Vinegar based hot sauces are basically immortal; I’ve had Tabasco that was like 10 years old before
Does it lose any of its hotness?
It separated out to half clear vinegar and half… Red
You had to shake it back together but if anything it was even hotter than usual. It was wild
I think heat typically intensifies over time: anecdotally, leftover hot food is always hotter a couple of days after it was freshly made
In Europe we use expiration and best before dates.
With exp. dates, don’t push it: they mean after that date, the food could spoil and there’s biological risk on eating it. One day? Ok. 3 days… only if you have to and after looking closely for signs of spoiling. Cook it thoroughly.
With BBF dates, there is no risk unless evident contamination, meaning that after that date, the food will be edible but might have a different taste. Obviously, look for mold if the product was open, bwt it’s generally safe to eat even after years. Except fresh uncooked food, almost everything else falls in this category here.
Edit: typo
Very good explanation! The wording varies, in Czech and German it’s like “consume by” and “can be stored at minimum until”.
A store in my country once had an apology sign on display saying something along the lines of:
Some products in [this section] on sale [this year] were labeled with a “Sell By” date. According to [this EU directive], such a date is identical to the “Best Before” date. This has been fixed and we apologize for any confusion."
I have no idea how the “mistake” happened (normally, no food items share packaging between Europe and other continents) but I’m glad they got it sorted. The “Sell By” bullshit causes industrial-scale food waste by US supermarkets. Here, items about to pass BB are marked down by about 30% instead, and mom-and-pop stores usually have a discount shelf dedicated to past-BB items at 50% or higher discounts.
Do things that have a BBF date expire if you wait years?
As they said, generally no, they may just not taste as good.
For example - a pot of chilli powder probably will be fine after 5 years unopened in a cupboard, but probably won’t be as spicy as it used to be.
If well stored and with undamaged packaging, it can go for years without trouble. With bff products i generally go to groceries stores and look for a section dedicated to these products. They sell them cheaper and are completely safe. Good way to save money and fight food waste.
The 1kg Vegemite jar that was hand down to my by my father, and I hope to someday pass it down to my children when they are worthy
I understand in some cases it may be wasteful, but I’m super strict about expiration dates. Food poisoning is truly awful, and I don’t fuck around. All that barfing, shidding, and farding.
It is wasteful, the expiration date is very conservative. You can push it 20% or more for sealed, correctly stored items. Just check for signs of rot or mold. Food waste is a serious problem in first and second world countries.
No thanks.
The risk is worth it, I will probably never get food poisoning (as long as I’m careful when foraging) and I’m healthy overall so my body would take it well. I can’t imagine store-bought food pushed to less than +50% of its shelf life with no signs of decay will do permanent harm. I guess a week off work can be a problem if you’re in America? I feed old food to chickens instead if it goes stale or unappetizing so I never really waste any anyway.
I’m not discouraging you or any one else to be more flexible about them, I’m just saying I have my limitations on the matter.
If it’s meat, I typically follow that advice, though they make the expiration dates otherwise super difficult to find (if at all) and I usually find out in hindsight, and so over time, I have become used to just not thinking of the expiration dates unless an actual issue. I was with some friends the other day and they were amazed I was eating a nutrient bar that was almost a year past the date (still waiting for the side effects, which in a way surprises me as that would be my answer). Usually for them, once the expiration date comes, they just throw a thing outside for the animals (which I do very infrequently; typically I employ foods I don’t trust as art materials as I discovered it helps that hobby).
I just used up a bag of dried dates that were a couple years past the date on the bag. They weren’t noticeably different from when new. (They went into something baked so also seemed less of a big deal.)
been drinking liquor, that “expired” in 1937
I don’t press my luck with expired foods. It’s on me if I don’t eat something and I’ve had so long of a time to eat that food by. Like canned foods that go all the way out an entire year or even two. I just don’t want to ever experience botulism or food poisoning of any kind.
I rarely press my luck either, though mostly because the fact I know how to use what I buy and buy what I use makes it so I’m not used to finding something that’s past an expiration date. It used to be (and this is still slightly the case) I had to be “urged” to be afraid of it by people who were amazed I’d happily take anything regardless of a date.
I found oatmeal from 2001 in the pantry a few months ago and it was still good so I ate it.
Pasta, 12 years. Yoghurt, 1 month.
I’m impressed in a way that anything could be good up to twelve years past the expiration date.
Dry and sealed, it can last decades. Honey can last centuries but will usually expire after 1 year for legal reasons.
Fun fact: If you collect mad honey (the term for honey contaminated by bees which have pollinated poisonous flowers), you can wait for the poison to expire.
