Expirations Dates

[ironmaiden]

Yesterday was the Post Office's big food drive collection. People were supposed to leave a bag of food for their mail carrier to collect.
Our church is a food pantry and there were alot of bags of food to be sorted.
As our Sunday School space was taken up by the sorting, I decided to pitch in.

The thing to look for was expiration dates. I was amazed at how much expired food we found. Then based on this, I looked around our house and was amazed at how much or how close some of the dates are on stuff we have. Stuff that I would have never thought of like cake mix and canned soups.

[midwestgal]

It can sure happen with a big stockpile! I regularly rotate things to make sure I'm using the older stuff first.

[Valerie in WA]

The expiration dates on many canned and packaged goods are for 'best quality,' rather for than food safety. I've used old cake mixes and canned goods without difficulty. Of course, like MW gal, I try to avoid that by rotating.

[Laurie in Bradenton]

If you ask your mother or grandmother they NEVER had expirtion dates on food. This is something new that the food companies and governemt came up with. I have read in a few publications that this was done to keep folks from stockpiling and keep encourage the throwing out of items the had expired. This way the groceries continued to make more money. The government added the "best qualitiy used by" wording when consumer watch dog groups started to kick up a fuss about the whole expiration date idea. I've used many products after their expiration dates and have never had a problem or even what I would consider poor quality. I also subscribe to the rotate idea simply because that way you do eat up the oldest items in your cabinet. Grandma simply always pulled her canning jars up to the edge of the shelf and added to new items to the back of the shelf.

Laurie in Bradenton

[Start-Living]

I'm not too big on expiration dates. I usually don't check for expiration dates, I check to see if the food is still good. Which means, looks good, smell good, and taste good. If all these applies, then the food is still good to me.

I have seen food that are past expiration dates, and still looks,smell,taste good. (If I cook it properly, it will kill what-ever germs in it) Some food are the opposites, some are not even expire yet, and they are starting to rott already. Meats tends to rot faster, so I always freeze my meat until I'm ready to use it.

(The one thing that I always check for expiration dates when grocery shopping is MILK) I also realize that most of the time, milk are still good after 1 to 2 days of expiration dates. (Boyfriend is very big on expiration dates, so I usually don't tell him if I'm making something that already expired).

This is one of the weird thing about me. I think I learn this from my mom. She's the same way with food. Where she lived for most of her lives before coming to the united states, there's no expiration dates tags on food, so she still don't go by expiration dates. I have been eating food that's probably past expiration dates all these 23 years, and I'm pretty healthy. Haven't been sick since I was 10.

[ama]

When I was donating and cleaning out my pantry for the Postal Food drive I was amazed at the exp dates as well. Guess I never noticed alot of them before this!

[staceyy]

I just opened a box of soy milk with an expiration date of Oct 02 yesterday and used it to make pancakes and muffins with no ill effects. I have decided to search my cuboards for old foods to use soon though.

[peanut]

Start_Living:

I use expired milk all the time. All it does is sour. That's what sour cream and buttermilk are...sour milk. I use it in baking and it's wonderful!

Jean