Economic Education

This is a bit of knowledge to save you a bit of jingle in your pocket ... oh who are we kidding - you cant buy anything with jingle anymore ...

EXPIRATION DATES EXPLAINED

Our local news decided to find out te truth about those mysterious dates on all the food products - do they mean just buy before this date? or that the food is actually garbage after that date?

well - it turns out that much of it is determined by your state (so you will have to do some checking for where you live - the information I have is for my state)

In our state expiration date are only required on product which might go bad within 90 days and products like milk & eggs have to have a date 30 days from the time they were put into the carton ...

the dates are just ESTIMATES ...

the state ag dept says that milk can last 7-10 days after the date, if refrigerated properly ... eggs can go weeks beyond their dates (I've gone up to two months)

packaged foods will last up to 1 yr past the date - as long as humidity & bugs don't get to it

if you keep it sealed in the cupboard it could go years beyond the self life

So why does water have a date?
How can water go bad?

a law in NJ requires all food and drink products have expiration dates on them - so it is easier for national brands to just date all the bottles instead of trying to route just some water to states that require it ... and even though this law has been repealed ...

retailers require it from the manufacturers - not only for "quality control" but also for "crop rotation" purposes

suggestions from the USDA for home canned food should be followed for store canned food as well:
1)Look - any mold? any bulges?
2)Smell - any off odors? does it smell "dirty"?
3)Cook - bring canned foods to a boil for 20 minutes before eating, this will generally kill the majority of bacteria although i might not the most serious
4)taste - if after cooking it still seems to have an off taste .... DONT EAT IT - why risk it?

(a hint from a prepper on youtube - if yu store salt for brining in your pantry, make sure you have it in plastic airtight containers (maybe even in ziplock bags within a big bucket - he lost all the cans in his pantry when humidity got to the salt and the salty air ATE - i mean it chowed down - the metal in the cans there too! and yes it will even eat the metal lids of home canned jars too)