# Use dates



## crazzycajun (Dec 18, 2022)

Okay guys this is embarrassing cleaning out the pantry and behind some casings and stuff I found a bottle of Cajun injector with a best date of 10/2016 and a bottle of hunters pride jerky juice marinade use date sep 2011 both sealed. This more for information would you use for batch and discard or would you just discard. On a follow up question if you would use how many years would it take to just toss it thanks for your input


----------



## Nodak21 (Dec 18, 2022)

I would toss about a year after use by date expired on those type of items. Any longer I would toss them. No sense getting a belly ache over something that can be replaced for $5 or $10


----------



## JLeonard (Dec 18, 2022)

crazzycajun
 Our panty runs from ceiling to floor. I'm 6-4 and still need a 3 step stepstool to see the back of the top shelf. I've found stuff shoved to the back of that shelf that almost needed to be carbon dated to see how old it was! LOL! 
But like 

 Nodak21
, I'd toss and buy new.

Jim


----------



## smokeymose (Dec 18, 2022)

I take those "Use By" and "Best By" dates with a grain of salt. I don't worry about a year or two but I'd toss those items. Like Nodak said, they aren't that expensive....
Even if they don't make anyone sick, the flavors may have deteriorated.


----------



## tbern (Dec 18, 2022)

I'm not a strictly follow the use by date person, but 6&11 years is getting Up there and with the cost of meat probably new would be better.


----------



## indaswamp (Dec 18, 2022)

Likely still safe as those products both have high salt and low pH (high acidity)...BUT.....the flavor would suffer. Probably won't taste very good, but it would be safe to consume as long as the original seal is not broken.


----------



## Brokenhandle (Dec 18, 2022)

I wouldn't eat it either.  Do you have a friend named Mikey? Lol!

Ryan


----------



## Hijack73 (Dec 18, 2022)

I have about 25 cans of odds and ends of stuff I really will never eat (bought it at the beginning of covid when the stores were getting bare) that is all either out of date or close..  Crap like Dinty Moore and chicken and dumplings and canned chicken and baked beans - I hate canned baked beans with a passion, but they were cheap and plentiful in a time when it looked like the apocalypse was upon us.  I plan on taking it to an area where there are a lot of homeless folks and just setting it on the curb in a box. 

My rule on most things is 3 years.  Mayo and salad dressings are 6 months.


----------



## DougE (Dec 18, 2022)

I'm not overly strict on "use by" dates with a few exceptions. Diet soda goes south fast after it goes out of date. Canned tomatoes. I was making chili a few years ago for a charity event and thought I had enough diced tomatoes to do a big batch. I didn't. We have this country store out here in the sticks, so I went there for some, never paying any mind to the dates, it's a store, after all. Well, I get back to the house and start opening cans, and the contents were nasty, and kinda purple in color. Turns out they were a couple years out of date. 

I did take the nasty cans back, and found enough cans that weren't expired to finish the chili in time for the event. When I nook that nasty stuff back, the guy who owned the store at the time told me he didn't know how that happened since he and his wife took the older stock home and replaced it with new. Next time I was in the store, I started casually looking at dates on the canned goods, and was hard pressed to find any that weren't past the use by date.


----------



## smokeymose (Dec 18, 2022)

DougE said:


> I'm not overly strict on "use by" dates with a few exceptions. Diet soda goes south fast after it goes out of date. Canned tomatoes. I was making chili a few years ago for a charity event and thought I had enough diced tomatoes to do a big batch. I didn't. We have this country store out here in the sticks, so I went there for some, never paying any mind to the dates, it's a store, after all. Well, I get back to the house and start opening cans, and the contents were nasty, and kinda purple in color. Turns out they were a couple years out of date.
> 
> I did take the nasty cans back, and found enough cans that weren't expired to finish the chili in time for the event. When I nook that nasty stuff back, the guy who owned the store at the time told me he didn't know how that happened since he and his wife took the older stock home and replaced it with new. Next time I was in the store, I started casually looking at dates on the canned goods, and was hard pressed to find any that weren't past the use by date.


You're probably going to get that at the smaller "Mom & Pop"/Convenience places.
They don't have the option to get rid of old stock like the bigger groceries and hang on to it. They think, like a lot of us, that canned goods last forever. It's true, but only to a point.
This has me thinking. When the Mrs had to go on a low sodium regimen a couple of years ago I went through the pantry and culled out the high sodium canned goods and they're in a box. I just hated to throw away food. They're probably no good now....


----------



## DougE (Dec 18, 2022)

smokeymose said:


> You're probably going to get that at the smaller "Mom & Pop"/Convenience places.
> They don't have the option to get rid of old stock like the bigger groceries and hang on to it.


Biggest problem I had with the whole thing is that he flat out lied to me by telling me him and his wife took the stuff that was going out of date home for their own use and rotated new stock into the store to sell. Like I said, there were shelves full of out of date canned goods when I went back later and started looking. Different people own it now, but I haven't checked to see how up to date they keep their stock.


----------



## chopsaw (Dec 18, 2022)

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/food-product-dating


----------

