Pluggers by Rick McKee for September 11, 2019

I wouldn’t think so.

I guess it depends on what it is… I occasionally use “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray on my corn on the cob. I looked at the best by date on it recently… July 2014!

We try to do FIFO … First In First Out. Does not always work ;-(

Expiration/best by dates are also a legal thing…if you get sick eating a product that’s past that date you won’t win your case.

https://www.stilltasty.com/ is my guide and ‘Best by’ dates are only there to scare stupid people.

we pluggers are probably past our expiration date

I do the same with medications that have been kept in a cool, dry, dark environment. Never had any problems with potency.

All these comments probably come from people who are OK with having a few bouts of diarrhea or “the stomach flu” a year. Hey, folks! Most of the time that is not from a virus. A lot of canned goods have a 1 or even 2 year use by date. Just buy what you’re going to use and then use it before it expires. How hard is it to do that? Geez, it ain’t rocket surgery and brain science fer cryin’ out loud.

Growing up, I remember the cafes in town left the catsup and mustard sitting on the tables all day long and they weren’t refrigerated at night either. We were lucky if they wiped off the mouths of the bottles with the rag they used to clean the tables. I wonder what has changed to make them ‘refrigerate after opening’. And, stores are supposed to use the ‘expire by’ dates to remove things from the shelves. Important to check when buying milk.

Pluggers go by feel.. no bulges good.. no moving critters .. good.

except milk and eggs.

According to my late grandmother we found out after she passed she believed if it hasn’t been opened it’s still good.

My parents don’t go through their pantry fast enough and just keep buying things on sale without checking whether they already have it. For years, we’ve found cans and jars long past their expiration date, but never did anything about it.Until our visit in July. I told them they needed to do it, and started searching for old food to toss. We must have cleared out 1/4 of their pantry.The official oldest item was a muffin mix that had expired in 2003. It was older than their grandchildren and had been packed and moved from their old house in 2011.The unofficial winners were several spice containers that didn’t have UPC labels on them. It’s possible that some were purchased by my grandmother, stayed in the house when my parents bought it, and packed up and moved twice.

i sure hope that i can add at least two years to my expiration date…

In college we always used the smell test on milk.