When it comes to grocery stores, there’s an industry-wide problem that you may not know about. Yes, the food may look good, but the facts will gross you out. You know that half of a pie or cake you see in the bakery department? It may surprise you to learn that grocery store staff are instructed to take pies and cakes that are past their sell-by date, cut them in half, slap a new label — with a new (fake) sell-by date on them — and put them back out for sale. Fruit tarts and cakes that are decorated with fruit tend to mold when they reach their sell-by date. Not to worry, bakery workers simply remove the molded fruit, slap a new sell-by date on the product, and back out on the rack it goes. It’s not just bakery items that are scamming you. An even more disgusting practice is what happens in the meat department. Meat that has turned brown simply gets dipped in blood, which falsely makes it look fresher, re-wrapped, labeled with a new sell-by date, and onto your grill it goes. Now what you’re about to hear is really bad. When it comes to ground beef, that same brown meat is dipped in blood, put into the meat grinder with some fresher (red) meat and voila! Now you’ve got an old package of ground beef that looks like it was put in the meat counter yesterday. So how do you know that the food you're buying is fresh? Experts recommend buying meat from the back of the shelf and avoiding pre-marinated or cut foods. They also suggest buying whole cakes, pies and tarts.
