I had some Maalox tablets that are way past expiration. They’re basically chalk, so they can keep as long as the white cliffs of Dover.
One group of cousins I have (there are 5 of them) grew up dirt poor because their father (my Uncle by marriage) was a horrible drunk and frequently out of work. But you would think they were a family of millionaires as to how snobby they were about things.
They wouldn’t eat anything if it was even remotely close to being past it’s date. They refused to eat cereal that had just been opened because the date was coming up in 2 weeks.
They sat at breakfast the table with this look on their face like they were appalled that my mother would serve them rotting food. One time my Grandmother bought one of them a camera as a present. It came with 3 rolls of film. The film, for whatever odd reason, had an expiration date on them within a month. “This film will be expired by the time I’m done using it!” and they threw it away. My Grandmama exclaimed that was the last time she bought a gift for any of them, birthdays, Christmas, graduations, whatever! She stuck to that promise until the day she died!
I use things on an individual basis. If it seems alright I’ll use it. I’ve found that diet soda does get funky if it’s long past it’s date. As does beer*. Those are perishable items, like bread.
*Who am I kidding. Beer doesn’t last long at Beitz Stately Manor.
Spices should have an expiration date, and if they did, the cinnamon I used last year would be it. I think I bough it in 2004. Aside, I think I read you can tell the approximate date of McCormick spices from their container decorations/type. I don’t know how accurate it would be.
ETA: it looks like they have “best by” dates (which I never checked until now)
A couple I know have a daughter who was very strange (mentally ill level strange). When the family ate a meal together, mom had to open the bag of buns and strange daughter had to grab hers before anyone else or the bag was contaminated and she wouldn’t eat any buns. For a period of time she ate only noodles with butter, eventually having health issues requiring hospitalization.
She had numerous OCD type behaviors and received counseling, but was difficult to live with. When she was 11 years old her dad remodeled their third floor, creating an apartment for the kid, complete with a landline.
The strange girl is now in her late thirties. She has two PhDs and works in academia where she is highly regarded.
I came here to mention* that, around 1985, my uncle opened up some Vietnam-(c. 1968)-era MREs and we shared them – all good except for the chocolate pudding – but after your post, mine would be embarrassingly tame.
*I see silenus had the same experience – 15-year-old MREs that were fine, when “stored properly.”
It does not really go bad— that’s the whole point. Unless you get it wet, or it gets eaten by insects…
There are, I would not say plenty, but some videos where someone pops open a tin of pound cake or whatever from a (supposedly) 40-year-old C-ration to discover that it still tastes the same…
If it’s really that full of preservatives, makes you wonder if you should be eating that stuff even when new.
I think it’s still edible because of how well the container is sealed. Not from “preservatives”.
She should have gotten together with my other cousin. He insisted the ends of his hot dogs be cut off as he felt they looked like an anus.
Just sayin
Homemade Buttermilk pancakes! Also, baked goods of all sorts. And Wilbur the Pig ("Charlotte’s Web) loved buttermilk when they slopped him with it.
I have a couple of tubes of lanolin that expired in the 90s that I use on chapped lips.
I “inherited” an elderly relative back in 2007, and had to clean out her apartment, where she’d lived for over 30 years. I found a stash of prescriptions from the early 1970s. Given that the reason I’d inherited her was that she was non compos, this was disturbing.
My favorite expiration date is on calcium tablets. I always wonder if they’ll turn back into oyster shells or what!
Yeah, my salad dressing is always refrigerated. Fridge is set at 38 F. Still sometimes gets moldy after a few weeks.
I use the sniff test. I tell people, “If you can get your nose close to the food, you can pretty well say it’s okay.”
Uncooked meat is a clear example of this test. If you can get your nose down to a half inch above the hamburger, it’s good. If your raw hamburger is bad, you’ll know as soon as you rip the plastic off the meat tray!
Milk is my sore point. I drank sour milk over forty years ago, and to this day I will not use milk without sniffing it first. Even if I just used the milk and put it back in the fridge! If I need it again, it will have to be sniffed first. My one little OCD habit!
~VOW
Jeez. We have salad dressing from last year.
I just looked in the bottles, they look fine.
No mold.
I did toss a 1000 island because there was about a teaspoon in there.
The escalated into me looking at pickle jars, jelly jars, condiments of all kinds.
One trash bag.
Then I started on the containers of leftovers.
Oooh. Found my anchovies I was hoarding. I knew they were in there. Found an unopened jar of blue cheese stuff olives.
An ancient avocado and an thing that was an onion. Just the exoskeleton.
Another trash bag.
Now my fridge is cleaned out.
Thanks, Dope🤔
I have never had dressing of any kind get moldy. And I’ve had ranch two years old in my fridge, because I hate ranch, and someone in my house likes it. I have no idea what you’re doing to those poor bottle of ranch, but that’s not usual.
I’ve posted here before about some of the misconceptions around expiration dates of medicines - there are all sorts of ways in which they can age badly - eg a tablet could turn to dust, or harden to the point that it won’t dissolve when you swallow it. That said…
A wise traveler always carries loperamide - sooner or later you’re going to need it. In my most recent case, that was in Türkiye, on the morning of our bus transfer back to the airport. I literally had to leave the queue for the bus - it was that bad. I had my ever-present loperamide - it was 13 years out of date. I took it. It worked.
Needs must, eh?
(Career spent in the pharmaceutical industry. Loperamide supply since replaced.)
j
I could make a meal of blue cheese stuffed olives!
What I love is the marketing for pink salt and other colors. They brag about how pure it is. Um, if it was pure it wouldn’t be pink.
I figure the “non-existent impurities” in pink salt pretty much means it’s not going last long.
Just checked my tube of Orajel (for canker sores). It expired in 10/06. Still works great.
Yeah! One of my favorite appetizers at a local oyster bar is what they call “Dirty Martini Dip”. It is a mixture of cream cheese, blue cheese chunks, vermouth and chopped olives. It comes with a plate of crustini - thin slices of French bread well toasted. It is amazing.