The "best before date" represents the time when the product is past its best. It represents the quality of the item, not the safety of eating it. When past the date, it does not mean the food is harmful. It just means the product might have lost some flavour or texture or colour. Therefore, the "best before date" is just a suggestion. It is only a guideline about the quality of the product. It does not have to be adhered to. Hope this helps

I didn't order you to be quiet it was more of a suggestion. Its a softer way to tell someone to do something which leaves the action up to the person to decide. When my children were little I could command them to behave now they are adults and bigger than me I can only suggest they behave. :)

In this case, the sell-by date is an expiry date, or a date after which something cannot be sold due to the possibility of contamination. The example sentence I provided in my comment happens to work well to explain this. The person is saying that the sell-by date is not a rule to be obeyed, but is more like a suggestion about when the item is no longer good to eat.

Can you please provide the context? This seems to be the first part of a comparison. Perhaps you could use it like this: "My response to you was more of a suggestion than a rule".

Can you provide more context? By itself "more of a suggestion" doesn't have any particular meaning. Perhaps somebody said something like "That was more of a suggestion than anything"? In that case it would just mean that the person was just trying to help by providing a suggestion. But I'm just guessing with the above.