I called my wife on the way home from work today and as any man should, inquired about dinner prospects. She mentioned that we had some meat set out but were out of sauce for spaghetti. Now I should insert a disclaimer here, if you fancy yourself a chef and make your sauce from scratch more power to you. Don’t hate me for dumping something into a pan and warming it up, but I digress. Back to the matter at hand which was a lack of sauce for the evening meal. I quickly replied that we had spaghetti sauce in our stash to which she seemed skeptical. I knew that I had purchased quite a few cans some years back but hey, it should still be good right?
When I got home I shuffled down to the basement and pulled a can of sauce, expired (supposedly) back in August of 2013. If you’ve read the other article I wrote on canned food expiration dates you’ll know that I look at the date as a suggestion. Actually I should clarify that a bit in that this applies to canned food or items sealed in glassware. I tried some mustard that was over a year old (unopened and in plastic container) and it was rancid, just nasty! Here is a picture of the sauce I pulled from the shelf.
VALUE Sauce! High class stuff.
Expiration date: August 28th 2013
Let’s face it, this sauce wasn’t going to be the mac daddy of awesome sauces even if it was still good to consume. I bought the value sauce because it was cheap and because I knew that I wouldn’t mind eating it if times got tough. Yet…a quick taste test told me I would need to spice things up in order to make this stuff worthy of a paper plate dinner. When I cooked the meat I was heavy on the onions, garlic and included quite a bit of cilantro which can be overpowering if one isn’t careful. Also made sure not to go light on the salt and pepper.
Meat cooking
I have to say the end result wasn’t too bad in the least. A few hours past eating the meal I’m still feeling good and might go back for seconds.
Just reinforcing a few points here. Buy what you’ll eat and remember that expiration dates can be sometimes viewed as suggestions. Of course you’ll be responsible for making your own determination on that, fortunately in my case it’s worked out thus far.
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“VALUE Sauce! High class stuff” HAHAHA, Sorry had to laugh at that one PJ. I guess I’m probably one of the ones that has said and always will say. “Store what you eat and eat what you store.” I know as you said it was cheap, and that’s not always a bad thing. But/if, and here we go with the but/if’s, if your eating what your buying you probably will not out-last the “date” unless you have 300 cans of it around. FIFO sort of thing I guess. But I will admit it’s hard to have 5 years of stored food and “cycle” everything in and out. So, what’s the answer on storing foods? Do we only store FD stuff with a 25 years shelf life? Do we only store stuff that we will use in a year? and WHAT the heck am I going to do with 500 pounds of beans and 600 pounds of rice? All alone 20 buckets of wheat????
Good article to think about. Just one last question, What are you going to do with the other 99 cans of VALUE Sauce? 🙂
Keep smiling ya-all
NRP
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole concept of “best by” dates was started by a committee made up of lawyers (wanting to protect companies fro getting sued if somebody got botulism fro eating a 16-year-old can of beans) and marketing types who wanted people to throw away perfectly good food so they’ll by more food. The most absurd ones are the best by dates on bottled water.
I always look at expiration dates as a suggestion. I will say that the best by dates on bottled water are legit. It gets a funky taste from the plastic if it sits too long. Nothing wrong with it, and I’ll at least use it to make tea or something but after it sits for a long time it just gets a funky taste. Probably because they aren’t truly sealed like a can or glass.
I agree that these expiration dates on most cans can be stretched quite a bit. That said, I did notice that I had some older cans of tomatoes (about a year after they expired) that had a definite can/tin taste. There were several different brands, so I think it may be the natural acid in tomatoes that is the causing the reaction with the tin can. I will not stock them for prepping anymore. Ketchup in plastic bottles also turns from a nice bright red to a dark funky color. Rotation is key!
Just remember that “best if used by” dates are just that, a guess by the manufacturer of when that product will no longer be in peak condition. The canner’s incentive is to ensure that when customers buy that food, it is at peak taste.
Here is a link to FDA site explaining this.
http://goo.gl/JEloY8
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