One person who is new to disaster prepping sparked a discussion on the r/preppers subreddit when they posted a question about the expiration dates on canned foods.
"I started prepping a few months ago for emergencies that last a few weeks to a few months. I bought a good amount of canned food. … I keep it my garage which stays in the 60s down the 50s year round with no sun and lack of humidity," they explained. "I was wondering how far can you push past their expiration dates? If you can, how can you tell bad ones from good?"
It's a good idea to have a plan in place for losing power due to extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and more intense due to the overheating of our planet, caused largely by burning dirty energy sources such as gas and oil. However, we don't want to contribute to food waste or find out that our stored food has gone bad just when we need it.
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That's why it also makes sense to strategize about which foods to keep on hand and what to do if their expiration dates pass.
Luckily, this is a topic that the members of the r/preppers subreddit have spent quite a bit of time thinking about, and many of them were more than willing to share their expertise. The consensus seemed to be that the dates printed on canned foods are guidelines more than hard-and-fast rules.
"Best By Date Is Not Expiration Date," one commenter asserted. "If the can is intact and insides smell fine, it's good."
Another commenter went into more detail, writing: "As long as the cans are undamaged and stored in reasonable temperatures, canned food is safe to eat indefinitely. The taste, texture, and nutritional value may change over time. To me, canned tuna and mollusks taste nasty when they are more than a couple years past the 'best by' date. Spam tastes the same many years past the BB date. I've only eaten fruit, vegetables, beans, and soup a couple years past the date, and they were fine."
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