Expiration date on food

[focusondisney]

Be careful with expired baking products if anyone has a mold allergy. Mold spores can grow in old products & cause serious reactions. I had a coworker end up critically ill in the hospital from old pancake mix.

 

[Mysterian]

We were given a spice rack as a wedding gift 40 years ago. No such thing as expiration dates in 1982. We are still using some of those spices today.

So you're saying, "The spice never waned in our marriage."

 

[prairie_girl]

For most things, I view the best before date as a guideline. But milk? I won’t drink it as soon as it hits midnight on the day past it’s best before date. I’m sure it’s still fine, but I can’t bring myself to take a chance.

 

[tvguy]

So you're saying, "The spice never waned in our marriage."

No yet, anyway. I just looked and one of the original bottles is Cayenne pepper. It's still full and I suspect it will outlive my wife and I.

 

[tvguy]

For most things, I view the best before date as a guideline. But milk? I won’t drink it as soon as it hits midnight on the day past it’s best before date. I’m sure it’s still fine, but I can’t bring myself to take a chance.

I volunteer at the Food Bank and past sell date milk is all they give out. No non-fat milk as that spoils much faster than milk with even as little at 1% butter fat in it.

 

[Meriweather]

yes

 

[flyingdumbo127]

I would personally toss it. Prayers if you did go ahead, it came out just fine and you enjoyed it!

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

You're not going to believe this...

There's a movement in the UK to remove Best Before Dates from the packaging of foodstuffs, relying on you to sniff what's in front of you to assess if it's fresh or not. The idea is that'll we are too obsessed in dates etc for our own good.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

For most things, I view the best before date as a guideline. But milk? I won’t drink it as soon as it hits midnight on the day past it’s best before date. I’m sure it’s still fine, but I can’t bring myself to take a chance.

I think we got a little ahead of ourselves with milk this month. DS went to make his Carnation Instant Breakfast the other day on his way to work and it came out chunky. Unfortunately he took a sip of it. Thankfully was near the sink and spit it out, lol.

 

[mefordis]

I doubt there's bugs if it's sealed. And if there's bugs, they're nature's little protein pals there to enrich that lemon pound cake. But likely, they'll be absent.

Update us, please. I need to know how it tastes, there must be closure.

I will be sure to update this thread when I make it, which will probably be Saturday.

 

[wowsmom]

That's usually pretty easy to figure out. Once I bought a can of McCann's steel cut Irish oatmeal. It was well within its sell by date and the can itself was hermetically sealed when I got it. But I pulled back the seal (heard a whoosh of the inert gas escaping) and it noticeably smelled rancid. But I've never had flour go bad, and I've had some bags that were opened and lying around for a couple of years.

I've definitely had flour go bad. It's not a great smell.

 

[DLgal]

That's usually pretty easy to figure out. Once I bought a can of McCann's steel cut Irish oatmeal. It was well within its sell by date and the can itself was hermetically sealed when I got it. But I pulled back the seal (heard a whoosh of the inert gas escaping) and it noticeably smelled rancid. But I've never had flour go bad, and I've had some bags that were opened and lying around for a couple of years.

It's not usually the flour, it's the fats in baking mixes that go rancid. Anything containing fats can go rancid. Even plain white flour has fats and will go rancid eventually. Whole wheat flour goes bad pretty quickly as does something like almond flour.

 

[Genie+]

I’ve noticed that everything has a much shorter expiration date than when I was a kid in the 80s. Some companies have even come out and talked about it, that the new shorter expiration dates are to make sure the products remain at peak freshness. I’m sure they don’t mind people throwing out and rebuying stuff too.

 

[ronandannette]

For most things, I view the best before date as a guideline. But milk? I won’t drink it as soon as it hits midnight on the day past it’s best before date. I’m sure it’s still fine, but I can’t bring myself to take a chance.

See, in my mind, perishables are different. I wouldn't use dairy (except maybe hard cheese) if it was past the date. But as for this cake mix? Heck yeah and honestly it would be a moot point in my kitchen because before this very moment I had no clue cake mixes had expiry dates.

 

[DLgal]

I’ve noticed that everything has a much shorter expiration date than when I was a kid in the 80s. Some companies have even come out and talked about it, that the new shorter expiration dates are to make sure the products remain at peak freshness. I’m sure they don’t mind people throwing out and rebuying stuff too.

It's also pushback against using chemical preservatives.

 

[disneychrista]

Totally would still make it. At worst, I think it won't rise properly because the baking powder in the mix is "old." You could just add a teaspoon of fresh baking powder to compensate.

 

[Moliphino]

For most things, I view the best before date as a guideline. But milk? I won’t drink it as soon as it hits midnight on the day past it’s best before date. I’m sure it’s still fine, but I can’t bring myself to take a chance.

I always sniff milk before using it. I've had it go bad before the date a few times, but I've also had it last well past it. No rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. You can definitely tell when it's gone bad.

 

[Princesca]

Be careful with expired baking products if anyone has a mold allergy. Mold spores can grow in old products & cause serious reactions. I had a coworker end up critically ill in the hospital from old pancake mix.

This - I read a story once about someone who died from this, and I've never been able to shake it.

 

[_19disnA]

If the dry goods have remained sealed and never gotten wet/damp, it might still be good. Many products now show a 'best buy' date since that is intended for optimum results/flavor. Shelf items can go stale or bad and it partly depends how you store them. In high heat/humidity, some things can go bad sooner then others. If they ever got wet, then I would certainly toss in the trash. With most herbs/spices, for example, it is recommended you replace annually since they lose their flavor over time. Food safety isn't about how much you can get away with before you make others ill, but rather about consistency and following safe handling guidelines.

With perishable products, it also matters how they were stored/handled before you buy them. I sometimes see perishable products placed outside the refrigerated sections at the grocery store waiting for an employee to refill the shelves. On a very hot day, those things can go bad if left out of the refrigerator for too long. Expiration dates go out the window if the product wasn't properly handled prior to you purchasing them.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Generally, I have a higher tolerance for best by dates on things that might go stale (like a bag of snacks) vs. things that might make me sick (like expired dairy products.)

I've made cakes/brownies that I'd missed the date on by a month or so. But I wouldn't expect a mix that far past it's date to be any good. I think I'd toss it rather than wasting the other ingredients to make it.