S/O Canned Food Expiration Dates

[sadlebred]

Another post got me thinking....

1. What is the oldest expiration date on a canned good you've ever found in your pantry/cabinet/fridge? This could also apply to frozen food in the freezer.

2. What is the oldest expired canned good/frozen food you'll confess to eating?

[sadlebred]

1. Probably about 3 years expired old when I did a pantry purge after ex-H moved out a number of years ago.

2. I'll do a couple of months for canned goods (maybe 2-3 months) and a month or so for frozen veggies. If they are freezer burned, I'll throw them away. Anything else frozen I'll toss.

[mcmel]

Probably 2-3 years old. I’ve probably eaten canned food that was a few months old. Week old leftovers is my record for fresh food.

[rosiebear]

We don’t buy enough to let stuff accumulate and age in the pantry, but I probably have medication that’s old enough to vote.

[CurlyQ284]

Maybe 2 years? We moved a LOT over the last 10 years so stuff got cleaned out every time we moved. I don't buy/eat many canned items so it was usually stuff H bought and forgot about.

Never ate any canned food that expired.

[wanderingback]

Jan 18, 2020 22:55:54 GMT -5 mofongo said:

This may sound braggy, but I don’t keep enough stuff in the pantry or freezer for this to happen. #trueminimalist

Also hurricanes, especially Katrina, taught us all a lesson here about stocked freezers:(

Ditto this.

If the apocalypse happens I’ll certainly be screwed with my fresh fruits and veggies.

[arehopsveggies]

I just tossed some frozen venison this year that was from 2014. It wasn’t a great tasting deer anyway, and anytime I’ve been pregnant venison made me gag. I’ve moved it three times and felt bad wasting it. Finally admitted we were never going to eat it.

DH’s grandma will give us boxes of really expired canned goods because she can’t bring herself to throw away food. She’s even told me she knows I will throw most of it away but she just needs someone to do it for her. Living through the depression/ww2 years and all that.

[notsopicky]

I think H found a box or can in the last year or so from 2014. That is embarrassing to admit.

[tacokick]

Canned goods have such a long expiration date! I just bought some that expire in 10/24. I would use one a month or two late depending on what it was.

I threw away a can of condensed milk from 2018 recently. It had rolled under a shelving unit in our basement (we don’t have a pantry). I’ve had to toss some old home canned food too, that really shouldn’t be on the shelf more than a year and I used to make bigger batches of things.

[joenali]

My MIL was going through some bins in her closet. One was a first aid bin. She found some sort of ointment/cream from 1994. I was with her when this happened last summer. She also moved to a new house about 5 years ago. You would think that it would have been tossed well before the move🤷🏻‍♀️.

[nellgirl]

I’ve eaten things that were a year out, but no more.

We had some suuuper expired things when we took over my childhood home from my dad 3 years ago. Last summer, when I finally got around to purging his stuff (well, his canned goods), I turned some tinned soup that expired in 2004. I mean, it was pretty much old enough to drive. What my dad was thinking, I don’t know... when I asked him, he said that it was still good if it didn’t smell. Gross!

The oldest thing we have that has an expiration date is an undeveloped (and unshot/unopened) roll of super 8 film in a sealed box that says to process before October 1982. It’s in our fridge in a plastic bag (weird, I know). I don’t have the heart to get rid of it. It has, inexplicably, taken up residence in our fridge for most of my life, and has even be transferred from an older fridge.

[Leeham Rimes]

The bonus of living in a shoe box of a house is that I have nowhere to store anything I don’t use. I also have to purge monthly to keep the clutter down so I’ve never had anything crazy old. I’ll eat something with a “best by” date a month or so out. (Not meats though) After watching an episode of Adam ruins everything on this topic, I don’t feel as bound to the “expiration” dates as my mother had ingrained into me.

[wildrice]

I recently threw away a few cans of tomato paste that expired before we moved halfway across the country in 2018. I had a laugh that I dragged expired food 1300 miles.

I haven't lived anywhere as an adult for more than 4 years so thankfully moving a lot has forced me to purge frequently.

I have found spices and things like apple cider vinegar that are a couple of years expired and still used them. Many of those are sold in way too large of a container for how frequently they are used! But after figuring out they are expired (usually when I'm trying to use them immediately), I throw them out and replace them.

Freezer I have no idea. Usually stuff ends up freezer burned in less than a year. I assume I could keep things indefinitely in there otherwise. Do frozen things actually decompose enough to become unsafe to eat?

[nospaekae]

It was home canned so no stamped expiration date, but I recently baked with applesauce that H canned in 2013. For home canned stuff, they usually say 1 year but for quality reasons not safety. The applesauce looked and tasted fine and we're all still alive. As long as I know that it was made using a tested recipe and was canned properly I still use it as long as the color and taste is still good.

[wise_rita]

Jan 19, 2020 3:36:26 GMT -5 nospaekae said:

It was home canned so no stamped expiration date, but I recently baked with applesauce that H canned in 2013. For home canned stuff, they usually say 1 year but for quality reasons not safety. The applesauce looked and tasted fine and we're all still alive. As long as I know that it was made using a tested recipe and was canned properly I still use it as long as the color and taste is still good.

I'll bet you anything my parents have pickles in their basement canned by my grandma who died in 1989.  I wish I lived near them so I could scope it out and confirm my suspicions!

In 2003 my roommate found a can of cooking oil promoting the 1988 Olympics.  She carried it around for a few years from rental to rental as a gag.

[Shreddingbetty]

I think consumer reports had an article ont time about this and they even tried foods that were many years old that were still safe to eat. Maybe didn’t tastes as good but not unsafe. Quick google search shows that many canned foods except for high acidic foods are good for at east 5 years. I think I just ate canned beats with an expiration date from 2 or 3 years ago and they were fine. I’m pretty easy going when it comes to expired stuff including meds...my nieces one time found a box of Mac and cheese in the pantry and after they made it they said it tasted funny and they looked at the expiration date and it was like 10 yeas old haha. It was buried somewhere and left there when my h’s first ex moved out and I never use Mac and cheese. I don’t think it was unsafe it just didn’t taste good anymore. For the most part if the sniff test passes I eat it....but if it ends up tasting off then I chuck it. 
My mom grew up during ww2 (in the Netherlands) and so she was ridiculous (and still is) with leftovers and I have bad memories from some of the stuff she made us eat so I’m not as crazy as she is. With her she keeps stuff until it is gone which means Peanut butter and Nutella that are years old (because they don’t eat it and my sis and I only visit them there once a year (their vacation home). I probably grew up with an iron stomach because of that lol

[isabel]

Jan 18, 2020 22:55:54 GMT -5 mofongo said:

This may sound braggy, but I don’t keep enough stuff in the pantry or freezer for this to happen. #trueminimalist

Also hurricanes, especially Katrina, taught us all a lesson here about stocked freezers:(

Ditto. The shelf in my pantry for canned goods has maybe 4-5 items on it (after I shopped this weekend it had about 10, but I used everything I bought while prepping on Sunday) and all of it is stuff I bought in a bulk pack at Costco because I knew we would use it up relatively quickly. None of our canned goods hang around for more than 6 months or so.

I do have some random pastas that are more than 6 months old just because the package contained more than we needed for that recipe.

[msmerymac]

Probably 2-3 years for something in the pantry, but I try to go through it regularly. I wouldn't eat it, either. The most I might go is like 1-2 months out of date if the can looks okay and the contents look and smell okay.

My FIL was considering cracking open a can of cranberry sauce that expired in 2014 last Thanksgiving. We stopped him.

Both my in-laws and my grandmother always have/had out of date stuff in the fridge. It's gross. My FIL is a border line hoarder, though, and their fridge is always packed to the brim - and 2 people live in their house.

[Waffles]

Definitely 3 years + on canned goods. My last purge was when we redid the kitchen 5 years ago and we had to throw so much stuff that lay forgotten on high shelves. I'd only eat it if it's a couple of months after the date (depending on content).

I wouldn't pay attention to the date on frozen veg if it still looks ok. Anything with freezer burns gets chucked out.

My mother hoarded the last 10 years of her life. I cleaned out her kitchen when she was hospitalized a couple of years before she died and threw away 17 garbage bags of food alone. She never baked once in her life but there were 14 bags of flour, frozen food from the nineties, spices and herbs from the eighties. It's one of the things that drove home to me that she had really lost her grip on things (dementia).

[jinkies]

We make and can our own pepper relish. I was just cleaning out the basement, and behind the jars that we canned last summer, I found about 6 jars from 2015 (we won't eat those, don't worry).

A few years ago I went through my spice cabinet and actually checked expiration dates. I found some that had already been expired when we moved to this house. I can't remember the specifics but I'm pretty sure they were in the 6-9 year old age range. They were (obviously) spices that I bought for a single recipe years ago and then never used again.

[ksun]

Anyone who's FB friends with me knows about my mom's salad dressing that expired in 1997. My SIL finally tossed it when the expiration date turned 21 years old, in fear that someone would actually eat it.

For me, personally, I've had a few things 2 years expired in the back of the pantry when I've done deep cleaning, or when it came time to move.

I'm one of those people who won't drink milk past the "best by" date, so you're not getting me to eat anything that's expired, even if only by a month.

[cjcouple]

Maybe a year?

Only expired items I gave consumed are dry spices. A couple years old.

[gibbinator]

1. I just found a can of something last month (dunno what it was, the label was gone) that expired in 2008... I considered opening it just to see what the mystery product was, and then I just decided that I was better off not seeing the contents.

2. I'm not sure what the oldest expired canned food was I've eaten. In my brain I think I'd probably let it go 6 months past due.

[melsbels]

When we cleaned out my grandparents home and they moved into a retirement home (early 2000’s) we found about half a dozen tins of rations from WW2 buried in their back cupboard. They were unlabeled so we didn’t know what was in them, but it was an interesting find!

My FIL actually said they found the same when they cleaned out his childhood home too.

[carmenere]

Jan 20, 2020 17:39:30 GMT -5 melsbels said:

When we cleaned out my grandparents home and they moved into a retirement home (early 2000’s) we found about half a dozen tins of rations from WW2 buried in their back cupboard. They were unlabeled so we didn’t know what was in them, but it was an interesting find!

My FIL actually said they found the same when they cleaned out his childhood home too.

A few years ago my H fell down a YouTube rabbit hole and found a guy whose whole channel is him eating old MRE’s, including some from WW2. So apparently that’s a thing some people do 🤔 I guess that should make the OP of the original old canned food thread feel better about herself.