The mission of ok2eat is reducing food waste. We've been thinking about what that actually means in practice — what are the small, concrete things that move the needle, versus the big abstract ones that don't.

One thing kept coming back: a lot of food gets thrown out simply because people don't know how long it's supposed to last. The "best by" date is unclear, the package is half-empty, it's been sitting there for a while — when in doubt, into the trash. So one of the simplest things we can do for the mission is make it easier to find real expiration dates for the things you actually buy at the grocery store.

That's what this update is about.

What changed in the app

Until now, ok2eat used a flat per-category default for shelf life. Anything tagged "Produce" got 5 days. Anything tagged "Dairy" got 14. That worked roughly, but it meant a butternut squash and a bag of spinach got the same countdown — even though one lasts a week and the other lasts months.

ok2eat now pulls expiration estimates from the USDA FoodKeeper database, a public dataset maintained by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. It covers 660 individual foods, with separate ranges for the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry — plus open-vs-unopened where it matters.

A few examples of what changed in practice:

  • Whole milk — was 14 days, now 7 days unopened in the fridge.
  • Hard cheese (cheddar, parmesan) — was 14 days, now around 6 months unopened. We were causing real waste anxiety on items that genuinely keep for a long time.
  • Whole carrots — was 5 days, now 3-4 weeks in the crisper drawer.
  • Winter squash — was 5 days, now 1-3 months on the counter.
  • Eggs in the shell — 3-5 weeks in the fridge, often past the printed "best by" date.

Existing users got these better estimates with no app update on their part — the next time you add an item, it'll use the FoodKeeper number. You can still override every value the same way you always could.

A free public directory at ok2eat.com/shelf-life

Since we had the data anyway, we put it on the website too. ok2eat.com/shelf-life is a free, public, searchable directory of all 660 items. No signup, no app required, no popups. Type "ricotta" or "winter squash" or "hard cheese" and get the storage range from USDA, source-cited, in one page.

If you've ever Googled "how long does X last" and bounced through a few SEO farms before finding an answer — this is the page you wanted. Bookmark it next to your fridge tracker of choice.

A note on the data

The numbers are estimates, not guarantees. USDA's ranges assume typical storage conditions and properly handled food — your actual fridge temperature, how cold the grocery store kept it, how long it sat in the car all affect real shelf life and aren't inputs to a static table. The ranges are a starting point, not a verdict.

Always trust your senses over a timer. If something looks, smells, or feels off, throw it out regardless of what the app or directory says. If something looks fine past the displayed expiry, use your judgment. ok2eat is a memory aid, not a food safety inspector. The USDA's own guidance, which we agree with: "When in doubt, throw it out."

Why this is the right move for the mission

The fastest way to throw out less food is to know what you actually have and how long it's actually good for. The first part is what ok2eat does in the app. The second part — knowing how long things last — turns out to be a problem we could solve for everyone, not just our users, by putting good public data where people can find it.

We'd rather make the answer easy to find than gate it. If the directory helps someone rescue a bag of carrots that would have gone in the trash, that's the mission working — whether or not they ever install ok2eat.

If you want the app to handle this automatically, ok2eat is free on iOS and there's a web version. If you just want the answers, the directory is here.

Storage times shown in ok2eat and on the directory pages are sourced from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service FoodKeeper database, a publicly available US government dataset. ok2eat does not produce food-safety guidance; we are republishing this information. Estimates assume typical storage conditions and properly handled food. When in doubt, throw it out.