Expiration Dates on Canned Goods and Other Products

[boosteds13cc]

I eat canned goods n rotate them out every few years

 

[spencer rifle]

The guy who owns Grabill Meats goes to our church and cans meat for a living. The date on the can is like the Pirate's Code - just guidelines. He says if the can is undamaged and unbulged, it will be good practically forever.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I've read that canned good contents may lose their appeal color and consistency over time. But retain their nutritional value. Someone earlier said they lose their nutriental value. Anyone know for sure?

 

[Thor]

From a couple of different sources:

"Canned foods maintain mineral content for entire shelf life."

"The long and short of it is, in theory the seal on your home canned goods should be good forever, and as long as your seal is good the contents are safe."

Most of the nutritional value of fruit that is lost is lost during the cooking/canning process not after it is canned. Say, a pea that is canned and stored for an extended time...if you test the nutritional value of the pea it may decrease with time but that nutrition does not leave the can it probably leached into the juice it was stored with. So, consume everything in the can to get out of it all the nutrition that was put into the can at canning time.

 

[rhino]

It depends on what you mean by "nutrition." if you're talking about vitamins and similar molecules that are relatively fragile, those are going to degrade over time.
If you're talking about proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, those (or at least their building blocks) are not going anyway. You'll still have the same caloric value and same proportions.

It's probably not going to taste very good over a long period of time, but if there were no bacteria in their to start, it's not going to hurt you.