Expiration dates of canned goods.

[tactical_2012]

Well I found a pack of McCormick's Brown Gravy in the back of the spice cabinet tonight the "use by date" was August 21, 2009. Well I figured heck with it lets try it. Cooked it up to go with the Pot Roast and taters the wife made tonight. It thickened up fine and tasted great. I think I'm going to have buy a bunch for my food stash.

[blacklabel]

Well I found a pack of McCormick's Brown Gravy in the back of the spice cabinet tonight the "use by date" was August 21, 2009. Well I figured heck with it lets try it. Cooked it up to go with the Pot Roast and taters the wife made tonight. It thickened up fine and tasted great. I think I'm going to have buy a bunch for my food stash.

A lot of times those mixes are stored in thin mylar packaging and they're dry in the first place. I wouldn't have any issues using them well past their use by date.

[rbeau30]

A lot of times those mixes are stored in thin mylar packaging and they're dry in the first place. I wouldn't have any issues using them well past their use by date.

I found an archive of an FDA page... talks a little bit about preservation and an old can of corn.
http://web.archive.org/web/200801150.../CON00043.html


Barring the container's deterioration... the food can stay good for a long time.

[jerrymrc]

Barring the container's deterioration... the food can stay good for a long time.

And I will agree and that is why I started this thread in the first place.

[HoneyBadger]

How long can one store something like a vitamin C supplement? That is a biggie in my book. I don't want to get scurvy when SHTF and I don't know of many citrus trees in CO. Rose Hips have lots of vitamin C but we don't have tons of roses either. Vitamins in a bottle seem like the best bet.

I'm curious about this as well. I have a few bottles of centrum multivitamins that I hope aren't worthless in 5 years.

[Wulf202]

Storage and degridation are hard to define without specifics. The container. Wet or dry packed and if they use an o2 obsorber. If I can find my chart on permeability of products ill post it.

If you can get things dry packed in steel or mylar and youre good for 10ish years.

[Aloha_Shooter]

30 years ago, I took some K-Rats on a school outing. My father had rescued a case of them when the Department of Civil Defense was rotating its supplies -- the case was dated (best as I recall) 1946 or 1948 or something like that. None of the cans were rusted or bulging. The P-38 worked like a charm of course. The spaghetti itself was bland and a rather disgusting texture since I hadn't bothered to heat the can before opening it -- in fact, after seeing the can, a schoolmate offered me his lunch if I'd throw it out. The fruit cocktail was marvelous. I survived eating both.

Think about what the item is and what it would take to make it degrade. Yogurt is past its date but has been kept sealed and cool? Just what do you think would have caused it to spoil? Do you think sugar or vinegar will go bad?

We live in wimpy weenie times.