pMany people who would never purchase "expired" milk at the store will nonetheless pour "expired" milk into a cup of coffee at breakfast. A new study explores the reasons consumers are more likely to consume products that are past their expiration dates if they are already in their refrigerators./p pThe phenomenon is termed the "endowment effect," meaning that owning a product increases a consumer's valuation of it. Merely owning a product past its freshness date apparently provides enough reason for people to be willing to consume it. This increase in willingness is also accompanied by lower estimates of the perceived risk of getting sick./p pIn three studies, researchers compared whether people wanted to consume yogurt smoothies that were past or not past their freshness dates. "Ownership" of the smoothie shifted the default hypothesis from "shouldn't consume" to "okay to consume."/pimg src="http://articles.mercola.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=163749" width="1" height="1"