These Foods Are Safe to Eat Well Past Their 'Expiration Dates'

2022-08-27 01:03:56 By : Ms. Doris Wang

Expiration dates are meaningless , but there is still a feeling of unease that can come with munching down on a snack whose packaging claims it expired weeks or months ago. That’s why it’s helpful to know which foods are especially fine to consume post-expiration date—and which ones you actually should not.

Although expiration dates are largely silly (they’re just general guidelines that aren’t even mandated by the Food and Drug Administration), you may still have concerns. Milk gets sour, cheese gets moldy, meat goes bad—so it’s fair to worry that most, if not all, foods, will eventually turn on you. The FDA does, however, have a FoodKeeper app that can help you learn more about nearly every kind of food. It’s designed to help “you understand food and beverage stories” and “maximize the freshness and quality of items.” Thus, the FDA says, “you will be able to keep items fresh longer than if they were not stored properly.”

You can click on a whole bunch of food types on FoodKeeper. For instance, clicking “dairy products and eggs” takes you to a page where you can select “butter,” “cheese curds fresh, unaged,” or “coconut milk.” Clicking coconut milk takes you to another page that says for freshness and quality, the beverage should be consumed before its use-by date if it’s refrigerated from the date of purchase and within seven to 10 days if refrigerated after opening.

Again, these are guidelines; expiration dates are not set in stone. Here are the foods you can feel especially confident about downing after the date.

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First of all, even if a food appears on this list, if it seems off somehow, don’t eat it. Trust your intuition and your existing knowledge of what good and bad food looks like, but feel freer to eat these things after their expiration dates:

There’s no good reason to overhaul your entire stock every few weeks, especially with inflation this high, but there are some foods you should simply avoid eating if they’re too old.