If @czarcasm was strictly limiting his reasoning to what the government allows, I’ll retract my statement that you are ignoring his point. I was of the opinion that he was referring to restrictions of any kind, whether internal, local, state, or federal. I guess we’ll wait for him to chime in. Did I mention that it was shitty to donate stuff that is past the point that the donor wants to eat it? Yeah, I did.
You nailed exactly what I am talking about. The differences between what you can legally consume may not match up, for various legal and ethical reasons, with what they can accept from the public.
Make that decision for yourself, not for others.
Not always.
The food pantry that I both get food at and in season take produce to has a table for canned goods and such donated by the public; they warn you that some items are out of date. At this pantry you select what you’ll use; so many items per household from each particular table (there are about half a dozen tables), the number depending on how many people in the household. The community-donated table seems quite popular and I’ve gotten some nice stuff there; yes, some of it was out of date but it was still fine.
Call your particular pantry and ask. They don’t all have the same setup, they don’t all have the same clientele, they don’t all have the same storage capacity, they don’t all have the same needs.
There until recently was a store a couple of towns north of me which sold those — the bread companies brought in the slightly over aged baked goods they’d picked up from regular stores and got another chance at selling them there, cheaper of course. I used to stop there whenever I went through that town. Perfectly good food for about half price. Or, in the case of a pantry, for free. For some purposes (stuffing, French toast, bread pudding, etc.) you want slightly stale bread; and on some items it was hard to tell the difference.
People wind up with food they’re not going to eat for all sorts of reasons.
It was on sale but you had to buy six to get the sale price, and somebody in the family doesn’t like it that much. It was part of a gift box and they liked some of the things in there but not others. They bought the smooth peanut butter when they wanted crunchy. They were at college in the winter or at the lake in the summer and they’re going back home and don’t want to schlep what’s in the cupboard, and they didn’t carefully rotate so there’s some older stuff at the back. That was the kid’s favorite last month but not now, and they kept it a while hoping kid would change their mind but they haven’t.
If their particular pantry will take it, and somebody wants and needs it, you want them to throw it out instead?
True for some things. For a lot of things, it’s mostly because they have to put some date on it. And I notice a lot of canned goods in the stores are dated several years ahead. Do you really think they become significantly worse on the day, or even the month, after that date?
Yeah, if you found it in the basement dated 1983, don’t bring that one.
At the pantry I use, and at a lot of others, you’re not making that decision for anyone else. Anybody using those pantries is free to take or reject any particular item.
Again: call the pantry in question and ask. Don’t throw out what someone might want as well as need because you think you ought to be ashamed about the exact date on the can.
Lots of people won’t carefully look at expiration dates. For them, grabbing the cans from the pantry and putting them in the donation bin is the limit of the effort they are willing to make. If they feel they are expected to look at expiration dates, they won’t make any effort. Rather than making careful decisions about what to donate, they’ll blow it off and won’t donate anything. By having little to no requirements for food donations, food banks will get the most food. That means they’ll need to make the effort to discard the cans past their expiration date since many people won’t make that effort.
Goodwill kind of has this model. They’ll take pretty much everything since they know the easier they make donations, the more donations they get, and the more good stuff they’ll end up with. If they were picky about donations, people would just throw stuff away rather than deal with trying to meet the thrift store’s requirements.
In an ideal world, this discussion wouldn’t be necessary. People would be self-motivated to meet the needs of the food pantry. But that’s not the world we live in. Many people only donate because they want to feel good about themselves by doing a trivially easy charitable act. Grabbing some cans from their pantry is the maximum level of effort they’ll make. Put any additional requirements on them and they won’t make any donation at all.
I just helped out with my local scout troop’s annual food drive (Scouting for Food) again this year for our town’s food bank. I’ve done this every year for the last 20+ years.
Every Scout troop and Cub Scout pack in town helps out. We put bags out on the mailbox of nearly every house in town, then drive around and collect bags of donated food a week later.
This year we collected over 16,600 pounds of food. It was our biggest year ever. We don’t just collect it, though. We brought it all into the food bank and sort everything, separate out the expired items, and help fill the shelves of the food bank. This took the efforts of 50-60 volunteers working for about 6 hours on a Saturday.
Amyway, the food bank seems to appreciate all of this. They say that our food drive is by far their single largest donation of food they get all year.
About the whole “canned food past date on the can” thing:
I recently discovered an old can of green beans lost in my cupboard. It was 5 years past “best by” date. I tried them anyway. While technically edible they did not taste good. If it was the 10th year of the Zombie Apocalypse and I was starving yeah, I’d eat them but it’s not even the 1st year of the Zombie Apocalypse so I tossed them. I won’t be eating any more cans of vegetables that old. Unless we have a Zombie Apocalypse.
On the other hand, I’ve eaten cans of vegetables 2 years past “best by” date and they’ve been fine. Especially in something like a casserole.
So that’s my personal limit. I’d be willing to donate canned goods that old, or accept canned good that old if I was on the needy and receiving end. When donating to food pantries or soup kitchens, though, I’ll often make the effort to buy new because when you’re poor and/or needy the quality of your food is important. It may be the only decent thing you experience in a day. But I’m weird like that.
I’m not the only one, though - in recent days I’ve had a dozen or so customers buying in bulk for donation purposes. That’s fine.
My experience on both sides of the donation thing is that there is a WIDE diversity of donors to food banks - some view it as a way to get rid of what they themselves won’t eat. Others will spend much time, effort, and money on it, buying new.
Not necessarily. I think that’s an overly harsh judgment. The subject of expired canned foods has been much discussed and debated. I fully agree with you with respect to donating food that’s actually spoiled – that’s not a donation, it’s using the food bank as a garbage disposal, and that’s super-shitty. But I don’t think it’s shitty of me to donate a couple of cans of delicious Baxter’s “Lentil & Smoked Bacon” soup mainly because my tastes have changed – sure, it expired a few months ago, but it’s perfectly good and nutritious. Or a particular type of expensive pasta sauce that’s not even expired, because I found something I like better. I see a lot of dry pasta being donated, but rarely any sauce. Is donating an expensive sauce a “shitty” thing to do?
To some extent this is how trade basically works – some people want to get rid of stuff that others are happy to have. Like the working lawn mower that I put out on the curb recently with a sign saying “Free lawn mower”. Someone took it in less than 24 hours. I’m sure they’re happy because it works and they got it for free, and I’m happy because it’s gone. Was it “shitty” of me to donate a lawn mower that I no longer want or need, but someone else does?
I found a can of soup that was two years past its best by soup and tried it. I didn’t get sick and it tasted okay but it was a cream soup and never really liquified, even after heating but rather had a texture akin to pudding. I assumed it had something to to with the starch used to thicken it or something.
Like Goodwill, some people use food banks as an alternative to the dump. There’s some minimal advantage for both sides but I don’t think the donor should be patting themselves on the back for donating a four-year-old can of haggis flavored pie filling. Give what you can, but if you can donate cash, do that.
I do. If anyone donate stuff and the food bank doesnt like it for any reason, fine. But if you toss canned goods slightly past their “nest by” date you are wasting food and keeping others from eating.
Very reasonable.
Good point, but remember- not ‘expired” just past it’s “best by” date.
You should tweet that.
Isn’t that what happens if you leave your back door open and the eggs on the counter well past their “best by” date?
Yeah. I always clean and mend clothing before donating, and anything that can’t be restored to at least decent condition gets ripped up for the ragbag instead, but thrift stores can’t MAKE donors do that.
Or, for that matter, stores donating things that didn’t sell, for a good reason.
Example: Someone on another board said that her mom had to use a food pantry a few times after her father died unexpectedly when she was in high school, and they always got several bottles of meat marinades. It wasn’t like they also got meat to marinate, and her mother was the kind who, if she had marinated meat, would have used something she already had, and these weren’t things that could also, for instance, be used as salad dressing.
Well, it’s disadvantageous to embezzle cans of Cream Corn.
So, if you expect me to contribute, food is what you are going to get.
I just donated some mac and cheese, and beans, and Ramen to our local scouts. There were no guidelines except nothing perishable and no glass, very reasonable. I assume your food bank was okay with everything?
However we do give a lot more money than food. Easier and less volume.
I usually donate the large cans of Chunky soup to food drives at work.
It’s something anyone can easily use and have a good family meal.
I prefer doing that over giving a check. Selecting food to give seems more personal.