As part of a ministry that provides privately donated food, I myself often eat extra surplus food (as well as compost greens) that is past its expiration date, with very rare issues, and minor if any. Nuke any refrigerated food at least 2 minutes in the mic, which will at least kill bacteria. Thank God.
I had occasion to see government contract procured items (same as found on store shelves) religiously marked with expiration dates, when the ‘civilian’ product did not have exp dates.
As soon as it hit the expiration date, the government (military in my case) was mandated to destroy the items.
GINORMOUS amount of waste caused by this practice - but it keeps the boxes rolling out of the shipping departments.
The things I have thrown away in the past.....my goodness, what a waste! I WILL in the future let my eyes and nose do the work and not some stamp on a label. I have just one question....how do you know sour cream isn’t safe to eat at some point? :)
Just slice off the green parts. You’ll be fine.
You will eat bugs and rancid canned foods!
One hole in this system: there is literally no chain of custody between the production plant and your mouth which guarantees that the food was always stored at the correct temperature.
It really all depends on storage and the food item itself.
There is a guy on the internet who routinely gets old food kits for GI's from an army surplus store, usually Korean or Vietnam war era. The are vacuum packed, but he opens them and tries the food that it contains. Much of it is still edible.
For me it’s always been to toss it if it doesn’t pass the smell test. Why eat food that smells and (probably) tastes bad? Also, if I can see mold or slime, out it goes...
I volunteer at the main food bank in Austin. When we sort donated food, we accept food past the expiration dates which gets donated to the needy.
We are given a list of dates that are acceptable by category.
It will be something like this:
canned protein (tuna, chicken, etc), accept if expiration date is less than 1 year old.
cereal, less than 2 years old.
etc.
(dates above are examples, I don’t remember the exact dates. a list is posted at the sorting tables)
FWIW, food stored properly - i.e. cool and dry, fairly stable temps.
I have SAFELY stored and consumed mayo in a glass jar or plastic jar that is THREE YEARS out of date. Slight taste change, but no spoilage or oxidation.
Same for peanut butter, tomato sauces, canned veggies, meats, fruits in UN-DENTED cans.
NET: LOTS of foods, stored properly, last a LONG time just fine.
Moving to ‘processed food’ i.e. prepared foods that are pre-mixed, especially freezer-meals. Some were terrible at the X-date.
Our experience is that ANY ‘processed’ foods in a box or wrapper that is NOT stored in QUALITY vacuum-sealed bag with O2 and H2O absorbents in it ... Will go stale/tasteless/hogs won’t eat it bad by the X-date.
In medicine we pick an end date for testing.
For example we know some of our products will be good for 50 years or more.
However we test to 10 years because if the product sells that slowly then it should be discontinued.
So shelf-life does have a marketing component, but it is tested to a point typically less than its actual life span. So that part is scientific, there are ASTM testing standards.
It’ll never be an exact science but it gives an orderly timeframe for grocery stores to clear out old stock and gives label reading consumers a rough sanity check of the age of what’s on the shelf. Otherwise you’d have low wage stock clerks making the call on when something is expired. The grocery system has decided it’s best for the manufacturers to provide that guideline even if it’s imperfect and probably too conservative.
These days, science in general doesn’t have much science behind it. A lot of wokeness, though...
I’ve done volunteer work at a County food bank (church out reach program). My job was to sort donated cans and to check the expiration date. As long as the days date was less than a year over the printed expiration date, the can was deemed acceptable.
In general, food “expiration dates” are a good reference point for how long you have had something. If you’re cleaning the cupboards/refrigerator and you find something a year or two beyond the expiration date it’s good to get rid of it, not because it’s bad, but that you bought something and didn’t use it, nor are you likely to.
I have found things five and six years past the expiration date in the cupboard and it was time for it to go.
Or more specifically, the food producers' lawyers.
Prepper ping
Perhaps expiration dates aren't based on science, I don't know.
That said, I believe this new war on food expiration dates is being pushed by the globalist greens.
Beware.
I saw an expiration date on a bag of salt tablets recently. Really? Salt?
sniff test for meats, sight and touch for veggies, everything else is fair game.