Reading a food label properly.

Three dates that mean three different things

A best before date is the manufacturer's estimate of how long the product stays at its best — crisp biscuits stay crisp, masala still smells of something, tinned tomatoes keep their colour. It is a quality promise, not a safety cliff. Dry, shelf-stable goods like rice, sugar, salt and sealed spices are frequently perfectly usable after it, and your senses are a better judge than the print.

A use by or expiry date is a different kind of statement. It is used on things that can become unsafe rather than merely dull: fresh dairy, fresh meat, chilled ready foods. Past that date the pack should be discarded, and it should not be extended by the fact that the food looks and smells fine, because the changes involved are not always ones you can see.

Then there is the manufacture or packing date, which tells you how long the pack has already been sitting. This is the one most shoppers ignore and the one that matters most for anything aromatic. Two packets of ground masala can carry the same best before date while one was packed months earlier, and the older one will smell of noticeably less the day you open it.

• Best before — quality. Often fine afterwards, and worth judging by smell and look.
• Use by / expiry — safety. Do not eat past it, however good it looks.
• Manufactured / packed on — how long it has already aged. Prefer the newer pack for anything aromatic.
• Best before end (BBE) with only a month and year means the end of that month.

Why ingredient order is the most honest line on the pack

Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight at the time of manufacture. That single convention turns the list into a rough recipe. If a fruit drink lists water and sugar before the fruit, then water and sugar are most of what is in the bottle, regardless of the mangoes on the front. If a biscuit lists refined flour first, it is a flour biscuit, whatever the flavour name says.

The trick worth knowing is ingredient splitting. Sugar has many names — sucrose, glucose syrup, fructose, invert syrup, dextrose, corn syrup solids, concentrated fruit juice — and a product that uses three of them lists each separately, so each individually sits lower down the order than one combined entry would. Read the whole list, not the first two lines, and mentally group the sweeteners together.

Compound ingredients get their own sub-list in brackets. Something listed as masala mix (salt, red chilli, dried garlic) is telling you what is inside that component, and the same descending-weight rule applies inside the brackets. Where a front-of-pack claim highlights an ingredient, the list is where you find out how far down it actually sits.

What else on the pack is worth reading

Net weight is the contents alone, not the jar. For anything packed in liquid — tinned fruit, olives, chickpeas — look for the drained weight as well, because that is what you actually cook with, and two tins with the same net weight can hold quite different amounts of solid.

The batch or lot code is not for you day to day, but it is the reason a recall can be specific rather than blanket. If a product is ever withdrawn, it is withdrawn by batch, so the code on your pack is what tells you whether yours is affected. It is worth photographing on anything you buy in quantity.

Storage and after-opening instructions are the lines that quietly override the date. Refrigerate after opening and use within four days means exactly that, and the printed best before on the lid no longer applies once the seal is broken. Most food that goes wrong at home goes wrong here, not at the shelf.

• Net weight, and drained weight for anything in brine or syrup.
• Batch or lot code — the unit a recall is issued against.
• Storage instructions, and the separate after-opening window.
• Allergen information, usually bolded within the ingredient list or set out beneath it.
• Country of origin and the name and address of the manufacturer or importer.

What do the rules require in Pakistan?

Food safety and labelling in Pakistan are handled at provincial level rather than by a single national rulebook, so exactly what must appear on a pack, and in which language, can differ between provinces and changes over time. Treat the pack in your hand as the source of truth rather than any general summary, including this one, and if a label is missing basic information such as a date, a weight or a manufacturer's address, that absence is itself the signal.

Imported packs add a second complication: date formats. Much of the world writes day-month-year, the United States writes month-day-year, and a printed 03/04 can therefore mean two different things four weeks apart. Where an importer has applied a local sticker, it usually resolves this — but check that the sticker has not been placed over the original date rather than beside it.

One more habit worth building: look at the physical condition of the pack, not just the print. A dented seam on a tin, a jar whose safety button has already popped, a swollen or leaking pouch, or a packet of dry goods that has gone soft and clumpy have all told you something the date cannot.

A thirty-second check at the shelf

You do not need to read a label like a document. Four glances, in this order, get almost all of the value, and they take less time than deciding between two brands.

• Find the date, and work out which kind it is — quality or safety.
• Read the first three ingredients, then scan the rest for repeated sweeteners.
• Check net weight against the pack you usually buy; pack sizes change quietly.
• Look at the seal, the seam and the powder. Condition beats print every time.