Exasperating Expiration Dates

Expiration dates are a big deal around this house.

Daughter is nearly a freak about the whole thing, taking the dates as the absolute gospel. I tell her when she wants to start buying all that food she thinks should be thrown out, she can throw it out. I remind her I ain't poisoned her yet, and don't intend to, unless she keeps up the blather about the expiration dates.

Husband, who eats like a pig at slop, is finicky about some stuff. I just ignore him. If he doesn't want to eat it, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, he won't starve.

I am extremely careful about certain foods, like meat. I make sure it looks good, smells good, etc. before I cook it. I make sure it is stored well, and if it gets lost in the freezer for too long, out it goes.

When milk reaches its 'best buy by' date, I start the old sniff and sip before gulping. Let me point out that except for Dog Days, milk is usually good several days after that date. After all, as I have pointed out to Daughter ad nauseam, it says best sell by, not best drink by.

I've tried to explain that some things may lose their fizz or their punch. They aren't poison, just flat. And if you must drink it, it's okay, but if you have something else, pour that flat drink down the drain.

Same goes for stale cookies and crackers. They ain't gonna kill you, but they taste blah.

So, I was reading an article about how to keep food for as long as possible. What not to freeze or refrigerate, what to store in plastic, what not to, etc.

And they agreed that the expiration dates for many things aren't when it goes bad.

Some things last months after the date, some years.

Apparently canned and dried beans are with us, lo, even until the end of the earth.

It warns about discoloration in certain oils may mean it's rancid, and who needs that when frying chicken?

But the most interesting thing is honey. Now, I already knew that honey is the 'perfect food' and that it never ruins.

I did not know that they had found pots of honey when they excavated some Egyptian tombs, and it was well preserved and ready to put on a good old Egyptian biscuit.

It seems it never goes bad because of an enzyme in the honey bee's tummy that kills bacteria, apparently forever.

Can you imagine having a party and putting that Egyptian pot of honey on the table and encouraging your guests to eat it?

I'm with Daughter on this one.