Expiration dates and you

[Backroads]

(My title refers to the expiration dates of food and other perishable products, though anyone who wants to hijack the thread for one's personal expiration date...)

So, how do you relate to expiration dates? Rigid follower? Consider them to be guidelines? Couldn't care less?

[Bini]

I came from a family where my parents did the "sight and sniff" test on various foods in the fridge. If it wasn't growing mould and didn't smell funky, it was kept.

I'm a real freak about this stuff. I will toss stuff before it's expiration date if it's been opened but not used in several days. I just don't like the idea of it sitting there and stirring.. Probably and likely nothing wrong with any of it but that's just me. That said, I think DH and I are pretty good about using up the food we purchase and aren't wasteful as a whole.

[skippy740]

Drugs? Toss them. Food? Most expiration dates say "Sell by", not necessarily "use by". So I just check on it and see if it's worth keeping and using very soon, or let it go. Condiments... typically last for quite a while.

[Palerider]

With only my wife and I at home we run into this all the time. We need to pay attention to the dates. We know what happens to jelly. You could use it as a weapon. Lol

[Quin]

I'm the polar opposite of Skippy.

I keep drugs forever (part of our chores as kids was to look up the tables for the pharmacy, and to work in the lab over the summer... Medical family. Every time I have to pay $750 for a urinalysis I spin in my own grave).

But I toss food.

Often looooong before the expiration date.

3 days from opening, if I've kept it at temperature, is my maximum. More than 3 days old goes to the dog or the compost. I also sniff test everything, from the moment I open it. Sometimes refrigeration fails in transport or storage and food goes bad on the truck, or the warehouse, or store.

Q

[pam]

For me it depends on what the item is. Most items are still good for a period after the use by date.

Medications I don't use after the expiration date. One of my former Bishops was a pharmacist. He gave a lesson at Relief Society once as part of a preparedness night. He talked about how some medications can become very toxic and can actually be deadly after a certain time. So to be safe rather than sorry...I just don't use medications after the expiration date.

[Iggy]

I use it as a guide. In cleaning out my cupboards just last year, had 12 cans of pink salmon. At $3.49 a can, no way did I want to toss if it wasn't necessary. Well no where on the can did it actually state: Use By or Sell By with a recognizable date code.

Went online to the manufacturer and put in the code that was on the can. Turns out that it is the Canned/Processed date. Now, according to their web site, and the web site for all of the other manufacturers of seafood - their food is at it best flavor up to 5 years after the canned/processed date. At the 11 year mark, as long as the can is not bulging, rusted or makes a *pssst* sound when you cut into the lid with the can opener - it is edible and may only have lost no more than 50% of its flavor.

In my experience mayo is dicy. Sometimes when you open it, and it is separated from the jar at the top that is a good sign it is bad. Smell it, and take a tiny taste. I had three new jars that I opened on 2 Feb 2014, with dates of Nov 2013 that were bad. One I opened near the last week of Dec 2013 that was good when I opened it. Used half of it, and it turned. The last Nov 2013 jar of mayo was good. There are two more in my cupboard with Sept 2014 dates.

I have cheese sauces: Alfredo, 4 Cheese, Garlic Cheese - Bertolli, Ragu, Newman's Own, and can't remember the other brand. I put them in the cupboard with the newest date at the back, and if there is no loud *pssst* when I open the jar, and the button isn't popped, and the product has not separated it is good. The oldest date is 2010. I will start buying more when I am down to 3 jars. Right now I have 12.

Canned foods best/use by are the manufacturers way of saying that the foods will still be at their optimal best. They discovered that when they put Best By and/or Use By - the consumer would toss the product AFTER that date whether it was spoiled or not. When they used the Sell By for the stores to use to judge when to pull products the consumer used the product years after that date. Conclusion ~ they sold way more product with the Best/Use verbiage.

Also, most people have their refrigerators and freezers set too high. My small upright freezer is set to keep ice cream frozen hard. My refrigerator is set at 40 degrees. I have a refrigerator thermostat that hangs from the shelf. Since I regulated the temp - left over foods last longer than two days. Also, leftovers of stew, spaghetti, soups and creamy pastas go into single serving containers, get frozen then popped out into vacuum seal bags and put back into the freezer. Husband and I can only handle leftovers of those foods for one time, and I seriously can't make less than 24 servings of them!!!

I also don't buy milk unless it is organic. Cannot think of the brand, but Fred Meyer sells it, and it comes in a green and white box. I dig to the back of the shelf and get the newest product. Bought two half gallon boxes back in the middle of January with a Use By date of March 29, 2014. One I opened and used from already - last night I poured a wee bit into a 4 oz. glass and it is still good. Trop 50 OJ with OUT calcium will last nearly two months in the fridge without opening and one month after opening. With milk I NEVER smell it from the container. Pour some into a clear glass, under good light. Look for discolored swirls, flecks of solid particles, lumps and then smell. If all looks good and smells good, do the taste test. Put just enough on your tongue so you can get a taste.

One thing about pasteurized milk. When it goes bad it is rotted, not turned to sour milk - sour cream - cottage cheese. It is BAD. Also your body will not allow it to be in your system for very long. You swallow 4 oz. of gone bad milk and your body IMMEDIATELY regurgitates it out. This information is from the Darigold company.

When Mom made her own jelly, she sealed it with melted wax - paraffin, then put a bell jar seal with ring on it. We would open new jars of jam/jelly or apple sauce with fuzzy mold on the top. Using a very clean, dipped in boiling water soup spoon, we would remove the fuzz and about 1/16th of an inch of jam/jelly/ apple sauce. Dipping the spoon into the boiling water after each scoop and before removing the next bit from the jar. Then wiping the exposed jar interior & rim with a clean cloth that was wet with bleach water. The lid (canning seal and ring) got washed with HOT soapy water and rinsed in bleach water, then it HOT HOT tap water.

Jam/Jelly were kept in the fridge if it was not a favorite flavor (grape, pear, etc.) The other flavors went into the cupboard and were used up rather quickly.

The last time bar-b-que sauce was on sale for $0.59 a bottle I bought 3 cases. Their Use By dates are long gone - this was nearly 5 years ago - but they are still good.

[Backroads]

For me it depends on what the item is. Most items are still good for a period after the use by date.

Medications I don't use after the expiration date. One of my former Bishops was a pharmacist. He gave a lesson at Relief Society once as part of a preparedness night. He talked about how some medications can become very toxic and can actually be deadly after a certain time. So to be safe rather than sorry...I just don't use medications after the expiration date.

I recall a multivitamin I had a few years ago. I wasn't in the habit of taking my multivitamins daily. I recall going to work once or twice, and within a short time becoming very ill, or throwing up before work started.

After a few times, I made the connection: I had taken this certain multivitamin. Which was some months' expired and I hadn't noticed.

Now I check.

[Guest]

I research most things.

Drugs - most of them can be used 10 years past expiration date. They may have a lower potency but they're still effective. Lots of doctors in my family. They get free meds from med reps. We go and raid their office every once in a while to grab expired drugs. Things like insulin and anti-biotics - toss. Things like aspirin and antihistamines - keep. For years and years and years past expiration date. It's rare that we buy meds. There's always a doctor brother/uncle/aunt/cousin that needs their meds closet cleaned out.

Food - internet is awesome. I research most things still sitting in my food storage past expiration date.

Ate a box of mac-and-cheese 1 year past expiration date. It was still good. But - sometimes, the cheese turns a dark color. These I toss. I tried one of them once and the cheese was basically just salt. I've had year-old hamburger helper too. Those were ok - I mean, we're still alive. We don't really care for the taste of hamburger helper so we couldn't tell ya if it still tasted like how it is supposed to taste.

Milk - sniff. We use almond milk. Those have weeks into the future expiration dates. And even in the very rare instance that it is still sitting in the fridge past the expiration date (didn't see the milk cartoon sitting behind a bevy of salad dressings), almond milk is still good for a few days.

Cosmetics - I use Arbonne. It's a vegan thing that doesn't have a long shelf life. I toss these after 3 years.

Edited February 14, 2014 by anatess

[Backroads]

Just last week I made a family member's birthday cake with three-year old evaporated milk. I didn't want to go to the store again, so I consulted the internet. I found no hard science on it, just a bunch of testimonials from people who had used far older and lived to tell the tale.

The cake turned out delicious.

Here's one for y'all: Spices. My grandmother has spices in her cabinet that are probably older than me, but she refuses to get rid of them.

[Bini]

Just last week I made a family member's birthday cake with three-year old evaporated milk. I didn't want to go to the store again, so I consulted the internet. I found no hard science on it, just a bunch of testimonials from people who had used far older and lived to tell the tale.

The cake turned out delicious.

Here's one for y'all: Spices. My grandmother has spices in her cabinet that are probably older than me, but she refuses to get rid of them.

Just because you live to tell the tale doesn't mean you didn't get sick. But that said, I'm sure there are plenty of "tales" of people eating food older than the moon and feeling just fine. If you've ever seen the movie Holes, one of the character survives out in the desert on canned peaches from at least a hundred years ago. He lived, not sure about the tummy ache he may or may not have had, that wasn't disclosed in the movie..

[Backroads]

Just because you live to tell the tale doesn't mean you didn't get sick. But that said, I'm sure there are plenty of "tales" of people eating food older than the moon and feeling just fine. If you've ever seen the movie Holes, one of the character survives out in the desert on canned peaches from at least a hundred years ago. He lived, not sure about the tummy ache he may or may not have had, that wasn't disclosed in the movie..

No, I think Zero definitely became very sick in the movie.

[Bini]

No, I think Zero definitely became very sick in the movie.

Zero, that was his name.

Now, was he sick from the 100-year old canned peaches? Or was he sick from being out in the desert without water and being extremely dehydrated? I don't recall.

[Blackmarch]

(My title refers to the expiration dates of food and other perishable products, though anyone who wants to hijack the thread for one's personal expiration date...)

So, how do you relate to expiration dates? Rigid follower? Consider them to be guidelines? Couldn't care less?

I waffle between the first 2.

[Quin]

He was sick from a plot twist/plot point.

Cause the author decided to make him sick, and the scriptwriter decided it advanced the storyline.

(Cough) Fiction. (Cough) Fiction.

"CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. Estimating illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths for various types of diseases is a common and important public health practice."

CDC - Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States

Or for some superfun stuff (using real stats and science for silly conclusions) check out NatureHatesYou (WARNING Bad language. Not a lot, but intermittently. Which is why there is no lin)k. It's on YouTube. And. It's. Awesome. There's a bunch of different food/water ones.

Q

[Bini]

Duh it's fiction!

Aiya.

[prisonchaplain]

For a religious spin, "Kosher for Passover" matzo crackers are only Kosher for Passover the year they are made. However, the remain generally kosher until they actually spoil. Maybe that's the right answer for all of this--expired food may be spoiled for some special occasions, but still okay for the day-to-day.

Some on this thread are clearly living their entire lives as a special occasion. :-) (j/k!)

[Iggy]

Here's one for y'all: Spices. My grandmother has spices in her cabinet that are probably older than me, but she refuses to get rid of them.

Spices lose their potency - You can use them, just need to use a LOT more of them. Poppy seeds rot. So if they are in a clear jar- you can see if there is growth on them. If they are in a tin, pour them out into a clear dish or a saucer. Or use a strong flashlight and look into the tin.

Flax seed is an oily seed and will go rancid in about 6 months - so only buy enough to use up within 6 months. You can get sick from eating the rancid seed- same as eating poppy seeds that have rotted.

My Mom had bought several hundred dollars worth of spices in large plastic containers. 10 years later - my sisters are tossing them. They were all opened, but hardly used and you could no longer smell them.

I buy whole black pepper corn by the pound - like 10 pounds - vacuum seal it in 1/2 cup portions. That is what fits in my pepper grinder. Actually I buy all of my spices in bulk - as much as I can afford at the time - Generally 1 pound. Then I vacuum seal it up. I use the roll so I can make a long bag - get more resealing out of it that way.

When I bought this house, the previous owners owned the Asian Restaurant in town. They left behind a huge tin of whole cinnamon sticks. It was about half full. They were so old there wasn't much aroma left to them. Same with the huge tin of ground black pepper.

If you are constantly tossing spices, food and meds out - you need to rethink how you purchase them. Go to smaller amounts.

I get my meds via a mail order house. After I moved from AZ to Oregon - the company out of AZ mailed my insulin pens with only one frozen block. They wrongly figured since Oregon was not a hot in temperature place that one block would keep my insulin cold. Well it didn't, by the time I got my insulin it was warm. I took all of it in to my Dr and he checked it out. Too warm to now put in the fridge or to use - so together we called my insurance carrier and the pharmacy. They had the pharmacy send me new insulin with the normal 4 frozen gel blocks. That is over $1,500.00 worth of insulin they had to eat because someone in shipping was trying to save a few bucks by using one frozen gel block instead of 4.

The warm stuff - they insisted I send it back to them. My Dr insisted that he destroy it instead and contacted my insurance carrier and insurance advocate - they insisted that the insulin be destroyed also. According to my Dr. the insulin would just loose it's potency, healing factor. It wouldn't cause anything other than not getting what you need from it. BUT for someone who uses it and it doesn't perform, THAT could be life threatening.

Anatess - I have never liked the mac & cheese with the powdery cheese that needs to be reconstituted. I really like Velveeta Shells and Cheese. BUT the cheese in the foil packs turn to plastic after about a year. I tossed 6 boxes. Not the shells, but the envelopes of cheese that I opened to see if it was plastic and it was.

I now buy the pasta shells when they are on sale and the processed cheese in a jar. Got Barilla mini shells- one box (1 pound) for $1.00. The cheese from WalMart was

$1.98 a jar. 1/2 jar of cheese to 2/3 of a box makes Mac & Cheese for Hubby and I. That comes to $1.66 total. A box of Velveeta Shells and Cheese on sale costs $2.99 around here. I just saved $1.33. The rest of the cheese in the jar - that will last several weeks in the fridge, I use it on vegetables or on toasted muffins, toast, sandwiches. Even if it gets tossed, it is still cheaper than the box mix.

We like canned spinach or canned green beans with Mac & Cheese. So I use the liquid drained off of the canned vegetables add water to make 4 cups to boil the pasta in. Once I had canned sliced beets for the vegetable - that colored the pasta, but when you added the cheese it didn't look so appetizing. Never did it again.

When I have freezer room, I save the liquid from canned vegetables, freeze it, then transfer into vacuum seal bags and vacuum seal them. Now I have the makings of stock. Any flavor stock. The beet juice I save and add to stews or tomato based soups.

When I had a dog, she got the pasta water - cooled- to drink. My cats can't handle the water. They like it, but it gives them really loose stool. Same with the water from tuna. Way too rich.

I purchase and cook as though I am in an emergency situation mostly. Living with well water, and electricity that will go out with each good wind storm, you learn to use the portable cooking and not to waste water. For 8 years I had to haul water from Sept to March. What I hauled I used for food only! To flush I used the really soapy, dirty wash water. To wash with, I got from the creek at the edge of my property. Using a sieve to keep the pine needles, alder tree leaves, tad poles, & bugs out of the water I would heat it on my stove. No electricity - then it got heated on the Coleman stove.

I could wash my to the middle of my back long hair in 2 quarts of water, then use that water to flush with. I bathed (full body wash) in 2 cups of water.

In the beginning I was hauling 15 gallons (124.5 pounds) of water a DAY. After three days, I reduced that to 5 gallons (41.5 pounds) a day- I hauled it, not hubby #1, but Me - Myself. Water weighs a LOT. By using the water left over from cooking pasta - and the dishwater to flush with, I saved a LOT of drinking/cooking water. By doing that for 6 months, it just carried over to the other 6 months.

What changed during the summer was I did laundry at home, rather than go to the laundromat in town. In the winter, when the electricity was out, we would go to a motel once a week so we could have a hot shower/bath! We ate in a restaurant then too. Dinner and then breakfast the next morning after we checked out.

[Quin]

LOL... Here's another fun "don't eat it if it's bad" thing:

Rye.

When Rye gets infected wih Ergot 1:2 things will happen:

LSD

-or-

St. Anthony's Fire

Pray for LSD, as Ergotomine Poisoning (St. Anthony's Fire) isn't just deadly, it's painful (limbs falling off painful, literally, not figuratively), deadly in most cases, and before all of that, you go crazy. Essentially, it's LSD+Painful death.

While other grains are suceptible to ergot, Rye is super prone to it.

So it's just one grain that I won't ever store.

Even though I keep some on hand for pumpernickel or rye bread.

St. Anthony's Fire -- Ergotism - Heart Disease and Other Cardiovascular Conditions on MedicineNet.com

SECRETS OF THE DEAD . The Witches Curse . Clues & Evidence | PBS

Wheeeee!

Q

[Backroads]

He was sick from a plot twist/plot point.

Cause the author decided to make him sick, and the scriptwriter decided it advanced the storyline.

(Cough) Fiction. (Cough) Fiction.

Q

Watch it, you. Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Holes.

[EarlJibbs]

My wife is to the day. She will eat her cereal with milk one day and the next day its expired and she throws it out. I tell her that the milk doesn't know the date placed on it and there is no magical spell placed on it to make it go bad on that date. Every time we have quite the humorous argument.

I, like others use the dates as a "check to make sure it's still good to eat" if it has expired. Topical medicines we toss around the expiration, I was once burned on my face for using expired facial cleanser, although my wife said that isn't what made me look this way (completely joking of course) we like face jokes.

[dahlia]

I watched Afterlife; The Strange Science of Decay BBC4 - YouTube.

One of the things I picked up was that you shouldn't just cut the mold off of bread and cheese because the mold has tendrils that go down into the food. You may see a big spot of blue, but there's more decay than you can see. Yuck.

I will let some things go a week, but I'm pickier about dairy. I'm also never sure about veggie meats made from soy or vital wheat gluten. It can be a while after the expiration date and you don't see any change, but I wonder what's going on inside. I usually just throw it away. I should probably email one of the companies.

[Sharky]

"sell by"

"use by"

"best if used by"

Drugs, properly stored generally have several months past their expiration date, plus the "discard on" date the pharmacist lists on the prescription label he/she puts on your bottle is no more then 1 year from dispense date, the actual "expiration" date as listed on the original bottle is some time after that, months or even years later.

Some things, like milk or meat that has been refrigerated vs frozen I pay closer attention to then I do other items.

I always kind of chuckle when I see the term "Fresh Eggs" in a store ad or on a label, anyone familiar with USDA regs about eggs knows that an egg can be 30-days old before it reaches your shopping cart ("sell by") with a "use by" date that is 45 days old.

I guess that goes to explain why we are one of the few countries to actually require refrigeration of eggs.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Sharky

[Guest]

I guess that goes to explain why we are one of the few countries to actually require refrigeration of eggs.

That is also because nobody in America will buy eggs unless it's pristine clean shell. Once you clean the shell, the egg will require refrigeration. If you leave it as is from the mother hen, it can stay on your counter for a month or more.

[Quin]

That is also because nobody in America will buy eggs unless it's pristine clean shell. Once you clean the shell, the egg will require refrigeration. If you leave it as is from the mother hen, it can stay on your counter for a month or more.

Ditto... Very few people buy eggs that aren't already contaminated with salmonella.

Most places I've lived, the farmer takes the eggs to the market or supermarket about once a week. Then the eggs go on the shelves to be sold. From that point, they're good for several months.

Here, though, eggs go to giant warehouses (twice, the mega-farms warehouses, and the distribution center warehouses) and sit for a month or two, then to the market, where they sit for another month or two... Until they are within one month (and often 1 week) of expiration. So far gone that many eggs will half float when submerged.

Yay. 3-4 month old eggs.

Whoops. Distracted.

Anyhow, salmonella transfers very very easily. While eggs are sitting in the warehouses, being moved by semi-truck, moved in the store' scold storage... Salmonella transfers like crazy.

So not only do we have old eggs, but old eggs we can't eat raw.

Outside of this country, though, most eggs can be safely eaten raw... And are. Over rice. In sauces, dressings, etc. Here, we have to store our old salmonella contaminated eggs for the few days of life they have left in them in the fridge, and then cook them. Or we get sick.

((On ship, we seal eggs in wax. Shells are porous, and sealing reach eggs in wax gives you a 6-9mo shelf life. Crazy.))

Q