quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Get a case of Botulism from an old canned product and you will wish you NEVER ate an out of date canned meal.

For SHTF stuff, buy products you normally eat and just rotate through them so they stay fresh. Saving $2 to eat something 5 years out of date isn't worth the risk of a hospital visit for me!

^^^^^THIS IS THE RIGHT ANSWER!

An old French guy I used to work with would always say,”it says best before, not bad after....”
He grew up in occupied France.

He still plays sax in NOLA.

I found some freeze dried beef stew in the garage today that has a best by date of Feb 2017. Packs are like new, so I'll have no qualms about fixing them up this summer. About 30 years ago, I came across an MRE that had the outer pack puffed up like a balloon. Out of curiosity, I opened that outer envelope. I wish I had put on a gas mask first. One word--PUTRID!

In Korea (1959) we ate C rations that were canned in 1944. We lived.

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Did you check it's value on eBay?

Ok, I went and looked. I'm thinking why would people sell Kook Aid on E-bay.

Well, they do. Including vintage packets for hundreds of dollars! Are there Kool Aid connoisseurs out there that collect vintage packets for consumption? Are they like these wine snobs? Do you think they're mixing this 40 year old Kool Aid, swishing it around, sniffing it, and talking about it's "notes"?

We've volunteered at food banks in various places over the years and they all are fine with canned goods past the expiration date as long as the can is inspected. I don't think there's a set standard but I think most food banks will use canned goods for like 3-5 years past expiration. Other types of packaged goods like pasta in cardboard boxes or jarred peanut butter can be used past expiration but not nearly as long as canned goods.

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Originally posted by old dino:
Bottom line, after opening the Walmart can, nearly 4 year plus past due, the product seems like new the day it was canned.

So, if I understand correctly, Spam right off the shelf tastes like it's 4 years out of date?

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt Neutron:
About 30 years ago, I came across an MRE that had the outer pack puffed up like a balloon. Out of curiosity, I opened that outer envelope. I wish I had put on a gas mask first. One word--PUTRID!

When I got out...about then, somehow or another a couple cases of MREs found their way into my truck as I was packing up to come back home (strangest thing, I know). Less than a year later I grabbed a couple of them to take on an overnight hunting trip and they had turned already. It was a long hungry night. Bad QC at the factory or something.

Article on best by and safety date of home canned food.

What the National Center for Home Food Preservation says about the shelf-life of home canned goods

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) both say to try to use up your home canned goods within a year of making them. The reason is not so much for food safety, but rather for optimum food quality.

Elizabeth Andress of the NCHFP elaborates:

We do say we recommend using within a year for best quality; that also is not intended to indicate you should throw anything out that is over a year old. It says, use within a year for best quality. Beyond that, just like with commercially canned foods, you might start to see some quality deterioration.”

Andress says further,

We cannot give you an exact date for expiration. Theoretically, if the food was processed safely, for example for canning, and stored properly and shows no sign of spoilage, until that vacuum seal is broken, there should be no way that it becomes further contaminated or becomes unsafe. The one issue with keeping foods too long is you will get quality deterioration, you can get real darkening of colours of many foods, you might get some cloudiness that occurs as starches settle out of the foods, all these extended quality changes over time can start to interfere with our ability to detect spoilage even though it may not be actual spoilage, it may just be deterioration of the food quality, so it’s not a good idea to me to try use things really old or try to look at 25 year old food and assume that it’s safe…We just don’t have absolute expiration dates to give people and neither does the commercial industry, quite frankly. But if it was safe at the time it was originally canned, until that seal is broken there should be nothing else happening to make it unsafe. ”

Link to full article

I remember my stepdad and I opening old MCI's, or C-Rations, from the early to late 60's and some from the 70's that he stashed away from his time in the Guard.

Those things were still palatable, some, but not all! That was in the early 80's!

quote:

Originally posted by SapperSteel:

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Get a case of Botulism from an old canned product and you will wish you NEVER ate an out of date canned meal.

For SHTF stuff, buy products you normally eat and just rotate through them so they stay fresh. Saving $2 to eat something 5 years out of date isn't worth the risk of a hospital visit for me!

^^^^^THIS IS THE RIGHT ANSWER!

That's actually the wrong answer.

If you get poisoned by botulism toxin, then the expiration date of the food had nothing to do with it. The can is either sterilized at packing, or not. Once sterilized, it doesn't matter how old the food inside the can is--your only concern is letting the can get damaged and introducing bacteria into it.

quote:

Originally posted by goingbroke:
I remember my stepdad and I opening old MCI's, or C-Rations, from the early to late 60's and some from the 70's that he stashed away from his time in the Guard.

Those things were still palatable, some, but not all! That was in the early 80's!

There are a couple of MRE foods that aren't very good even when they are 2 days from the factory....

I did the C-Rats thing. Heated the cans on the engine of a deuce and a half. Nasty stuff! Ham and Mothers. Once I found a stash of what was labeled as crackers in an old fallout shelter. Dated 1956. They were 25 years old. They had the consistency of a ceramic tile. But still edible.