"Waste not, want not" must not be a popular expression in England. Reuters reports, "British households throw about a fifth of their food, untouched and uneaten, straight into the rubbish bin."In addition, the Britons no longer prepare meals from leftovers and "they over-cautiously chuck food, which may be perfectly edible, as soon as it passes its sell-by date." As a result, each man, woman and child throws out food worth $793 a year. They obviously weren’t raised with memories of America’s Great Depression hanging over their heads. The attitudes of British food tossers show up occasionally at our doorsteps in the form of the Expiration Date Police, or as we affectionately refer to them, the EDP. The EDP is made up of well-meaning friends and relatives, often grown children, who routinely check our refrigerators and kitchen shelves for violations of food expiration dates. Judging by their actions, their sole mission in life is to save us from ourselves. Sell-by dates, food expiration dates and best when used by dates are all the same to the EDP. They’re just different ways of saying the same thing. Younger generations may not believe this, but food expiration dates are fairly new. Until they came out, people were expected to use their own common sense and the choice of whether or not to die of bad food was always left up to the individual. The rule of thumb seemed to be, "If it smells bad, throw it out." If we threw it out, we inevitably experienced pangs of post-Depression guilt. Members of the EDP say things such as, "This blue cheese dressing expired three days ago! What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" They never knew my mother, who would keep opened jars of mayonnaise in the kitchen cupboard and would scrape off the surface mold on jars of her homemade jams and jellies, before serving them. If we would protest, her usual response was, "How do you think penicillin was discovered?" As usual, her logic was flawless. Being raised by people who had gone through the Great Depression with very little to eat was an adventure in itself. It was an indelible experience that would follow us the rest of our lives. As long as there are starving children in Asia, we continue to eat for them and the general good of mankind. Parental advice in those days consisted of four words, "Eat it or starve." If we refused to eat, no kind-hearted parent would try to appease us with a more palatable food choice. The only exceptions to the eat-everything rule were chunky milk and fuzzy leftovers, which had evolved over the years into more intelligent life forms and were able to communicate. All kids of that time knew that being a member of the Clean Plate Club was on the same level of saintliness as having perfect Sunday school attendance or an impressive report card. Perhaps there’s a good reason for those of us wiser and older to avoid both food expiration dates and having younger friends and relatives making throwaway decisions for us. This is especially true if the throwers are knowledgeable about current life expectancies. "Sis, I was just thinking. With her lifestyle, Mom was only expected to live until 80 and she’s 98 now.""Bob, are you thinking what I’m thinking?"As we overhear their conversations, we might as well be sitting there with expiration dates stamped on our foreheads.