We sent five shoppers
to a total of 24 grocery stores, big-box stores, and dollar stores in
Connecticut, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas to scan the shelves for
products that had expired but were still being sold. The good news: In nine
stores, shoppers found no out-of-date products during their visits. The bad: In
the other 15 stores, they found 51.
Our Texas shopper hit
the jackpot, finding outdated products at five of six stores she visited. The
oldest food fossil: a box of Betty Crocker Carrot Cake mix from a Fort Worth
Dollar General store. Our shopper bought it on Dec. 4; it had a “better if used
by” date of the previous April 14. Among the products she found at three other
stores were elderly coconut milk (eight days out of date), oatmeal raisin
cookies (70 days), and potato chips (85 days).
A Shopper found these and other outdated
products during an hour-long visit to a Connecticut supermarket.
Few types of food
seemed to escape the expiration curse. Shoppers saw old frozen salmon, ground
bison, pizza crust, milk, yogurt, ham salad, frosting, soup, cottage cheese,
orange juice, cookies, asparagus tips, rice pudding, smoked turkey, and a
shrimp platter.
Except on infant
formula, the department of Agriculture generally doesn’t require dates on food
products, including canned goods. (For more on expired cans, see Close-up on
the facing page.) But some states require them, and many manufacturers choose
to include dates voluntarily.
When we asked Stop
& shop (owner of the Connecticut store where we shopped) what procedures it
has for removing expired products from shelves, a rep didn’t answer the
question but did apologize. “We want to ensure that there are no more outdated
products on the shelf,” she wrote, “and that the store associates are more
diligent in rotating the stock properly in the future.”
Bottom
line
Even if an expired
product doesn’t taste bad or harm you, who wants to eat it? Check sell- by and
use-by dates especially on dairy items and meats. If you see an expired product
in the store, tell a manager. If you’ve brought one home, consider asking for a
refund. And never taste food to see if it’s spoiled.
If you see an expired product in the
store, tell a manager. If you’ve brought one home, consider asking for a
refund. And never taste food to see if it’s spoiled.
Does canned food go bad?
If you’ve cleaned out
your pantry and found yourself tossing outdated cans of food, you may have
screeched to a halt as another soup can hit the recycling bin, and wondered:
Didn’t canned foods used to last forever? Why do they have expiration dates?
Didn’t canned foods used to last
forever? Why do they have expiration dates?
When cans display
calendar dates-also known as “open dates.” To differentiate them from coded
dates that only the manufacturer can decipher – they’re usually “best if used
by ( or before)” dates. They indicate the time by which the maker advises
eating the food for best flavor or quality. They’re not safety-related.
Does that mean you can
crank open a can of peaches that’s years past its prime? If the can isn’t
bulging (which could indicate dangerous bacterial growth) or damaged, the
contents might be safe to eat. But don’t expect old items to taste super-fresh.
In general, high-acid canned foods such as tomatoes and pineapple will retain
peak quality on the shelf for 12 to 18 months if stored in a clean, cool, dry
place, according to the Department of Agriculture. Low- acid canned foods such
as meat (Spam, anyone?), poultry, fish, and most vegetables will retain best
quality for two to five years.
Even though the dates
on cans are more about quality than safety, we were hard-pressed to find a
company that endorsed eating outdated versions of their goods. When we asked
whether it would be safe to eat a 10 –year-old can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti
and meatballs that had been stored in a cool pantry or basement, a rep for
ConAgra, makers of Chef Boyardee and other brands, was blunt: “We do not recommend
you consume this product.” Reps for Hormel (which makes Spam) and General Mills
(Green Giant, Progresso) gave similar advice about their canned foods.
