'Harvested on' dates: yea or nay?

[treesawa]

Hey all,

Have you ever heard of a 'harvested on' date? The idea is that your fresh foods would be stamped/packed with a 'harvested on' date so that by the time it reaches you, you know how long it's been in transit/storage. With 'best by' and 'use by' dates, you can never really be sure how long some stuff has sat around, and let's face it, we've all seen tattered looking fruit/veg at the supermarkets and we've probably all had that one pint of milk that goes off even though it's still supposed to be in date.

How important do you think it is to know when your food was actually harvested? Isn't that a better measurement of how fresh something really is?

What do you guys think?

It is a better measure, but it depends on what fruit/veg it is as to whether it is important or not. At the two extremes peas more than a couple of days old aren't worth eating, but Butternut squash can hang around for months.

There are obviously lots of variations better these two. Cabbage is much better eaten the day it is picked, but is perfectly edible after a week or two.

Are people really going to know the ideal timings for each produce?