I made a post about the shelf life of foods a couple years ago, but it was a bit short and there were a few inconsistencies, so I decided to delete it and start over. Originally I meant to make a new food shelf life chart, but in my research I found that many sources disagree on how long various foods last.
So instead, I want to to share some information on what affects food shelf life and how to take the expiration date on the package into account. Keep in mind that this article is mainly about food you can store in your pantry. You should be more cautious with refrigerated foods.
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Look at the expiration date on the food you buy. Virtually everything has an expiration date on it nowadays. But unfortunately, there is no standard format in which the date is printed.
For example, on a package of General Mills flour you might see the code, G221. For them, the months are labeled A-M starting with June (and skipping the letter I), so the G means December. The first 2 is the last digit of the year, so it means 2012. And the 21 is the date of the month. So G221 means December 21, 2012.
There are dozens of ways food companies print the expiration date, but most of the time, it’s pretty clear (ex. 12-21-2012). If you’re unsure, check the company’s web site to find out how they do it.
Here are a few examples of the types of codes you might see (I used the date December 21, 2012 in each case):
122112X: First two digits = month, next two digits = day, last two digits = year.
35628B2: First three digits = day of the year (the 356th day), next digit = year.
2356: First digit = last digit of year, next three digits = day of the year.
12212: First two digits = month, second two digits = date, last digit = last digit of year.
The digits I didn’t explain are manufacturing codes that have to do with less important information such as the plant at which it was packaged.
Once you’ve figured out the date, get a Sharpie and some labels (I prefer masking tape because it’s cheap, sticks well, and you can write on it) and put a label with the date on the front of everything so you can keep your food organized and rotate it more easily.
Actual Food Shelf Life
According to a study by Shelf Life Advice, 75% of people think food is unsafe to eat after the expiration date. That’s a shame because a lot of perfectly healthy food gets wasted. Food companies tend to print an expiration date that is far sooner than the actual expiration date.
Usually, it’s a just a guideline for grocery stores so they know the last day to leave the item on the shelf. In some cases, the company puts the date on there to avoid being sued by some idiot who eats 10-year-old mac and cheese and gets sick. But often the date is there to increase turnover and make more money. (People say, “We better eat this food before it goes bad.”)
The truth is, food will usually last up to a year beyond the expiration date (except for a few exceptions like brown rice and items with dairy). Canned food will often last several years or even decades longer. Just make sure the can isn’t dented, bulging or rusty.
On the other hand, if the can or package has been opened, then unless it’s a very long-lasting food like salt or sugar, you need to consume it quickly.
How to Store It
The ideal temperature to store food is 65 degrees F or less, and for every 15 degrees in temperature increase, the shelf life of food is reduced by 50%. I know it’s more expensive and a bit chilly, but try to keep your house at 70 or less during the summer if you don’t mind wearing a sweater and paying a higher power bill because it could change some of your food’s shelf life by up to a year.
Your food will also last longer if it’s in a dry environment, kept in airtight containers, and kept out of the light. I talked about some of those things in this post. Also, you can extend the expiration date even further by sealing your food in Mylar bags or dehydrating it. If you really don’t want to worry about this, consider buying some pre-packaged dehydrated or freeze dried food because it will last as long as 20 years.
Of course, you should always smell food that’s gone beyond the expiration date. If in doubt, toss it out.
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Use your noggin with food stuffs. When you open a canned good long past its “Best if Used By” date, your eyes and nose are your guides. A couple of basic questions that need answered, are what you need to answer before proceeding to eat or prepare the product. One, is the fluid level in the canned good reduced? Two, is the contents color consistant with a newer can? and Three, does the contents odor vary from a fresher can? If the answer to any of those 3 questions is yes, then you really need to proceed with increased caution. Why? This is canned food we’re talking about that was prepped and sealed with a certain amount of liquid in it. If that liquid is reduced or absent, the seal has most likely failed. Liquid evaporating past a seal is not good. Changing color is also a heads up. Yes prepared/canned goods are often not the same color after processing as fresh, but one expects Tomato sauce to be a deep red. What if it’s dark brown? Color change is a sign of oxidation. In other words, oxygen has gotten past the seal. Canning, whether home or industrial is an anaerobic procces (the goal is to reduce the air to none being present), if air can get in, so can bacteria. There are millions of bacterial pathogens that can effect a food. Obviously some are beneficial like the bacteria in yogurt, but there are some that can not only make you ill, but kill you. If the expected odor of a canned good is off, don’t eat it! Some pathogens have very strong and distinct smells. The Clostridea family (a member of which causes Gangrene is very distinct, and once you’ve smelled it, you’ll never forget it)of bacteria is a facultive anaerobe, in plain english, it can live and thrive in the absence of oxygen. It’s also an endospore producing bacteria, meaning the poison it releases is enclosed in a spore that is only susceptable to very high heat. Stovetop cooking isn’t usually hot enough to destroy the spore or its poison. Even when heated high enough and long enough to destroy the spore and poison, the food is compromised way beyond being palatable. The smell of it cooking drives most folks out of the room.
I’ve eaten, with no ill effects, canned goods 10+ years past their Best By dates. Following those Three Questions is what keeps the ill effects at bay.
“FOOD” Does not expire. It can only go bad. Know how to tell the difference.
Actually you are using the term “expiration date” which most foods do not have. What they do have (with the exceptions you noted) is a “Best By” date. Best by dates are just the manufacturers best guess at how long the food will remain at peak freshness, and still remains very safe to eat past the “Best by” date.
What you should be explaining is that the difference between expiration and best by dates. Billions of dollars of perfectly good food is tossed each year because of people not correctly explaining this simple fact. Please, update your article if you truly want for it to be useful, stop using “expiration date” when it does not apply!
i have lemon butter on the shelf that has turned very dark thoughts on eating or not
Actually, those dates also serve another purpose.
Companies are required by law to put an accurate nutritional value label on the product, and from what I remember, it has to be within a 2% accuracy range, and after that EXP. DATE, the food is out of that nutritional value range from what is printed on the label.
So really, the food has not expired, the accuracy on the nutritional value label has expired or basically, what’s in the can does not accurately reflect what’s inside the can. They also do the date for worse case storage conditions as well. So if you store it in ideal conditions, the food value will be retained much longer as well.
i have studied and eaten expired for many many years and there is NO BASIS for the dates.prior to 1990 there were NO DATES on any food and people that grew up in the 1900’s-1950’s did not die and were healthier than the are today…………..the MARKETING departments came up with dates to increase SALES……….nothing else………
There are applications for the calculation of the expiration date, I use it https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.shelflife.shelflife
cool, thanks for sharing!
Also, remember, these dates on the food packages, once you figure them out, MIGHT just happen to be the date the food was manufactured, and not the expiration date! Budweiser calls it a “born-on” date. You have to know which it is, to decide whether to keep it or toss it. . . . . .
Budweiser doesn’t hang around long enough to worry about it….