Kitchen

[Mominohio]

I tend to be fairly good at rotating food, and I always have some canned and boxed goods that are past expiration or very near to being so. We eat past date food quite often and aren't panicky about it, within reason. 

This has been a good time to really look into the far reaches of our shelves, and work in expired or almost expired foods on a daily basis, as wasting is never a good thing, but especially bad right now. 

It's also not the time to get sick on old or bad food, so people need to use caution and know the length of time past the packaging date that things are still safe. 

But especially many canned good are good for years past their expiration. I just expect that there are tons of food being thrown away right now, because people didn't rotate or use up things they bought clear back at Y2K!

[depglass]

I am applying this principle to the leftovers in my frig.  I'm making combinations I never would have dreamed of in normal times.  I had some leftover pot roast to which I added leftover rice (even though potatoes were already present), and leftover asparagus spears.  All mixed up sounds pretty bad, but it actually was good.  Name the wierdest combination you have come up with, either now or in the past.

[millieshops]

@MominohioI'm with you in that I do use plenty of non-perishables right up to and past those printed dates. but I know there are pantries with boxes and cans long past any sensible use.  

Since I became a snowbird almost 20 years back, I've learned to clear each pantry before transferring myself. Twice a year I prep donations -  lots of perfectly fine boxes and cans accumulate over 6 months - especially in Florida where the supermarkets seem to favor BOGO's over 2 fers.

This year feels different.  I not only don't have a fixed plan for heading north, but I don't want to shop any more times than necessary, so I might not have much left. Maybe after the holidays Publix will make it easy for shoppers to donate $$ for the local food banks -  they often do that.

[namaste000]

Of all of the websites that I use on a regular basis, the one I use and appreciate the most is stilltasty with the usually .com.

It will tell you how long foods are good past the date, when opened or unopened, when cooked or uncooked...an encyclopedia of info that I go to  often!!!

[AuntG]

All I've thrown out are some peanuts because our hands may have touched them in the jar. The two expired things I found in my pantry have been eaten. One was a cranberry bread mix with a 12/17/19 expiration and the other was some French onion dip mix, also from December. They were both fine.

[denisemb]

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@namaste000 wrote:

Of all of the websites that I use on a regular basis, the one I use and appreciate the most is stilltasty with the usually .com.

It will tell you how long foods are good past the date, when opened or unopened, when cooked or uncooked...an encyclopedia of info that I go to  often!!!

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Besides stilltasty, I sometimes use eatbydate +.com.  Both very helpful!

[cookinfreak]

There were no exp dates on items when I was young (I am 60). Had to rely on common sense. I still use items that may be out of date, expired or close to it. If it looks and smells okay, I feel fine using it

cookin