[EdnaMode]

Well if that's the case, I guess it's safe to eat that pasta sauce from 1987.....

[doorgunner69]

Heck, we used to eat C-rations well over 20 years old.

[Uncle Miltie]

Is it … clam?

[rhinohunter]

year-long experiment to test the limits of food that had passed its expiration date.

Definitely NOT on my bucket list...

[max americana]

Sure. Lemme drink that 2 year old milk that looks like concrete by now...

[glasseye]

I spent 33 years in the grocery industry at every level on the leader chain.
The ONLY mandated ‘use by’ dates were on the baby formula.
That’s it, everything else is marketing.
Milk: crap shoot...
Cheese: it only get better with age...
Bag salads: Is it rotten?
Your nose knows much better than the packaging manager....

[Sarcasm Factory]

Much depends on the exact comestible and the conditions under which it's stored. Dried rice, beans, and pasta can last decades if sealed tightly against pests and stored in cool, dry conditions away from temperature fluctuations and direct sunlight. Oxygen absorbers and dissicants help a lot. For that matter, I've drunk ultra-pasteurized milk from Dollar Tree that had passed its "best-by" date by two years. It was fine.

Gossner Foods Premium 2% Milk, 1 Quart Boxes (Dollar Tree)

[yarddog]

I sometimes purchase close dated and even expired food.

They are probably safe if not too far beyond expiration. I actually like steaks better if they are just past it.

Other food such as candy and potato chips lose their flavor or taste stale.

Fish? Forget it.

[hanamizu]

Expired gas-station sushi is right out.

[P-Marlowe]

So, when someone gets violently ill from eating expired food, can they sue the Washington Post for miseducating them?

[grame]

My kids are still mad because I would scrape the blue mold off of a block of cheese and grate it. They are still breathing 40 years later!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

https://outline.com/wduSeD

[archaicoldschool]

Hey! Who put the cottage cheese in the milk carton?

[SpaceBar]

Depends on how it's processed/packaged. Foods cooked (effectively sterilized) in steel cans will last through the next ice age, similarly with irradiated food. Peanut butter however has a distinct shelf life and will go rancid undisturbed a few years past the ‘expiration date’.

[Larry Lucido]

Expired sour cream is......sour?

[Wuli]

The same idea is usually true of a great many medicines.

The DOD and VA a number of years back took millions of doses of supposedly “expired” medicines in their stocks and put them through the most rigorous tests possible. Many were years past their expiration dates.

Most proved to contain as much active active-ingredients as supposedly unexpired medicines. The reason is because most medicines are not bilogically active; they are chemically inert and as long as they are stored in a dark dry place they usually are still good.

[be-baw]

I have yet to find any ground beef that doesn’t smell funky after it has been in the fridge for 4 or more days.

[yarddog]

I once got a great deal on 12 cases of MREs at a gun show. Unbelievable really. I think he just wanted to get rid of them. I got a total of 144 meals for $30.

They were just past the date stamped on the boxes. I actually liked most of them.

[dangus]

“Guaranteed best when used before” does not mean “spoiled if used after”

[\/\/ayne]

[Vermont Lt]

Your nose and eyes are a much better gage of something “going over” than the expiration dates.