--- title: Five Best: A Smart Label Will Say When Your Food is Spoiled description: A smart label will tell you when your food is spoiled, we need better algorithms not censorship to protect democracy and more. canonical: https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-22T16:00:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:33.604Z article:section: Ideas og:title: This Smart Label Will Tell You When Your Food is Spoiled og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Smart Label Will Tell You When Your Food is Spoiled twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Smart Label Will Tell You When Your Food is Spoiled by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 22, 2017 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 22, 2017 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Some day, this smart label will tell you when your food is spoiled.**](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2017/august/smart-label-could-one-day-let-you-know-when-to-toss-food-and-cosmetics-video.html) By the _American Chemical Society_ **2\.** [**To protect democracies from fake news, we need better algorithms, not censorship.**](https://www.cfr.org/blog/protecting-democracy-online-disinformation-requires-better-algorithms-not-censorship) By Eileen Donahoe at the _Council on Foreign Relations_ **3\.** [**Does the world need polymaths?**](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40865986) By David Edmonds at the _BBC_ **4\.** [**American voters are politically flexible. Why aren’t our parties?**](http://theweek.com/articles/719213/american-voters-are-politically-flexible-why-arent-parties) By Matthew Walter in the _Week_ **5\.** [**Whatever side you’re on, doxing — revealing someone’s identity online — is a dangerous game.**](https://www.wired.com/story/doxing-charlottesville/) By Emma Grey Ellis in _Wired_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/"},"headline":"This Smart Label Will Tell You When Your Food is Spoiled","datePublished":"2017-08-22T16:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:33.604Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Innovation","Food","democracy"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4910567/this-smart-label-will-tell-you-when-your-food-is-spoiled/","name":"This Smart Label Will Tell You When Your Food is Spoiled"}}]}] ```