Posted on 06/18/2019 3:55:13 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Last year, Mom’s Organic Market founder and chief executive Scott Nash did something many of us are afraid to do: He ate a cup of yogurt months after its expiration date. Then tortillas a year past their expiration date. “I mean, I ate heavy cream I think 10 weeks past date,” Nash said, “and then meat sometimes a good month past its date. It didn’t smell bad. Rinse it off, good to go.” It was all part of his year-long experiment to test the limits of food that had passed its expiration date. In the video above, we interviewed Nash about his experiment and examined where expiration dates come from and what they really mean.
It turns out that the dates on our food labels do not have much to do with food safety. In many cases, expiration dates do not indicate when the food stops being safe to eat — rather, they tell you when the manufacturer thinks that product will stop looking and tasting its best. Some foods, such as deli meats, unpasteurized milk and cheese, and prepared foods such as potato salad that you do not reheat, probably should be tossed after their use-by dates for safety reasons.
Tossing out a perfectly edible cup of yogurt every once in a while does not seem that bad. But it adds up. According to a survey by the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and the National Consumers League, 84 percent of consumers at least occasionally throw out food because it is close to or past its package date, and over one third (37 percent) say they always or usually do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Or opening the wrong end of beans and franks to dig into 1/4" of congealed grease. We did not get MRE's, they were sometime later. We did grab some sort of pouch type food the army got now and then. IIRC, not to bad if you could find some hot water.
Pork Chow Mein was the best MRE ever!
Sadly discontinued due to PC Snowflakes :(
I had a can of sauerkraut do that, the lesson here is jar your tomatos and kraut. :)
My Brothers Ex wife would throw the pickles out after a week in the fridge LOL
C rations WWII were in cans.
Fire makes all rations better!
Anything pickled lasts forever — it’s a great preservative. I think my jars of dill pickles probably last a year.
When I was a teenager and worked at a cheese store, we took vinegar to “clean” the cheese and wipe off mold.
When I was on a U.S. Forest Service fire crew in the mid 60s, we carried 1943 “C” rations in our field packs. The cigarettes were a little dry, and smoked quickly, but the rest of the ration was alright. Not haute cuisine, by any ones standards, but they filled our bellies just fine
When I was in college, a frat brother and I decided to test the half-life of a Twinkie. We nailed two unwrapped Twinkies to a wall and ate them 30 and 60 days later.
... a little crusty, but went down fine w/ beer.
Pizza only gets old after a week or so.
When Mom moved back in to the family homestead in 1993 whe found in the basement veggies that Grandma had canned. Grandma had died in 1948.
Of course they dumped everything, but she said it all looked and smelled perfectly fine and fresh as they opened the jars and threw it away.
Expiration dates are just an offshoot of the big government nanny state regulators. Yes they are somewhat helpful, packing dates are also useful. But as with all government regulations - YOU still have to participate and not be a mind numbed robot.
“Expired sour cream is......sour?”
That comedian Gallagher had a bit about how do you know when yoghurt goes bad. It doesn’t even become yoghurt until it’s spoiled. (The way he said it was funny.)
I do that, too. The manager marks it down to about half price and it’s still good. Gotta get there early, though, or it’s gone.
Yeah, it’s been fun reading all the comments. :D
I think the first time I was aware of what year it was was when I was 5, but that was in the 1950s.
A place I used to work left a pia on the counter. On day three it was still OK.
A kid I know found a left over egg McMuffin in his mom’s car. He got might sick. It was several days old.
You likely did not heat it high and long enough, as that would kill bacteria, although toxins it produced would remain. Beware of tomato products, for due to the PH bacteria tends to grow (and of course, throw out any puffed can), while non-fat (fat grows rancid) high sugar products can last quite long.
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