I just threw away like 50 pounds of food oO

My crazy mom must really love shopping for groceries. I just helped her go though her pantry and uncovered about 50 pounds of expired food... some of it dating back to 2002 oO
She was sort of pissed at me for being picky and went on and on about how they didnt have expiration dates when she was a kid and things would last "forever".
Next time, I should probably mention that her childhood memories date back to a time when what she perceived as "forever" was really only three months.

Wellllllll....

As a college student on a budget who has more than once been compelled for financial or simple lazieness to eat foot that was "expired", plus some simple logic, I'll vouch that a lot of expired food is just fine. The date is as much theoretical as practical, and tends to have a *very* large margin of error.

Some things, yes, you want to be picky about... canned tuna, for example. Other things, like dried mixes or pasta or something, its not nearly as critical.

That said, as another child of an obessive over-stocking mother, you have my condolences.

Well in all fairness half of it was flour. She bought a bread machine a few years ago and in her "new toy" excitement she bough an insane amount of flour. The bread machine doesn't even WORK anymore and we were still stuck with all this flour and powdered milk and stuff.

My mom is also a food pack rat. When we moved her out of the family home about three years ago, she gave me a ton of old cake mixes, some rice, pasta, and a ton of other dry goods, all from the roughly 2002 era.




The last sentance in this post will gross you out entirely, but it must be said. Its the reason those aaaaaaaaalllllllllllll went in the trash. (Side note - cake mix is really flammable, watch the eyebrows.)









Check for bugs.

Yeah I've had some candy bars develop worms in the past, god, opening that up was rather traumatizing. That's a major reason to keep a clean pantry - messy pantries with expired food develop nasty stuff in them.

Hmm.

Now - 2006
Then - "3 years ago," i.e. circa 2003?
Food - "roughly 2002 era"?

What's the problem?



P2

Flour bugs SUCK >.<

I don't understand to this day how this was, but my grandmother, who lived on a farm, did a lot of baking and had a flour drawer. This was a huge bin built into the bottom portion of the kitchen cabinets, that had one big door that pulled out and down to reveal the entire bin, kind of like some laundry hampers work.

That drawer NEVER had flour bugs. I still don't understand it.

coco

I would eat three year old canned tuna if I had to. But why? I prefer it fresh and raw, thank you kindly.

Rice seems to keep well too. As do rye crackers and lentil soup (in cans, or dried as beans).

But why eat so atrociously when you can purchase fresh food? Fresh fruits and grains will help you live healthy and long.

That aged stuff in the back of the pantry becomes *you*. Ick.

Crate of 20 packages of Ramen Noodles: 3.99 on sale
Spices, vegies, flour and egg to make noodles: Waaaaay more than 3.99

Can of tuna: .69 cents.
Fresh tuna: Waaaaaay more than .69 cents

Can of TREAT that makes four pretty decent sammiches: .99 cents
Sliced ham from the deli to make four sammiches: About 6 bucks.

my guess would be it was lined... Waxed heavy cloth or metal or something on the outer walls.

Probably more nutritious for you than the origional flour.

My family had to do that when we cleared out my grandparents house. Some of the canned food was even bulging! Botcholism anybody? mmm mmm good!

Nope nope nope. Just the wood. JUST THE DRAWER! Filled with, like, 50 pounds of flour!

coco

They are edible but they have an unpleasant smell.

My crazy mom has you beat. She still easily has food from the 90's, and probably a few choice items from the 80's. A few years ago my friend found some nerds in my mom's house, which he promptly started eating. They were from 1983. Some of them were black.
One time I found eggs in the back of my mom's refrigerator. She doesn't know how to cook so god knows how long they were there. I threw them in the backyard. I threw a few at solid bedrock and they merely bounced off. One happened to crack, revealing rock hard yellow and black inside.

EEEEEEWWW!!!

Went to my Grandmas place once in the late 90s. She has one of those top loading deep freezes, completely packed with food (empty nest syndrome, all of the kids left home, but she couldn't stop cooking for all of them, and ended up with leftovers to last forever).

So, anyway, on the way out she insisted we get something from the deep freeze for the trip home. We looked in there and found some Lefsa (sort of a Potato Flatbread) on the top. The bag had what looks like a 98 written on it. Still good I guess. We take it out and later on have a picnic. My mom pulls the lefsa out and it was all freezer burned. Completely gross. It was then that I realized that it was only 1997 and the bag was actually from '86. And it was on the top.

I think the relatives finally managed to convince her to leave the deep freeze behind when she moved in-town. Thank goodness.

One word. Tupperware.

Someone in my house forgot to close my tea once. Lots of tiny bugs floating in your freshly brewed tea is horrible. *shudders* At least (from tea bag inspection) it seems the little bugs were dead before they got boiled.

All tea is kept in Tupperware now!

The maggots make great fishing bait. The actually sell them as "meal worms"

Heh, just to toss my $L 0.02 in. I often buy exotic spices from ethnic stores where they have them in bins. I learned quickly to store them in the freezer for at least a month. Prevented me from finding crawly things in them later - ignorance is bliss!

Meal worms make great bait for small fish. When my dad has extra after a fishing trip he usually stores them in the refrigerator (yes, with the food) until the next time he goes fishing (usually less than a week). However, he does not do this with earthworms or red worms. I think because meal worms are stored in sawdust while the other worms are in dirt. The lower tempeature keeps their metabolism down and they don't go into the pupal stage as quickly.

I like to refer to them as "the worm that eats like a meal".

Actually, mealworms are a kind of beetle. Maggots typically spawn from flies.

(Too many fishing trips postponed because a silly git of a relative couldn't remember that the mealworms went in the fridge, only to pop open the jar to find... beetles.)

Close. The expiry date is guaranteed by the producer of the product for as long as the packaging is not compromised in any way. Past that point the item won't be guaranteed but it doesn't mean the product will be spoilt either. The large margin for error is because biochemical processes are so iffy when it comes to food. So you can have a product that stays fresh years from expiry, and some of that same product that spoils mere days after the expiry.

Fuckin' necroposters! I thought Eggy was frivolously wasting more food

Mind you, by now it might be time to check those cupboards again Eggy?