I have some spices that are probably pushing 15 years that are just fine.
Vinegar based hot sauces are basically immortal; I’ve had Tabasco that was like 10 years old before
Isn’t it ten years old by default?
Does it lose any of its hotness?
It separated out to half clear vinegar and half… Red
You had to shake it back together but if anything it was even hotter than usual. It was wild
I think heat typically intensifies over time: anecdotally, leftover hot food is always hotter a couple of days after it was freshly made
In Europe we use expiration and best before dates.
With exp. dates, don’t push it: they mean after that date, the food could spoil and there’s biological risk on eating it. One day? Ok. 3 days… only if you have to and after looking closely for signs of spoiling. Cook it thoroughly.
With BBF dates, there is no risk unless evident contamination, meaning that after that date, the food will be edible but might have a different taste. Obviously, look for mold if the product was open, bwt it’s generally safe to eat even after years. Except fresh uncooked food, almost everything else falls in this category here.
Edit: typo
Do things that have a BBF date expire if you wait years?
As they said, generally no, they may just not taste as good.
For example - a pot of chilli powder probably will be fine after 5 years unopened in a cupboard, but probably won’t be as spicy as it used to be.
If well stored and with undamaged packaging, it can go for years without trouble. With bff products i generally go to groceries stores and look for a section dedicated to these products. They sell them cheaper and are completely safe. Good way to save money and fight food waste.
This depends on the type of food.
Fresh meat? Don’t push it.
Tofu? What, is the bean curd going to curdle?
Tofu will go bad, it will turn sour and slimy. Or at least the soft tofu will. Pretty sure all tofu will be eventually.
i ate a pound of pistachios that were 30 years old, and couldnt stop eating them, so delicious.
There’s some mayonnaise in the fridge a couple years old I’ll use on sandwiches. After family holiday get togethers there’s always leftover ham or turkey, that’s about the only time I’ll use mayonnaise. Every year I’ll pull it out, look at the expiration date and make a choice. Go get a new jar that will only get a third used or live life on the edge and slather on the old stuff. I call it refrigerator roulette
Actual food? Probably yogurt at like one or two months. It had been sealed up until then.
I’ve had table syrup that was at least 4 years past the expiration (it actually still had the aunt Jemima on the bottle is how old it was).
A few days ago I finished some baking powder and my partner brought a big bottle home and I was like “oh it’s okay that stuff doesn’t expire!” Then I looked at the previous container I had and found out it had, in fact, expired in 2017. Don’t think it affected my baking though.
I mostly just eat stuff without looking at the dates unless it smells bad or is moldy.
Pasta, 12 years. Yoghurt, 1 month.
I’m impressed in a way that anything could be good up to twelve years past the expiration date.
Dry and sealed, it can last decades. Honey can last centuries but will usually expire after 1 year for legal reasons.
I believe they have recovered honey from Egyptian tombs that was thousands of years old and still edible. From recollection the syrup is too viscous for bacteria to colonise.
Fun fact: If you collect mad honey (the term for honey contaminated by bees which have pollinated poisonous flowers), you can wait for the poison to expire.
I understand in some cases it may be wasteful, but I’m super strict about expiration dates. Food poisoning is truly awful, and I don’t fuck around. All that barfing, shidding, and farding.
It is wasteful, the expiration date is very conservative. You can push it 20% or more for sealed, correctly stored items. Just check for signs of rot or mold. Food waste is a serious problem in first and second world countries.
No thanks.
The risk is worth it, I will probably never get food poisoning (as long as I’m careful when foraging) and I’m healthy overall so my body would take it well. I can’t imagine store-bought food pushed to less than +50% of its shelf life with no signs of decay will do permanent harm. I guess a week off work can be a problem if you’re in America? I feed old food to chickens instead if it goes stale or unappetizing so I never really waste any anyway.
I’m not discouraging you or any one else to be more flexible about them, I’m just saying I have my limitations on the matter.
Which is cheaper — composting food after its expiration date, or the copay at the doctors office when you get food poisoning?
Depends on a lot of factors. When I consider grocery prices in the Czech Republic, our food safety standards, sick leave conditions and healthcare costs, I’d say I might get food poisoning 0-2 times in my life for $25 each while saving at least $30 per year.
If it’s meat, I typically follow that advice, though they make the expiration dates otherwise super difficult to find (if at all) and I usually find out in hindsight, and so over time, I have become used to just not thinking of the expiration dates unless an actual issue. I was with some friends the other day and they were amazed I was eating a nutrient bar that was almost a year past the date (still waiting for the side effects, which in a way surprises me as that would be my answer). Usually for them, once the expiration date comes, they just throw a thing outside for the animals (which I do very infrequently; typically I employ foods I don’t trust as art materials as I discovered it helps that hobby).
I think a lot of people are confusing the “best by” or “sell by” etc. dates on foods (in the USA anyway) with an “expiration” date. The only foods in the US that actually have expiration dates are infant formula. NO foods expire exactly on some arbitrary date stamped on the packaging. The dates are listed to give consumers an idea of when they should think about consuming the product, many with a large amount of useable time after the date printed.
Don’t believe me? Here is the USDA’s FSIS explanation of their own regulations.I don’t press my luck with expired foods. It’s on me if I don’t eat something and I’ve had so long of a time to eat that food by. Like canned foods that go all the way out an entire year or even two. I just don’t want to ever experience botulism or food poisoning of any kind.
Rice, 10 years. Beef, hmmmmmmm 2 months? Mushrooms at least a year. Got to let them be fun guys.
The kind of mushrooms from the grocery store or the kind of mushrooms likely secretly sold under the grocery store?
About 15 years. I can’t remember exactly… something from the “small things corner” of our fridge :)
I haven’t even had a fridge last that long.
Oh. You poor slave to consumption.
What do you mean?
Maybe a day by accident at most.
