Expiration Date Wiki Compendium

This site combines information from many sources and contains information on opened / unopened and refrigerated / frozen storage.

Who knew you could keep canned bread for up to three years? Who knew there was canned bread?

http://www.algeri-wong.com/wiki/index.p ... tion_Dates

From the site:

Most people are surprised to find out that:

Stores are not legally required to remove food once the expiration date has passed. They are strictly "advisory" in nature.
Dating is not federally required, except for infant formula and baby food. States have varying laws. Most states require that milk and other perishables be sold before the expiration date.


The major codes are:

Sell by - Don't buy the product after this date. This is the "expiration date."
Best if used by - Flavor or quality is best by this date but the product is still edible thereafter.
Use by - This is the last day that the manufacturer vouches for the product's quality.

Eggs:

Long enough for a month of omelets. Fresh eggs, in their shell, can last in the fridge for 4 to 5 weeks after purchase.

According to Alton Brown:

"An unrefrigerated egg ages a week in a day; keep eggs refrigerated. The rate at which an egg goes downhill has more to do with handling than time. The warmer it is, the faster the membranes that separate the different parts of the egg deteriorate. Properly stashed in their carton in the back of the fridge, eggs will keep an amazingly long time. Grade AA eggs will drop to Grade A eggs in about a week but won't descend to Grade B for about six weeks. After that they're still perfectly edible but I would not do much more than scramble them."

Am I the only one surprised or disgusted by the fact that stores aren't required to remove expired food from the shelves? My sister purchased a bag of frozen sausages from a big box store (another issue in itself, but she knows better now), fed them to her toddlers, and only after they all spiked fevers and were sick for three days did she realize that the sausages were SIX MONTHS past their expiration.

I'm all about consumer responsibility (her first mistake was feeding her kids that crap, not checking the date, etc.), but stores bear no burden of responsibility here? (Honest question. I'm curious.)

Expiration dates are a tricky thing for manufacturers. Once a product goes out the door, they have no control over how the product is handled. As a result, most tend to be conservative on "sell by" and similar dates. So, product purchased from a responsible retailer may be good well beyond its date; product from a shoddy retailer may have deteriorated somewhat even before the date on the label. I know of cases where one store, part of a well-known chain, would keep its refrigerated cases for milk at 50°+, while most others in the same chain would keep temperatures where they should be - roughly mid 30s.

That said, a product should be removed from shelves after its "expiration" date, even though the food may be perfectly safe and palatable.

mchodera wrote:...Eggs:

Long enough for a month of omelets. Fresh eggs, in their shell, can last in the fridge for 4 to 5 weeks after purchase.

According to Alton Brown:

"An unrefrigerated egg ages a week in a day; keep eggs refrigerated. The rate at which an egg goes downhill has more to do with handling than time. The warmer it is, the faster the membranes that separate the different parts of the egg deteriorate. Properly stashed in their carton in the back of the fridge, eggs will keep an amazingly long time. Grade AA eggs will drop to Grade A eggs in about a week but won't descend to Grade B for about six weeks. After that they're still perfectly edible but I would not do much more than scramble them."

This runs counter to other cooking shows and books which encourage keeping eggs on the countertop, since egg whites beat higher when warm than cold. I didn't realize they'd go downhill that fast. I imagine that if you go through a dozen a day by all means keep them out, but otherwise, chilly down.

mchodera wrote:Who knew there was canned bread?

I saw this on my parents kitchen counter the other day:


I have many questions to ask my parents, such as a simple, "Why?" But many mysteries are best kept so.

-ramon

Ramon wrote:

mchodera wrote:Who knew there was canned bread?

I have many questions to ask my parents, such as a simple, "Why?" But many mysteries are best kept so.

-ramon

That bread is an excellent product.

Man, I was practically raised on Boston Brown Bread in a can. When I was a toddler, that was my favorite food (it is pretty sweet, more like a cake or quickbread). For some reason, I had totally blocked the stuff from my memory until I saw Ramon's picture (Perhaps some childhood trauma, involving brown bread). Where do they sell canned boston brown bread around here? As I recall, back east, it was a common grocery store item.

Hi,

Slate has an article on Ignore Expiration Dates: "Best by," "Sell by," and all those other labels mean very little.

Regards,

http://shelflifeadvice.com/