On the Valentine candy.. Umm even if you buy it now or by Valentine's Day, the candy will still be 2 months old. I doubt any of the holiday candy is what we all might consider to be "fresh".

I recently learned that the "fresh" orange juice we buy at the grocery store is not really fresh...

That refreshing glass of sunshine made from juice concentrate has more than just its flavor and bright color going for it: it’s potentially a year old, too. Last year, Canadian author Allissa Hamilton revealed one of the lesser known secrets of the orange juice biz when she published Squeezed: What You Don’t Know about Orange Juice.

“In the process of pasteurizing, [orange] juice is heated and stripped of oxygen, a process called deaeration, so it doesn't oxidize,” Hamilton told Boston.com last year. “Then it's put in huge storage tanks where it can be kept for upwards of a year.”

What’s being stored doesn’t really taste like orange juice anymore, Hamilton explained, so when it’s time to drain the tank and package the juice, flavor specialists are hired to reconstruct the flavor using “flavor packs” derived from orange essence and oils.

“Flavor companies break down the essence and oils into individual chemicals and recombine them,” she added. Feeling smug because you never buy your juice in concentrate form? The fluid stuff isn’t much better, as it happens.
http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-r...uying-old-food