control for store managers, a way to stock grocery aisles more efficiently. But the dates have now morphed into a marketing tool with a harmful ripple effect. They cause producers to churn out more inventory, stores to waste more food, and motivate the rest of us to throw perfectly good food down the disposal. None of this improves food safety or public health. Food borne illnesses rarely come from old food. Listeria, salmonella and other nasty things are not the result of an extended sojourn in our refrigerators. Doug Rauch, a former CEO of Trader Joe’s, has been working on a wholesale to retail solution for food waste. He is creating an outlet for rescuing imperfect and/or outdated food from supermarkets and producers. “TJ Maxx lives on overstocks!” Rauch says. “Grocery stores are designed so that there is overstock every day and there is no outlet store system. We have to be able to do something about that.”

If we can reduce our own household waste, maybe we can reverse the ripple effect and scale back the mountain of perfectly good food that we throw away.