Pull Dates on Food Items

[Jim Koepke]

Candy, my wife, was clearing the cupboards out yesterday and came across a few items that passed the pull date.

One was a brownie mix with a pull date that read, "Best by Nov-15-14 09:56."

So these would be better if prepared at 09:55 than at 09:57?

Anyway I told her to go ahead and make them and if they didn't kill me they are okay.

They are not as good as my brownies made from scratch, but what the heck.

We used to work with a guy who used to work on some surveys where they would test past dated foods. Something to do with survival statistics after an apocalypse. Not something I would want to do.

If nothing else, this makes me think deep cupboards should have pull out shelves to keep things from getting pushed to the back and forgotten.

jtk

[Barry McFadden]

Made an attempt a while ago to straighten out our canned goods pantry. Found a few cans out of date but was surprised when one can of soup had a best before date of 2004!!!!....didn't open it just threw it out!!

[roger wiegand]

The "best by" date on most products means that's how long they ran the test. I know for sure for pharmaceuticals, and suspect its the same for shelf-stable foods, that you decide what a sensible time is, say 12, 24, or 30 months, run the tests and if they are good, that's your shelf life. No one pays to run a test until there is actual degradation, it would be absurdly expensive, not to mention time consuming, to run tests for many years or decades. Accelerated aging testing under extreme conditions can tend to understate actual shelf life.

[Jim Koepke]

One of my favorites is from the second RED movie when they are in a safe house that hasn't been used since the 1980s. Marvin is eating a Moon Pie he found in a drawer. Sarah asks him if he should be eating that and he says, "yeah, this is from before they had all that sell by date stuff."

jtk

[Randy Red Bemont]

My mother-in-law has a school fundraiser candy bar that is from 1981 in her fridge. I told her to will it to me someday.

I agree that pull out shelves would help keep pantry items from getting lost then discovered years too late.

Red

[Brian Elfert]

Most food shelves won't take food past the date, but I know one food shelf that will still distribute bread up to 10 days past the listed date.

[Jim Koepke]

Most food shelves won't take food past the date, but I know one food shelf that will still distribute bread up to 10 days past the listed date.

Some of the best deals I have gotten at Grocery Outlet is items on the day of the sell by date.

Especially some 4 packs of chocolate fudge pudding for 50¢ each.

That was a good week.

jtk

[Bruce Wrenn]

Dates fall into two classes: Best by and sell by. The best by is the date that the company has verified that product hasn't started to degrade. Degrade could be taste, color, texture, etc. Sell by is to ensure that product wouldn't still be in pantry when it reaches it's best by date. In Nam, guys were eating C-rations that were put up in 1946. Former officer with Traders Joe's has started a grocery chain that specializes in out of date food that is still good. We have a grand daughter in law who is paranoid about dates. I was over one day and she said she had to pour out some juice as it's best by date was the day before. Like there is a tiny micro chip clock inside container that goes of at midnight.

[Jim Koepke]

I was over one day and she said she had to pour out some juice as it's best by date was the day before.

Maybe they need to put a "you are really going to regret eating this after x/x/x" date on things.

jtk

[Brian Elfert]

There is a grocery store locally that specializes in selling food that is either at the printed date, or over the printed date. I stopped there once and would never buy any food there due to the overwhelming smell of rotten food in the store.