When The Mister and I lived in New Jersey, we drove out to California to visit our respective families. One evening, as I was helping my mother-in-law prepare dinner, she and my father-in-law started bickering about the sour cream. She accused him of adding something to it because it was all pink. He said he hadn’t touched it. She showed me the container and I gasped. The sour cream had expired almost a year previously. It was pink because of all of the cooties growing in it.
Recently, The Mister and I drove up to check in on his folks. My father-in-law had recently been released from the hospital for pneumonia and another family member was staying with them while he recovered from his own illness. Now, even though we live closer and are able to visit them more often, it hadn’t crossed my mind to check for expiration dates of their food during our visits. However, when we were cleaning out my grandfather’s apartment in February after he passed away, we found a lot of food that was expired. He had often complained of stomach aches and, as I was discarding the out-of-date food, I couldn’t help but wonder if his pantry and freezer were the culprits. Because of that experience, and remembering the sour cream incident, The Mister and I decided to check the pantry and freezer at his parent’s house. We ended up discarding a lot of food. Some of it was food they had forgotten about (how could she forget about the chocolate chip cookie dough??) while other food was purchased and never used because they primarily rely on prepared frozen meals. The oldest item had expired two years ago. In my mother-in-law’s defense, her vision is starting to fail her and she could not read the “use by” date.
On the Facebook fan page for Modern Retro Woman and Betty Crocker & Me, I encouraged my readers to check for food expiration dates the next time they visit elderly relatives or friends. Reader Lori commented,
My grandma one time had a can of baked beans ‘explode’ in her cupboard. She ‘guessed’ it had been in there at least ‘seven or eight’ years. After that, my mom and I would go over twice a year and clean out all her cupboards and fridge/freezer. Scary. I think a lot of it is post-depression thinking. Don’t throw it out, cause you might go hungry….
Now, I know there are some faith practices–especially Latter Day Saints– that encourage their members to keep a year’s supply of food and I can understand the rationale from a purely pragmatic point of view. During lean or crazy-busy months, I’ve been grateful for my well-stocked freezer and pantry. It always astounds me that people rush to the supermarket before a big snowstorm to stock up on food. I can see buying milk, bread, and eggs but what I’ve seen is pure panic in action (Do you really need 20 packages of Lunchables? If you’re not going anywhere, you can actually fix a healthy lunch!). That said, we need to help our older family members “rotate” their food so that their food stock doesn’t consist of expired food–which kind of defeats the purpose of stocking up on food staples
Finally, if we are going to check expiration dates of food for our elderly family and friends, we also need to go through our own food to make sure it is still good. Condiments, especially, have a habit of expiring on us before we finish the container.
So, what if the food doesn’t have an expiration date on it? How do we know how long we can keep it and how it should be stored for maximum shelf life? Fortunately, home economists are still around at university or county extension offices to help us with these sorts of questions. Judie Garden-Robinson, Food and Nutrition Specialist at North Dakota State University, has created an easy to read and understand food storage chart. You can read it by clicking here. Renee Boyer and Julie McKinney from Virginia Cooperative Extension also provide tips on how to store food and what to do if the power goes out. Click here to read.
As I reviewed the list, I was surprised by how quickly some food spoiled. For example, I need to stop buying the big can of coffee for The Mister. Once opened, the coffee becomes stale after two weeks. I think he’s been working on the same can for several months now. Yikes!
This is the time of year where newspapers, at least in the States, are running articles about picnic food safety so people don’t get food poisoning. In the “Your Share” wartime cookbook, “Betty” admonishes us to mind our P’s and Q’s (points and quantities). While we don’t have to worry about P’s anymore, we still need to mind our Q’s and their expiration dates.
Oh wow, that was some old food! Bless their hearts <3
I think that putting ground coffee in the fridge keeps it fresh longer but I could be wrong.
I love your blogs!
I love your blogs, too. — I think the elderly often stop eating. That was the case with my mother. When we went to visit, I would find her crackers and cold cereal were stale. It was only a hint as to her poor eating habits. Once she asked me, “Why do these crackers taste so good at your house but not at mine?” “Because you buy them and don’t eat them,” I said. “When they go stale, they don’t taste good.” In her case it was not so much a question of Depression-era training as it was just plain forgetting a few basic facts about food management and the need to eat. (It was at this point we realized she could no longer live in her own home.)
I don’t drink coffee much, but I used to buy it and keep it in the freezer. When my coffee-drinking children started turning up their noses at my coffee, I threw it out, stipulating that I have a coffee pot and and it’s their responsibility to bring the coffee.
While checking the food cupboards it’s a good idea to check the over the counter meds. We find my father in law quite often using aspirin or other OTC meds that expired years ago. He has a hard time letting go, as they were the things he used when his wife was with us.
Oh! GREAT point!!