Shelf Life Of Store Bought Canned Food???

T

TACMAN

Joined
Apr 16, 2000
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54
Greetings,

I first checked the "search" feature w/o finding the information that I need. I some questions regarding "common" store bought canned foods:

1) What is the typical expiration date from the time of purchase if no date is printed is printed on the can?

2) If a date does appear, is the food safe to eat past this date provided that the can is not buldging and the contents smells O.K.?

3) Are the expiration dates printed on the cans generally accurate?

We live in a rural area of PA. and have frequent loss' of power and of CABLE TV :eek:! Since we're all on well water and live pretty far from the nearest store we and our neighbors keep stored water, food, heat with wood, have extra propane stoves, hunt..... as a way of life. Speaking of neighbors, we are blessed with the best six families that your ever going to find!

We also have a 24' Winebago RV always kept gassed up and ready to go. Unfortunately It will only get us 200 miles before it would need a fill up. It does make an good emergency shelter should something happen to the house!

Thanks for your help,
:)
 
from my experience i have kept canned goods for two years, and they were good as new. some people say dont keep them over one year.

does the winabego have a generator, maybe you need to look into that. i live in pa also, and have found a generator very usefull over the past 20 years. that might be a very good inveastment for the power outages us rural pa people seem to have frequently. lord knows mine has kept the furnaces running, and the freezers and refrigerators working when the power was out.
alex
 
My experience is that 2+ years is fine. I stocked a lot of food for Y2K and we are still eating some of it. I think that 3 years is really streching it a little too much. The quality is not quite as good but I have not poisoned myself yet.

However, you do have to be careful. About a month ago I threw away a few cans of tomato paste because the cans started to bulge slightly. Also, don't count on smell alone. ANY bulging means that the food has gone bad. And you can not smell the difference.

I would be especially cautious with canned meats. No real logic behind this - just seems like a good idea.
 
We buy what we usually store in our canned goods pantry and just rotate it into our regular food stores once a year. That way we eat it up within 12-14 months.
 
I remember reading much on this pre-Y2K.

The gist of it all was that the date is when the nutritional value has crossed some predetermined level. Food past that date will have less nutritional value than non-expired. I have eaten many canned foods past the dates and have had no problems.

I too am still using some Y2K stores. No problems yet with any bulging or bad food.

As was stated, any bulging is an automatic pitch situation.

Like longbow says, be sure you rotate so you can keep your stores as fresh as possible.

Avoiding temperature fluctuations/extremes also helps ensure longer shelf life.
 
In regards to botulism toxin in extreme survival situations. Extreme only would I consider this.

Paraphrasing from Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, page 512 in my edition:

These spores can easily survive boiling temperatures. If these spores get into a canned food product and are ever allowed to reach 50F, then the spores germinate and produce a deadly nerve toxin. The toxin is destroyed by temperatures above 160 F, but then cold cuts are seldom cooked and the center of a ham may not reach that temperature.

Phil again. He indicates that outside of the US, the most common sources of botulism poisoning are sausage in Germany, cured pork in the rest of Europe, and salt fish in Japan. In the US, it's from home canned vegetables. Nitrites in meat curing allow spores to be destroyed at more reasonable temperatures so the meat doesn't have to be pressure cooked that would impare texture, taste and appearance.

So, you could theoretically cook botulism tainted food to a high temperature and be safe if you ate it immediately. As I said at the top, this would only be a consideration in dire food emergencies where high heat cooking was possible.

Phil
 
In the Army (early '60's), I ate C-rations that were at least 10 years old. I think the last case of canned food botulism in the US was back in the '60's from canned Vichisoise soup from a smaller company. Major producers are extremely careful about microbial contamination, so you're more likely to get sick from contaminents ON the can than what's IN it. As noted, heat destroys the Botulinus toxin. E. coli and Salmonellas on the other hand have heat stable toxins that can cause you lots of grief, but coliform bacteria are easily tested for in manufacturing, so that's not an issue. It's a concern with anything "fresh" that spoils though. Avoid road kill... :)
 
if you take a look at use by dates on tins and cans on your supermarket you will find that acidic things like fruit (canned oranges, and your mention of tomato puree) dont keep as long as some other things, this is because they are so acidic, it corrodes the inside of the can and can eat through the lining into the steel and then it can go rusty or give you food poisoning etc. less acidic things should keep longer sop it might be a good idea to favour those foods. if you do though, pack some vitamin pills cos the acidic fruity things are the ones with vitamin c!

if you store them properly oats, wheat and honey can be kept for much longer than canned foods
 
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