737: Yogurt

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 20:53, 18 February 2013 by Curtmack (talk | contribs) (Explanation: grammar fix)
Jump to: navigation, search
Yogurt
I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.
Title text: I am firmly of the opinion that if something doesn't have a year on it, every time the expiration date rolls around it is good again for the two weeks preceding that date.

Explanation

Most packaged food has an expiration date that indicates when the food will probably no longer be suitable for consumption. This could be due to any number of reasons; most products will rot or grow mold after their expiration date passes, but some processed foods will dry out or just generally become unpleasant long before they actually spoil. (The expiration date is sometimes called a "best by" or "use by" date for this reason.)

Some products don't list the year as part of the expiration date, on the assumption that by the time the year becomes an issue, the food will obviously be spoiled. Cueball is encountering this issue; clearly the yogurt has gone bad - it's raising "stink lines" and appears to have visible mold - but the expiration date only lists "May 12th" and it's currently May 7th, so the characters reason that it must still be good since the expiration date hasn't passed yet.

The Julian calendar is mostly the same as the Gregorian calendar (our current calendar) with two major differences:

  • The Julian calendar's leap years vastly overestimated the length of a year. The Gregorian calendar's leap years are much more accurate at tracking the seasons. (Contrary to popular belief, the Julian calendar had leap years, they were just incorrect.)
  • September 14th, 1752 immediately follows September 2nd, 1752 in the Gregorian calendar; there was no September 3rd-13th in that year.

The Gregorian calendar was adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, after scholars began noticing the drift in the solstices and equinoxes that occurred as a result of the Julian calendar's leap year tracking. By the time the British empire adopted the calendar, it was necessary to skip 11 days to reset the seasons to their correct dates, which is why the gap in September 1752 exists.

Cueball is bringing up the differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars because it might make a difference in how he calculates the age of the yogurt. In reality, if the yogurt had been packaged while civilization was using the Julian calendar, it would have long ago stopped being yogurt.

Transcript

[Cueball is holding a cup at arm's length. Waves of stink are rising from it.]
Cueball: Oh God, how old is this yogurt in your fridge?
[Someone speaks from off-panel.]
Person: What's the expiration date?
[Cueball holds up the cup to look at the bottom.]
Cueball: May 12th, but there's no year.
[From off-panel again.]
Person: It's May 7th. So it's fine.
[Now the second person is on panel, and Cueball speaks from off-panel. The second person is sitting down working on a laptop.]
Cueball: I'm not sure. When it was packaged, was civilization using the Gregorian or Julian calendar?
Person: Okay, I'll throw it out.
Cueball: No, it might still be good!


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

It would seem that there is the potential for another layer of humour here. If you take the title text principle but adjust for Julian vs Gregorian calendars it may be the difference between whether the ancient yoghurt is 'safe' to eat. This requires suspension of disbelief regarding 250 year old yoghurt possibly being edible. Unfortunately when I do the maths it appears that had the date been set under the Julian calendar there would actually be effectively 11 extra days before the purported expiry date. Please tell me if I have this wrong, as it would be funnier that way. Plm-qaz snr (talk) 14:11, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

There are channels on YouTube where people eat/taste expired food such as MREs. I've seen a guy eat a hundred year old tin of bully beef. -- The Cat Lady (talk) 14:50, 19 August 2021 (UTC)