Many years ago (I was there) expiration dates were useful and only on products that would actually expire–mostly just milk, cheese, and meat.

Then, I think it was Budweiser came up with the “born on date” marketing campaign for beer. Since then, on anything that doesn’t actually expire, like beer, it’s been used to prompt people to throw away perfectly good food, so they’ll hopefully buy more “fresh” food.

It’s been going on for so many years, we now have at least two generations who have been duped into believing them.