As long as it’s not chicken or pork I go by visual inspection (and smell).
I don’t fuck around with pork and chicken though. I had salmonella poisoning when I was a kid and nearly died. I’m pretty sure I’m invincible now, but I like to play it safe anyway.
@capguncowboy Exactly my thoughts. I’ve had salmonella before and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m 6ft, 155ish lbs. usually and when all was said and done I was down to about 130. Some of the worst weeks of my entire life.
@Nebulium I was 10 years old. 5’1 and a measley 70 lbs. I got down to 40 lbs.
Truth be told, it was never officially diagnosed. It’s entirely possible that I had E. coli, but the doctors I saw were certain it was one of the two, leaning towards salmonella more than E. coli
They never ran tests because I didn’t go in until after I was better – well, I went in when I first got sick and they said it was just a stomach bug. It got progressively worse that evening and all I really remember was laying in bed shitting myself for what felt like a month. I don’t know how long I was actually out but it was probably a few days. I slept a lot, woke up, showered while mom changed the sheets, and then back to bed. I couldn’t keep anything in. It just ran straight out the other end. It took about a year before I really had an appetite again.
@capguncowboy I think they were shrimp and/or pork dumplings, could have been pushing a week in the fridge. It was a rough few days and I didn’t feel right for almost a year after. I have a pretty weak stomach over all, I love to eat, and I am often quite lazy. Its a powerful combo.
@andrewpatrick Frankly I drink coffee for the aroma, the social aspect, and as a conduit for vanilla creamer. The coffee itself needs to be passable but not great.
@thismyusername This is true. A tiny bit of salt will tame the bitterness in junky coffee. Though I like my little salt with caramel and cream. If we’re going to hide it, do it well!
@melonscoopNuts.com has the best k-cup coffee I’ve ever tasted. No salt or flavored creamer required. Not a true k-cup as the coffee is not packed in plastic but something between mesh and cheese cloth.
@MehnofLaMehncha. I was going to say egg shells also, but then there is the salamonella factor. I used this a few times back in the folgers, Maxwell house days. I’ve been using only arabica beans for about 28 yrs, but I to stop drinking it for medical reasons. Man I miss my black cup of Joe.
When I was a child, my grandmother would routinely serve green beans and beets for Sunday dinner taken from the stash in her root cellar that had been home canned (mason jar) before WWII.
This was in the 1960’s.
If the seal wasn’t broken, it was fine. 20+ years of dark and cold storage worked well - along with her canning technique. As long as the seal (top) didn’t bulge or break, by God it wasn’t going to waste.
@Pavlov This. I grew up in a family of 8 children. Mom had to clip coupons and shop specials to save money. She taught me something when I was young that I still use to this day. If the seal isn’t broken it’s fine. And, while we’re on the subject, as far as metal cans go, dented is okay, but bloated is not. Maybe it was all a lie? When you have 8 kids, you can afford to take chances. If one dies, you still have 7 left!
@Pavlov When we moved my grandmother into assisted living we cleaned cans with dates spanning several decades out of her shed. Technically if it’s not dented or bulging it should still be safe. Technically. Should. At that point I’d really only want to try it in an apocalypse-type scenario.
And @capguncowboy: no, dented should be avoided. It might still be fine, but there’s also a risk that the can’s seal has been broken, and that’s the critical part of preservation with canned food.
@jqubed Buzzer! Flat wrong. If the seal is compromised it will leak. Then bloat. Then explode! Dents are fine. Stop being like that. It’s a bloody unsanitary world and we need to stop the antibacterial fascination. Ten cents a can for a dented, unlabeled can of peaches? Deal me in.
@ghostinrags It wouldn’t leak if the dent were on top, as would be the case if something were dropped on it. If it’s a small dent you might be fine, but the USDA says to avoid large dents.
When you have 8 kids, you can afford to take chances. If one dies, you still have 7 left!
I was lucky enough to have known my great-great grandmother on my mother’s side when I was very young. She was one of fourteen children. Five made it past the age of 25, and only three of them made it past 30 (each living to be over 100).
In a time before antibiotics, you had to have many children to keep the line alive . . . My mother remembers vividly a time when a minor cut suffered while playing outdoors could actually kill you. Sadly, with the state of current antibiotic resistance (mostly due to over-use), such may be my son’s future.
@ghostinrags Dents in cans with acidic products (tomatoes) can be problematic. Many (perhaps most now) cans used for acidic product are coated on the inside; the tiniest crack in that coating can allow the acid to attack the metal of the can.
But I’ve eaten SPAM that is 2-3 years past date with no problem. Ditto canned hams. If it looks and smells ok it just about always is, though nutritional value may decrease over time.
@Yoda_Daenerys
Some tv ad recently was for…<drumroll>
Antibacterial Paint!
Huh wha?
And, of course, it’s advertised as killing 99.something% of germs. Not 100%
I wonder what happens to the germs that don’t get killed by the fabulous killer paint. Perhaps a bit of mutation, perhaps develop a resistance to whatever in the paint kills some but not all bacteria?
Thank you paint industry!
IMHO way past time for the FDA to regulate all this.
Studies done in the 1970s on 110-year-old canned food from a civil war shipwreck found that while the food had lost its fresh smell and appearance and some nutritional content had broken down or leeched out there was no microbial growth and they determined that the food was as safe to eat as the day it had been canned. They also analyzed a 40 year old can of corn and it was again safe and mostly nutritionally intact, furthermore the corn still looked and smelled like newly canned corn.
There have been other studies, one being done by the US Army found food fine after 40-50 years, another looked at canned food from ~1820 and again found no issues, I’m sure there were more.
If food from 1820, the 1860s, or 40+ years ago is fine, imagine how pristine the food from more recent years is with all of the FDA regulations that have gone into place since regarding sanitation practices and the like. I would hazard to guess that canned food canned today will be perfectly edible a couple of hundred years from now. As long as the seal remains intact, the contents will be safe to eat.
The fact is that the expiration dates on canned foods, and even many other foods, are purely a sales mechanism. It’s all a massive lie with the government in cahoots with special interests to keep food product moving and keep the manufacturers of the food and the grocers making money.
@jbartus I’m sure some canned food from the days of old would be ok if stored in ideal conditions… But I’ve seen way too many videos on YouTube of people opening old canned food, and how disgusting some of it looks, and the smells that the YouTuber describes makes me not want to try.
Every once in a while they’ll get something that looks and smells good, so they’ll taste it, and get hit with a disgusting taste. Even more rare is when it tastes fine.
I don’t buy that much food in cans, and I eat it before the date, because it’s usually several years before it goes bad. I wouldn’t have enough cabinet space to store food for years and years.
I’ve tried old powdered food packets, think, pastaroni or whatever it’s called… And it just doesn’t taste right, so I won’t do that again.
The most common used food preservation technique I use is frozen. Frozen veggies and meat mostly. As long as it’s frozen properly where no ice gets in, it can last a long time and be fine.
@RiotDemon noooo you were fine, I was just pointing out that what I was saying related to edibility only! I did mention that the 100 year old food no longer looked or smelled fresh. Sorry if it came out sideways!
@jbartus As an aside: Freeze dried lasts pretty much forever if stored correctly - there are guys on YouTube reconstituting and eating 20, 40, 50 year old freeze dried MRE rations and they can’t discern a difference when compared to the same or similar dish which has been dried and stored for only a few months.
@RiotDemon MRE’s that have been stored in cool caves or even frozen have much better success rates . . . and that’s not a freeze-dried MRE. For fun, check out Steve’s other reviews and look for freeze dried MRE with the flameless ration heaters . . . and KiwiDude’s channel also. Freeze dried remains edible forever apparently. Especially the old Russian stuff that was freeze dried and then irradiated. Interesting stuff.
@Pavlov I’ve seen some of kiwi dudes videos, but I watch mostly the newer MRE videos. Pretty interesting stuff.
I’ve eaten a couple of American military MREs while camping. I love that little heater. It wasn’t the best food ever, but it was easy.
I love freeze dried strawberries. Strawberries in the store are always hit or miss… I mean, sometimes they’re so fucking bland. The freeze dried ones I’ve been eating always taste good, and they don’t add anything to them.
I also like “astronaut” ice cream. Most people think it’s weird, but I enjoy the crunchy texture.
@capguncowboy I am with @Looseneck, I have had milk expire as much as a week before the expiration date, and there is an interesting reason for that. If the milk was not handled properly while in transit, it could have a growth of bacteria in it, causing it to “expire” a lot faster than the printed label.
@serpent Do it now. And YouTube that stuff! Then time lapse… If you’re OK, great! If you get sick… Ratings!!! Call it a new Pokemon! You’ll get mobbed!
For me it depends a lot on what the food is. A lot of foods have their dates, but then there’s also instructions saying “once open, consume within # days.” For instance, milk is usually 7 days, so I’ve started writing the day I opened it on the carton, and when I reach that day the next week I dump it if there’s any left, even if it’s still inside the “best by” date. Things that are loaded with sugar, salt, or acid and unlikely to spoil anyway, like jam or pickles, I can let go well past their date. Things like bread or chips I look at and make a judgement call.
With my neuroses, taking a food safety class was the best/worst thing that could happen to me.
ONE<> i look at, if it has mold, i check the color and depth of the mold, remove the mold and proceed to step 2.
step b: smell it, if it’s a little bad, smell it again after diggin out some of the gross stuff, if it’s still in question see if warming it makes the smell worse or better
III. take a small bite in proximity of the sink so you can spit it out, or barf your lunch into the garbage disposal
The only thing I use expiration dates for is to pick the freshest items at the supermarket. For instance if one carton of milk is Sep 15 and the other is Oct 1, I’ll go with the latter.
I was raised to eat anything that you could scrape the mold off, except meat. I ate the bottom half of some moldy cottage cheese just the other day.
(It wasn’t until around college that I discovered there are people who are MUCH more up tight about this stuff than we were.)
Coincidentally, I have this very conundrum. While digging around in the refrigerator I found a jar of salsa that has a sell by date of last spring. Glass jar with metal lid. The lid is not bulging, it is still concave so the vacuum seal is still there. From outside inspection it does not look moldy. I’m still afraid to open it and try it.
@sjk3 Not sure why it would be in the fridge unopened… unless it was designed to be refrigerated throughout its product life, but then it probably wouldn’t need/have a metal lid… so confused…
@sjk3 it should be 100% fine. Besides the fact that it’s a sealed jar and the date on it is a scam anyhow, it’s acidic which pushes any concern even further out.
I don’t mess around with old tomatoes – I’ve gotten just sick enough to feel miserable (but not sick enough to go to the doctor) a couple of times making something out of tomatoes just at or just past the sell by date. They looked okay, they smelled okay, they were not okay.
My wife won’t even eat or cook anything that is in within one day of expiring. That makes me crazy. Then her mother once said to me, cooked chicken never goes bad. Now I get her hyper-reaction to the other side.
Also, we now always eat out when visiting my in-laws.
@TheCO2 Tell me about it. They let it sit literally for months thinking it’s OK. My mother-in-law routinely brings us food that we tell her was delicious, but usually just dump it the next trash-day not willing to risk it.
Milk gets tossed on the “use by” date.
Down to the second.
Even if never opened.
I had one to many mouthfuls of milk that had turned. <shudder>
Then, there was the time I poured out lumpy milk on my cornflakes from a freshly-opened carton … The carton still had 2 weeks left, according to the date on it.
Refrigeration must have failed on the delivery truck at some point.
@icehole In my experience it’s more likely the problem is at store level. Check the temperature of the dairy coolers at the store. It should be 35-38°F.
One store where I shop had a dairy cooler temperature of about 45; I let the employee working in the dairy section know it was too high. Since then temps have been okay.
I don’t mess around with that with meats, sniff test for milk, I do the egg test to see if they’re still good (most eggs are good 6 weeks past their sell by date), everything else is a case by case basis.
I’m really careful about meat, especially chicken and pork.
Milk I go by smell. Kiddo is on whole milk. We’ve had 2 containers go bad BEFORE the date. Pisses me off.
Eggs I’m good with. We’ll boil them after the date. All the deviled eggs.
I’m pretty picky about food storage, so we’re pretty generally aware of what quality and edibility the food we have is.
@ChadP Tips about milk:
It isn’t necessarily spoiled just because it starts to smell bad. You can still use it for cooking.
Never buy milk in clear plastic jugs because light speeds up the processes that make the milk smell bad. Opaque cartons or containers, always.
However, if you want milk with an expiration date about 4-5 weeks from the time you buy it, that will remain fresh in the container for 3-4 weeks after it is opened, then buy organic milk in the opaque carton. It costs more, but it tastes better and lasts until you use it up.
@looseneck@rockblossom@ChadP
Our household (2 teen boys + stay-at-home spouse) goes thru a lot of milk, especially in the summer. Only drink milk, V-Fusion, & water.
But the dairy we buy from has ‘happy’ cows
/image Braum’s happy cows
Usually no meat/fowl/fish/milk in the fridge. If they are there, extreme caution. Consume or toss quickly.
Veggies and fruits: i examine them.
Cheese: scrape off the mold if needed.
Breads: Avoid due to trying to go a little more paleo.
Ingredients: store them properly and keep an eye on them. Get rid of them if they seem “really really old” and were purchased and/or stored in bulk.
Packaged/canned goods: if the packaging is intact, they are prob ok.
Leftovers: gone if not eaten before the delay starts to bother me. Usually tossed after a few days
Frozen stuff sealed before purchase: prob good unless freezer failure.
Frozen stuff sealed by normal people: toss if “too old”, good for at least some months. Possibly longer, assuming no freezer probs, and reasonably sealed.
Stuff that’s not supposed to be in the house at all (pizza, brownie, cookies, chips, boxed cereal, stuff that is “supposedly food, according to manufacturer”: this never lasts that long without being eaten, or being tossed because “ick factor”
I pretty much go by the sniff/not too fuzzy test. So far, it has served me well, though I think I may have a higher than normal tolerance. Once on a trip to Peru, everyone in the group got ‘traveler’s diarrhea’ but my wife and I, and we were the ones eating at the salad bar, buying street foods, and drinking stuff with ice cubes in it. Guess those years of camping trips with the kids where we had to filter water from a stream etc. paid off in the long run.
I was that kid in grade school who would eat almost anything if you paid me. I have no scent- or taste-induced gag reflex. I don’t get sick all that often. In short, I will cut off the moldy bits and eat the rest. Yeah, I’m that guy.
If the color, texture, flavor and scent are fine, I’m satisfied. The expiration date is often arbitrary anyway.
I drink two or three gallons of milk a week, so it never gets a chance to go bad. And we get our eggs from our own chickens and ducks, so they’re super-fresh to begin with, and have an incredibly long shelf life.
@dannybeans I agree. Eggs can last a LONG time before they go bad. The biggest problem is that they tend to take up a lot more space in the pan as they get older. Fresh eggs stay nice and ‘tall’ in the skillet.
I care if it’s something we’re probably never going to use and I want to make space in the pantry or fridge. Then I’m all “THIS EXPIRED TWO DAYS AGO. TRASH!”
I’m always wanting to make space in the pantry or fridge.
Here’s a lengthy story about one of my experience with expired food. A guy named Dane took over a space that used to be an Eagle’s Grocery Store.
“He” called it Dane’s Discount. Think Big Lots if Big Lots sold expired food, cheap rugs, worse home good items, Rascal scooters, large concrete lawn animals, and a large variety of weapons.
16 year old VanSlater and friends were extremely into the idea of a $5 banana box filled with expired but still good snack foods, as well as the cheap array of blow darts.
One of $5 boxes of food led to my most expired food consumption. Bugles. Months, and months, and months over the best by date. They were delicious.
I still have a South Korean MRE that I got in Iraq in 2004 and it expired in 2005. I would still eat it though, if I wasn’t keeping it as a souvenir. I guess I could eat it and just save the package. The contents are pretty much like ramen noodles, which last forever and ever. I would NOT do this with a US Army MRE though. I’m pretty sure that shit is expired before they even put it in the package.
As long as it’s not chicken or pork I go by visual inspection (and smell).
I don’t fuck around with pork and chicken though. I had salmonella poisoning when I was a kid and nearly died. I’m pretty sure I’m invincible now, but I like to play it safe anyway.
@capguncowboy I gave myself less serious but still unfun food poisoning with some leftovers that I thought passed the smell test. I’d do it again.
@metageist rofl – was it meat? I feel like certain foods will never go bad. Cooked lasagna? Nope. As long as it’s refrigerated, it’ll last forever.
@capguncowboy Exactly my thoughts. I’ve had salmonella before and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m 6ft, 155ish lbs. usually and when all was said and done I was down to about 130. Some of the worst weeks of my entire life.
@Nebulium I was 10 years old. 5’1 and a measley 70 lbs. I got down to 40 lbs.
Truth be told, it was never officially diagnosed. It’s entirely possible that I had E. coli, but the doctors I saw were certain it was one of the two, leaning towards salmonella more than E. coli
They never ran tests because I didn’t go in until after I was better – well, I went in when I first got sick and they said it was just a stomach bug. It got progressively worse that evening and all I really remember was laying in bed shitting myself for what felt like a month. I don’t know how long I was actually out but it was probably a few days. I slept a lot, woke up, showered while mom changed the sheets, and then back to bed. I couldn’t keep anything in. It just ran straight out the other end. It took about a year before I really had an appetite again.
I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
@capguncowboy Did you try chicken or pork through this espresso machine?! I’m seeing a new trend… Porkspresso. Chickiccino. Yeah baby. Yeah.
@capguncowboy I think they were shrimp and/or pork dumplings, could have been pushing a week in the fridge. It was a rough few days and I didn’t feel right for almost a year after. I have a pretty weak stomach over all, I love to eat, and I am often quite lazy. Its a powerful combo.
@capguncowboy Salisbury steak too. Salt. Nothing can live in that health food!!!
I’m still working on a crate of K-cups that was best in December 2014. I taste no difference.
@melonscoop K cups start out tasting like shit so its not like it matters.
@andrewpatrick Frankly I drink coffee for the aroma, the social aspect, and as a conduit for vanilla creamer. The coffee itself needs to be passable but not great.
@andrewpatrick add a tiny sprinkle of salt!
@thismyusername This is true. A tiny bit of salt will tame the bitterness in junky coffee. Though I like my little salt with caramel and cream. If we’re going to hide it, do it well!
@ghostinrags I swear they pre-add the salt to the “Dark Magic” kcups, it’s the only one I really like the taste of right out of the machine.
@melonscoop Nuts.com has the best k-cup coffee I’ve ever tasted. No salt or flavored creamer required. Not a true k-cup as the coffee is not packed in plastic but something between mesh and cheese cloth.
@thismyusername Just got them last night on closeout at the store… just noticed they are past the sell by date of may. At $5 a box no complaints.
I have three criteria for coffee: Hot, Caffeinated, High-Quality (of which freshness is a factor). If it’s any two of those, I’ll drink it.
(This after years as a barista. I guess it didn’t take. And I even prefer cream and sugar!)
Salt + egg shells = mess hall coffee. So good with a ham and cheese “omelette” and sausage that’s been under the warming light for 2 hours.
@MehnofLaMehncha. I was going to say egg shells also, but then there is the salamonella factor. I used this a few times back in the folgers, Maxwell house days. I’ve been using only arabica beans for about 28 yrs, but I to stop drinking it for medical reasons. Man I miss my black cup of Joe.
A mentor of mine once had a can of baking powder in his kitchen that expired in 1973. I tried to bake some bread with it. It didn’t work.
/giphy flat dense bread
@chuegen baking bread works better with an oven. Just sayin’
/giphy you can’t cook with that
@capguncowboy …or a cheap mehtastic bread maker.
And if you look in their fridge, I’m sure there is a condiment museum.
@chuegen generally yeast is the preferred leavening for bread… just sayin’…
@chienfou in normal circumstances, yes, but this one was intended to be a quick bread.
@chuegen
ATK says baking powder is 50% effective at 6 months
But it won’t kill you.
When I was a child, my grandmother would routinely serve green beans and beets for Sunday dinner taken from the stash in her root cellar that had been home canned (mason jar) before WWII.
This was in the 1960’s.
If the seal wasn’t broken, it was fine. 20+ years of dark and cold storage worked well - along with her canning technique. As long as the seal (top) didn’t bulge or break, by God it wasn’t going to waste.
We lived.
@Pavlov …same here - and as long as the stuff wasn’t growing by itself.
@Pavlov This. I grew up in a family of 8 children. Mom had to clip coupons and shop specials to save money. She taught me something when I was young that I still use to this day. If the seal isn’t broken it’s fine. And, while we’re on the subject, as far as metal cans go, dented is okay, but bloated is not. Maybe it was all a lie? When you have 8 kids, you can afford to take chances. If one dies, you still have 7 left!
@Pavlov When we moved my grandmother into assisted living we cleaned cans with dates spanning several decades out of her shed. Technically if it’s not dented or bulging it should still be safe. Technically. Should. At that point I’d really only want to try it in an apocalypse-type scenario.
And @capguncowboy: no, dented should be avoided. It might still be fine, but there’s also a risk that the can’s seal has been broken, and that’s the critical part of preservation with canned food.
@jqubed Buzzer! Flat wrong. If the seal is compromised it will leak. Then bloat. Then explode! Dents are fine. Stop being like that. It’s a bloody unsanitary world and we need to stop the antibacterial fascination. Ten cents a can for a dented, unlabeled can of peaches? Deal me in.
@ghostinrags “antibacterial fascism”, is that really what you were goin’ for?
/giphy antibacterial fascism
/image antibacterial fascism
/youtube antibacterial fascism
antbiateirclal facismsm
4N7184C73R14L F45C15M
ANTIBACTERIAL FASCISM
@ghostinrags It wouldn’t leak if the dent were on top, as would be the case if something were dropped on it. If it’s a small dent you might be fine, but the USDA says to avoid large dents.
@capguncowboy
I was lucky enough to have known my great-great grandmother on my mother’s side when I was very young. She was one of fourteen children. Five made it past the age of 25, and only three of them made it past 30 (each living to be over 100).
In a time before antibiotics, you had to have many children to keep the line alive . . . My mother remembers vividly a time when a minor cut suffered while playing outdoors could actually kill you. Sadly, with the state of current antibiotic resistance (mostly due to over-use), such may be my son’s future.
@ghostinrags Dents in cans with acidic products (tomatoes) can be problematic. Many (perhaps most now) cans used for acidic product are coated on the inside; the tiniest crack in that coating can allow the acid to attack the metal of the can.
But I’ve eaten SPAM that is 2-3 years past date with no problem. Ditto canned hams. If it looks and smells ok it just about always is, though nutritional value may decrease over time.
@Yoda_Daenerys
Some tv ad recently was for…<drumroll>
Antibacterial Paint!
Huh wha?
And, of course, it’s advertised as killing 99.something% of germs. Not 100%
I wonder what happens to the germs that don’t get killed by the fabulous killer paint. Perhaps a bit of mutation, perhaps develop a resistance to whatever in the paint kills some but not all bacteria?
Thank you paint industry!
IMHO way past time for the FDA to regulate all this.
@Pavlov @chuegen @capguncowboy @jqubed @ghostinrags @Yoda_Daenerys @duodec @f00l
Studies done in the 1970s on 110-year-old canned food from a civil war shipwreck found that while the food had lost its fresh smell and appearance and some nutritional content had broken down or leeched out there was no microbial growth and they determined that the food was as safe to eat as the day it had been canned. They also analyzed a 40 year old can of corn and it was again safe and mostly nutritionally intact, furthermore the corn still looked and smelled like newly canned corn.
There have been other studies, one being done by the US Army found food fine after 40-50 years, another looked at canned food from ~1820 and again found no issues, I’m sure there were more.
If food from 1820, the 1860s, or 40+ years ago is fine, imagine how pristine the food from more recent years is with all of the FDA regulations that have gone into place since regarding sanitation practices and the like. I would hazard to guess that canned food canned today will be perfectly edible a couple of hundred years from now. As long as the seal remains intact, the contents will be safe to eat.
The fact is that the expiration dates on canned foods, and even many other foods, are purely a sales mechanism. It’s all a massive lie with the government in cahoots with special interests to keep food product moving and keep the manufacturers of the food and the grocers making money.
@jbartus I’m sure some canned food from the days of old would be ok if stored in ideal conditions… But I’ve seen way too many videos on YouTube of people opening old canned food, and how disgusting some of it looks, and the smells that the YouTuber describes makes me not want to try.
Every once in a while they’ll get something that looks and smells good, so they’ll taste it, and get hit with a disgusting taste. Even more rare is when it tastes fine.
I don’t buy that much food in cans, and I eat it before the date, because it’s usually several years before it goes bad. I wouldn’t have enough cabinet space to store food for years and years.
I’ve tried old powdered food packets, think, pastaroni or whatever it’s called… And it just doesn’t taste right, so I won’t do that again.
The most common used food preservation technique I use is frozen. Frozen veggies and meat mostly. As long as it’s frozen properly where no ice gets in, it can last a long time and be fine.
@RiotDemon we were discussing edibility, not taste, odor or appearance
@jbartus sorry. I’ll keep my two cents to myself next time.
@RiotDemon noooo you were fine, I was just pointing out that what I was saying related to edibility only! I did mention that the 100 year old food no longer looked or smelled fresh. Sorry if it came out sideways!
@jbartus As an aside: Freeze dried lasts pretty much forever if stored correctly - there are guys on YouTube reconstituting and eating 20, 40, 50 year old freeze dried MRE rations and they can’t discern a difference when compared to the same or similar dish which has been dried and stored for only a few months.
@Pavlov @jbartus
Coffee is good… Pears, not so much.
@RiotDemon MRE’s that have been stored in cool caves or even frozen have much better success rates . . . and that’s not a freeze-dried MRE. For fun, check out Steve’s other reviews and look for freeze dried MRE with the flameless ration heaters . . . and KiwiDude’s channel also. Freeze dried remains edible forever apparently. Especially the old Russian stuff that was freeze dried and then irradiated. Interesting stuff.
@Pavlov I’ve seen some of kiwi dudes videos, but I watch mostly the newer MRE videos. Pretty interesting stuff.
I’ve eaten a couple of American military MREs while camping. I love that little heater. It wasn’t the best food ever, but it was easy.
I love freeze dried strawberries. Strawberries in the store are always hit or miss… I mean, sometimes they’re so fucking bland. The freeze dried ones I’ve been eating always taste good, and they don’t add anything to them.
I also like “astronaut” ice cream. Most people think it’s weird, but I enjoy the crunchy texture.
Depends whether you shop at Food Lion or not.
Seafood? Letter of the law.
Dairy? Sniff test.
Packaged/canned goods? Pretend there is no Exp Date.
I don’t mess with outdated meat or dairy. Anything else is on a case-by-case basis.
@escapecar Milk is good for 7 days past the expiration date (as long as your fridge is set and functions at the correct temperature).
@capguncowboy And as long as it’s not chunky and smelly. Mine seems to go bad 3 days before expiry and my top shelf is so cold everything freezes.
@capguncowboy I am with @Looseneck, I have had milk expire as much as a week before the expiration date, and there is an interesting reason for that. If the milk was not handled properly while in transit, it could have a growth of bacteria in it, causing it to “expire” a lot faster than the printed label.
It varies. Packaged/sealed, it can be stretched. Fresh foods, not quite so long.
A month ago I ate hot dogs, that expired in the spring of 2015, with barbecue sauce, that expired in 2012. Was super delicious, would do it again.
@serpent Do it now. And YouTube that stuff! Then time lapse… If you’re OK, great! If you get sick… Ratings!!! Call it a new Pokemon! You’ll get mobbed!
@ghostinrags I don’t have any expired hot dogs left. Also, all the public blogging / youtubing / attention whoring is not my thing.
@serpent
Quote:
“all the public blogging / youtubing / attention whoring is not my thing”
So,by modern standards, you’re socially and perhaps morally underdeveloped? How refreshingly retro!
/giphy dignity or lack thereof
For me it depends a lot on what the food is. A lot of foods have their dates, but then there’s also instructions saying “once open, consume within # days.” For instance, milk is usually 7 days, so I’ve started writing the day I opened it on the carton, and when I reach that day the next week I dump it if there’s any left, even if it’s still inside the “best by” date. Things that are loaded with sugar, salt, or acid and unlikely to spoil anyway, like jam or pickles, I can let go well past their date. Things like bread or chips I look at and make a judgement call.
With my neuroses, taking a food safety class was the best/worst thing that could happen to me.
I like my milk clumpy.
@TheCO2 I like my dates clumpy.
@ghostinrags That too.
@ghostinrags @TheCO2
/giphy lumpy dates
@compunaut @ghostinrags I think this is a lumpy date. I mean, Google brought it up in a search for ‘lumpy dates,’ so it has to be.
Side note: a search for ‘clumpy dates’ isn’t much fun. It’s just a bunch of pictures of food and makeup.
Makeup; really?
@TheCO2 Hahaha, that is more than likely the art of a buddy named Martin aka Lumpy from the rock n roll group Lumpy & The Dumpers.
/youtube lumpy and the dumpers face the meat
EDIT: Confirmed. It’s the cover of their new LP. https://erstetheketontraeger.bandcamp.com/album/ett-023-lumpy-and-the-dumpers-collection-lp
ONE<> i look at, if it has mold, i check the color and depth of the mold, remove the mold and proceed to step 2.
step b: smell it, if it’s a little bad, smell it again after diggin out some of the gross stuff, if it’s still in question see if warming it makes the smell worse or better
III. take a small bite in proximity of the sink so you can spit it out, or barf your lunch into the garbage disposal
D - did someone mention expiration dates?
The only thing I use expiration dates for is to pick the freshest items at the supermarket. For instance if one carton of milk is Sep 15 and the other is Oct 1, I’ll go with the latter.
I was raised to eat anything that you could scrape the mold off, except meat. I ate the bottom half of some moldy cottage cheese just the other day.
(It wasn’t until around college that I discovered there are people who are MUCH more up tight about this stuff than we were.)
Coincidentally, I have this very conundrum. While digging around in the refrigerator I found a jar of salsa that has a sell by date of last spring. Glass jar with metal lid. The lid is not bulging, it is still concave so the vacuum seal is still there. From outside inspection it does not look moldy. I’m still afraid to open it and try it.
@sjk3 Not sure why it would be in the fridge unopened… unless it was designed to be refrigerated throughout its product life, but then it probably wouldn’t need/have a metal lid… so confused…
@chienfou It is shelf stable, but some people like their salsa chilled as opposed to room temperature.
@sjk3 it should be 100% fine. Besides the fact that it’s a sealed jar and the date on it is a scam anyhow, it’s acidic which pushes any concern even further out.
I don’t mess around with old tomatoes – I’ve gotten just sick enough to feel miserable (but not sick enough to go to the doctor) a couple of times making something out of tomatoes just at or just past the sell by date. They looked okay, they smelled okay, they were not okay.
I mostly don’t worry about it. I’m old, so most canned, preserved or frozen foods have more longevity than I do.
College student.
@JoetatoChip …will eat ANYTHING.
My wife won’t even eat or cook anything that is in within one day of expiring. That makes me crazy. Then her mother once said to me, cooked chicken never goes bad. Now I get her hyper-reaction to the other side.
Also, we now always eat out when visiting my in-laws.
@ACraigL “cooked chicken never goes bad”
That’s really scary.
@TheCO2 Tell me about it. They let it sit literally for months thinking it’s OK. My mother-in-law routinely brings us food that we tell her was delicious, but usually just dump it the next trash-day not willing to risk it.
@ACraigL My best friend leaves her turkey out of the fridge to defrost. For days. Even her husband says this is the way to do it.
I can’t even.
My husband and I will not eat at her house…ever.
/image defrost turkey
I actually had to laugh about pushing it with chips and cookies…as if either of those EVER hit the expiration date. NOT IN MY HOUSE!
Milk gets tossed on the “use by” date.
Down to the second.
Even if never opened.
I had one to many mouthfuls of milk that had turned. <shudder>
Then, there was the time I poured out lumpy milk on my cornflakes from a freshly-opened carton … The carton still had 2 weeks left, according to the date on it.
Refrigeration must have failed on the delivery truck at some point.
No hall pass for milk.
@icehole In my experience it’s more likely the problem is at store level. Check the temperature of the dairy coolers at the store. It should be 35-38°F.
One store where I shop had a dairy cooler temperature of about 45; I let the employee working in the dairy section know it was too high. Since then temps have been okay.
I don’t mess around with that with meats, sniff test for milk, I do the egg test to see if they’re still good (most eggs are good 6 weeks past their sell by date), everything else is a case by case basis.
@hollboll …and in Europe the eggs aren’t even in the refrigerated area of the store to start with. They are out on the shelf at room temp…
@chienfou I’ve heard that. Sounds like a better system over all.
@chienfou I can attest to this. We have a small flock of chickens and ducks, and the eggs we get from them are just fine at room temperature.
I’m told it’s because there’s a waxy layer that helps preserve them, but Evil Big Egg washes it off, man. (Can you tell I’m a bit skeptical?)
I’m really careful about meat, especially chicken and pork.
Milk I go by smell. Kiddo is on whole milk. We’ve had 2 containers go bad BEFORE the date. Pisses me off.
Eggs I’m good with. We’ll boil them after the date. All the deviled eggs.
I’m pretty picky about food storage, so we’re pretty generally aware of what quality and edibility the food we have is.
@ChadP Tips about milk:
It isn’t necessarily spoiled just because it starts to smell bad. You can still use it for cooking.
Never buy milk in clear plastic jugs because light speeds up the processes that make the milk smell bad. Opaque cartons or containers, always.
However, if you want milk with an expiration date about 4-5 weeks from the time you buy it, that will remain fresh in the container for 3-4 weeks after it is opened, then buy organic milk in the opaque carton. It costs more, but it tastes better and lasts until you use it up.
@rockblossom This. I buy organic ($3.99 for a half-gallon) just so I can use it before it expires.
@looseneck @rockblossom @ChadP
Our household (2 teen boys + stay-at-home spouse) goes thru a lot of milk, especially in the summer. Only drink milk, V-Fusion, & water.
But the dairy we buy from has ‘happy’ cows
/image Braum’s happy cows
Usually no meat/fowl/fish/milk in the fridge. If they are there, extreme caution. Consume or toss quickly.
Veggies and fruits: i examine them.
Cheese: scrape off the mold if needed.
Breads: Avoid due to trying to go a little more paleo.
Ingredients: store them properly and keep an eye on them. Get rid of them if they seem “really really old” and were purchased and/or stored in bulk.
Packaged/canned goods: if the packaging is intact, they are prob ok.
Leftovers: gone if not eaten before the delay starts to bother me. Usually tossed after a few days
Frozen stuff sealed before purchase: prob good unless freezer failure.
Frozen stuff sealed by normal people: toss if “too old”, good for at least some months. Possibly longer, assuming no freezer probs, and reasonably sealed.
Stuff that’s not supposed to be in the house at all (pizza, brownie, cookies, chips, boxed cereal, stuff that is “supposedly food, according to manufacturer”: this never lasts that long without being eaten, or being tossed because “ick factor”
@f00l You are not normal people?
@ELUNO
No test has been developed to tell for certain.
/giphy not normal
I pretty much go by the sniff/not too fuzzy test. So far, it has served me well, though I think I may have a higher than normal tolerance. Once on a trip to Peru, everyone in the group got ‘traveler’s diarrhea’ but my wife and I, and we were the ones eating at the salad bar, buying street foods, and drinking stuff with ice cubes in it. Guess those years of camping trips with the kids where we had to filter water from a stream etc. paid off in the long run.
I was that kid in grade school who would eat almost anything if you paid me. I have no scent- or taste-induced gag reflex. I don’t get sick all that often. In short, I will cut off the moldy bits and eat the rest. Yeah, I’m that guy.
If the color, texture, flavor and scent are fine, I’m satisfied. The expiration date is often arbitrary anyway.
I drink two or three gallons of milk a week, so it never gets a chance to go bad. And we get our eggs from our own chickens and ducks, so they’re super-fresh to begin with, and have an incredibly long shelf life.
@dannybeans I agree. Eggs can last a LONG time before they go bad. The biggest problem is that they tend to take up a lot more space in the pan as they get older. Fresh eggs stay nice and ‘tall’ in the skillet.
I care if it’s something we’re probably never going to use and I want to make space in the pantry or fridge. Then I’m all “THIS EXPIRED TWO DAYS AGO. TRASH!”
I’m always wanting to make space in the pantry or fridge.
Milk is a no go, but it never makes it that long in our fridge
/giphy milk
Here’s a lengthy story about one of my experience with expired food. A guy named Dane took over a space that used to be an Eagle’s Grocery Store.
“He” called it Dane’s Discount. Think Big Lots if Big Lots sold expired food, cheap rugs, worse home good items, Rascal scooters, large concrete lawn animals, and a large variety of weapons.
16 year old VanSlater and friends were extremely into the idea of a $5 banana box filled with expired but still good snack foods, as well as the cheap array of blow darts.
One of $5 boxes of food led to my most expired food consumption. Bugles. Months, and months, and months over the best by date. They were delicious.
I still have a South Korean MRE that I got in Iraq in 2004 and it expired in 2005. I would still eat it though, if I wasn’t keeping it as a souvenir. I guess I could eat it and just save the package. The contents are pretty much like ramen noodles, which last forever and ever. I would NOT do this with a US Army MRE though. I’m pretty sure that shit is expired before they even put it in the package.