How often do you look at the Expired Date on items at home? Just a few minutes ago I decided to check the expiration date on a tube of sunscreen we have. We THOUGHT it was fine, but the expiration date was some 5 years ago! We know that some expire dates can be extended, but not by 5 years. The sunscreen we keep in our vehicle (out of the sun), expired 6 years ago. Obviously it's time to buy new sunscreen I'm the one that goes thru the frig periodically to check expiration dates. Sometimes we just don't use something up fast enough. OTC meds have an expiration date on them that can be extended by 6 months or so. But, if the OTC doesn't help with the pain, and the label states it's already expired, time to get new. How often do you check?
Most of the time I don't check the expiration dates at home unless I am getting ready to use something or "Spring Cleaning" the pantry, etc. Yet when I am shopping I almost always check the expiration dates since I had a bad experience once of buying some dried soup mix that was way beyond the expiration date and I could not use it for the recipe I was planning to cook at the time. Part of my Honey's part time job at the Country Store is checking expiration dates on the products they sell and making sure everything that is one or two days away from that expiration date is taken off the shelves, etc. and replaced with new products. Alot of times he will bring those almost expired things home if it is something we eat or use...that has helped us save quite a bit on our grocery bill.
I check on items that won't last long anyway, like greens when I'm shopping because I want to get the freshest one possible... Some stores aren't so great on removing overripe fruit and veggies.
I check regularly on food items.. and about every six months on otc meds. Worked for an elderly lady a few years ago....I swear this is the truth...her pantry was filled with can goods..as far back as 1969! She became hostile when I trashed as much as possible
Reminds me of when I married my ex and he had tons of spices in his cabinet...they all over 5 years old and he got mad at me when I trashed all of them because he said they only got better with age!
On food items, we check expiration dates. Not so much on non-food items. I was a health inspector for a few years, and would often find expired items on the shelf in the stores, mostly in convenience stores or gas stations that have a few canned or packaged food items, some of which don't have a high turnover. The larger grocery stores were pretty good about removing such items, though. HEB may still, but at least used to have a policy of giving anyone a good-date item for any bad-date one that they found in their stores. In other words, if you found a can of soup on their shelf that had an expired date and called it to their attention, they would give them a fresh can of the same soup. Some people would search the shelves for that alone, and I guess that was less expensive for them than if the health inspector found it, and better than having someone notice after they had purchased it and brought it home. One of the stores in my area was known to be a money laundering place for illegal drug money. In the Rio Grande Valley, there were small car lots set up for that purpose as well. They weren't at all interested in selling their products but would record sales as a way of laundering drug money. Because people didn't go in there looking to buy actual food, they had a habit of not replacing stuff that had expired. Yet because they sold food, I had to inspect their premises and I had thoughts about being killed for, of all things, writing them up for having expired soup on their shelves. Instead, they would comply. I suppose they might have also had thoughts about being brought down for having expired soup on their shelves. Still, I suppose it was strange that, while the police turned their backs to what everyone knew to be a drug laundering operation, I didn't feel like I could ignore expired soup that no one was ever going to eat.
You've led a very interesting life Ken...glad those bad boys didn't bring it to an end! At my Honey's work the reason he has to check so thoroughly for expiration dates is that the young "kids" who work there after school and on weekends are to "lazy" to take those things off the shelves, etc.
A problem that has happened with us, either the year or the entire expiration date got rubbed off of the glass container. When we find that, we just throw the item away. There are websites that tell how long a product can last after the expiration date, but a person's age can definitely have something to do with "keep it/use it or toss it". At our age, the old stomach isn't made of iron like it was years ago. IOW, would rather toss and buy new, then get food poisoning or a really sore stomach from eating something that should have been thrown out.
Most items have "best by" dates rather than "expiration" dates. Canned foods will be good for many years. We have home canned food in the pantry that is 15 to 20 years old. Fresh vegetables are another thing but you go by looks rather than dates.
This may be true for food (Best By), but some other things, like the sunscreen, has an actual expiration date on it. The sunscreen is suppose to be good up to two years after the date, but sure wouldn't want to use it and then get a terrible sun burn after the expiration date was gone. I'm the one that goes thru the canned goods and frig and gets rid of expired and out-dated "Best By" stuff.
It's a wonder we survived without expiration dates 'back in the day'. Things in the fridge, I would just get my younger brother to try it, if he didn't get sick, it was good to go! I'm sure my older brother did that to me, I just can't remember back that far...
I'm sort of queasy about things like expiration dates. While I understand, intellectually, that the food is still good beyond that date, if I know that it's expired, it won't taste good to me. For similar reasons, that's how I feel about leftovers too. There are a few things that I can eat as leftovers, such as ham and turkey, for some reason, but not beyond one or two days. Mostly, I won't eat leftovers.