Canned food past pull date?

[Hari_Seldon]

Past its pull date is canned food safe to use? We have some canned salmon with a pull date of July, 2016. I think it might have lost some flavor, but my wife is worried if it is safe.

[DCnDC]

It’s fine.

Most dates on food are generally “best by” dates, indicating the point at which the manufacturer expects the product to begin to decline in quality. They are NOT “This food becomes poison on exactly this date” dates.

.

[TriPolar]

Probably safe. It’s a ‘best by’ or ‘sell by’ date, and neither will guarantee the food is safe to eat before the date arrives anyway. If you don’t hear a pop when you open the can, or it smells bad, or looks bad, don’t eat it, same as if that date hasn’t arrived yet. I won’t make any recommendation that you do eat it.

[Darren_Garrison]

I look at the can to see if there is any swelling. Open it and do a smell test. If everything (including the taste) is seems okay, I’m fine with a few years past the sell-by date. (It isn’t just for canned foods–note this thread in which I ate an 18-year-old packet of Froot Loops and others beat my record.)

[Colibri]

This is probably best suited to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

[Xema]

We do this question frequently.

Yes, “Best if used by …” is not equivalent to “Probably fatal if consumed after …”, though some seem to think so. (I have a friend whose wife routinely discards food a few months before its date, on the basis that “You can’t be too careful.”)

I think I’d be slightly more cautious with salmon than with soup, but in general food will be safe to eat for a long time after the printed date.

[Colibri]

To back up what others are saying:

How to use the “best by” dates on your food.

The key takeaway is that a “best-by” or “sell-by” date is not an expiration date and doesn’t necessarily mean that the safety of the food product declines after that date.

Once a food product does pass its “best-by” date, Fikes says “it doesn’t mean it’s diminished or unsafe if you eat it beyond the date,” although the information does carry a little more weight for dairy and deli products.

While FMI wouldn’t make a blanket statement that date labels have nothing to do with food safety, they’re more about quality.

Producers are going to hedge their bets a little bit about the date on the product, Fikes says. Once the food leaves the grocery store, they have no say in how it’s stored, so they use a date that takes into account the fact that the food may not be kept at the most optimal conditions. This is why most products are fine beyond their date label.

So:

1. The “best-by” date does not guarantee that the food is safe to eat.

2. Being past the “best-by” date does not mean the food is unsafe to eat.

As others have said, you should go by whether a can is swollen or the contents smell or taste bad rather than the “best-by” date to determine if it is safe to eat.

I personally wouldn’t hesitate to eat a can of salmon a year beyond its “best-by” date if it had just been stored in my cupboard under normal conditions. YMMV

[Xema]

@Darren_Garrison

… I ate an 18-year-old packet of Froot Loops …

Er, I’m not entirely sure those are wholesome on the day they leave the factory. Perhaps they improve with age?

[Hari_Seldon]

Thanks.

[SCSimmons]

There’s very little regulation on the dates stamped on preserved foods, mainly because this is one case where the market effectively self-regulates.

Manufacturer 1: Stamps their foods with a conservatively early date. Their customers throw out some of their food while it’s still OK, and need to buy more, while virtually never opening a package to find stale or unappetizingly aged comestibles.

Manufacturer 2: Stamps their foods with a very optimistic late date. Their customers don’t buy as often or as much because they’re holding onto their old packages, and often open one that says it should still be good but really isn’t.

Who wins in the food marketplace? (Well, the answer is probably “whichever has the best advertising”, as usual, but …)

Canned food are usually stamped with a date anywhere from 1 to 4 years from their manufacture date. Properly stored, expected shelf life is typically 3 to 6 years. => If you’ve kept it in a cool, dry place continually, 1 to 2 years after the printed expiration date is likely safe.

(Citation: Fox News. I don’t think I’ve ever typed that before.)

[Corry_El]

Recently there was an ‘event’ (big cloud of soot coming down during chimney work) in our basement that caused me to clean and rearrange everything. In theory ‘we’ use the oldest cans first so none ever get too old, but in fact my wife doesn’t wholly buy into that idea . I threw away the ~1/3 or so of cans and jars down there with ‘best by’ dates before 2017. I kept ones with dates in 2017 even if ‘expired’ a few months. I realize the chance of a food safety issue with a 2016 ‘best by’ is low, and also non-zero for stuff we just brought home from the store. But that’s where I drew the line.

[El_Kabong]

FWIW, standing orders at the food bank where I used to volunteer were that canned goods were considered OK up to one year past the printed expiration date, as long as they were not badly dented or otherwise compromised.