Expiration dates on food

[DrHenley]

A good article about food expiration dates and use-by dates.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...her-explains-another?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

[Proud Prepper]

Those dates are never correct by my experiences. The dates are a minimum estimate for most foods should be at there best to eat and some are ridiculously understated.

 

[Cowboy Phil]

A good article about food expiration dates and use-by dates.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...her-explains-another?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Good article. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Dave_V]

Having a grocery store (that I own) next door to our BOL is a real blessing. We no longer worry about wasting canned food that has expired because we never have any. The front pallet of each can type (like Campbell's soups) are marked and traded with a newly delivered pallet forklifted over from the grocery basement weekly (the new pallet is placed at the back of the pallet gravity feed.) By having the newest canned foods possible, and carefully storing them, we hope to maximize those foods for whatever their possible shelf life is. We recently started doing a weekly rotation of apples and potatoes but there's no way I will jeopardize our store's reputation by providing our customers with anything less than fresh. Fortunately, we've had really good luck with a lot of berries using hydroponics, but some taste bitter to me. It could just me, or maybe they just haven't found the tastiest varieties to grow? We can grow potatoes, but apparently, they take a lot of space, so we'll grow them when we have to. Applesauce is in the pallet rotation, but real apples is NOT something we can grow, so probably within a few weeks of deployment, there will only be applesauce.

 

[Arcticdude]

I never pay attention to the dates. If it doesn't smell too bad or have stuff growing in it, I'll eat it.

 

[DrHenley]

Those dates are never correct by my experiences. The dates are a minimum estimate for most foods should be at there best to eat and some are ridiculously understated.

If you read it, you'll see that's what the article says.
It makes the point that 20% of food is unnecessarily wasted due to confusion about what those dates mean.
The dates are often subjectively determined by focus group taste tests instead of being scientifically and objectively determined.

 

[Buttoni]

Been my experience canned tomato products are the thing to really watch out for. They are usually what will go bad first in the pantry, because of their high acidity and interaction with any metal they touch. If the can/lid is bulging the slightest bit, hisses one iota upon opening, they are discolored in any way at the top, or look/smell off in any way in the jar, OUT THEY GO. I have found they have been suspect within 1-2 years of the "best by" date, whereas other canned good can be good 5 years beyond that date (some preppers report even longer out). Of course food begins to lose nutrients from the day it is picked or cut off the hoof, so I never lose sight of that fact. But to be quite honest, in a true hunger/starvation situation, I'd settle for a little less in the nutrient profile to stave off those hunger pangs.

 

[DrHenley]

Parenthetically...
I was reading about the history of the Underwood Food Company (Underwood Deviled Ham) and although they had been canning food since before the Civil War, they noticed that some cans would go bad and start bulging after a while and others would not. In the 1890s, Underwood went to the biology department at MIT for help on finding out why.
MIT discovered the heat resistant botulism spores, and together they invented pressure canning, and the fields of "Food Science" and "Food Technology" were born.

 

[Proud Prepper]

If you read it, you'll see that's what the article says.
It makes the point that 20% of food is unnecessarily wasted due to confusion about what those dates mean.
The dates are often subjectively determined by focus group taste tests instead of being scientifically and objectively determined.

Then it is correct.