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Old 07-17-2016, 10:11 PM
aspqrz aspqrz is offline
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Some of you may (or may not) know of the following two actual cases -

1) A London based Providore had taken over an older company (late 80's or early 90's IIRC) and was clearing out its old warehouse. At the very back (or in an out of the way corner) were a quantity of rough packing crates. On opening them, they found rusty cans ... but ones that had not popped (aka 'blown' ... gone off) ... but no labelling.

No one knew their provenance. But, after some searching, they discovered the cans were of Crimean War vintage. They had one of the London based Universities open some of the cans to run tests ... they found that inside was a Beef Broth which, though it was a bit rusty (these were iron cans, not galvanised or plastic coated on the inside) it was perfectly safe.

No. None of the scientists were game to eat it, but they were sure it wasn't contaminated ... they also weren't sure how much caloric value it had, but figured not all that much.

A lot of 'use by' dates are polite fictions ... Chocolate, for example, has one (here in Oz, anyway) ... but Chocolate that's foil wrapped doesn't go off within your lifetime or mine. Worst that happens is that it goes rock hard and develops a milky brown surface skin, but remains perfectly edible.

So you can assume that properly (or fortuitously) stored canned goods will last a lot longer than the Use By date would suggest ... a heck of a lot longer.

2) In Darwin during WW2 a new officer was taking over as Supply Officer on a Bathurst class Corvette and (either a really dumb move or a really smart one, depending) insisted on doing a full inventory before he signed off on receipt.

In one of the vessel's storerooms was a wooden keg. Marked with a broad arrow (aka 'HMG issue'). With what they thought was a serial number. 1815. Couldn't figure out what the heck it was, so they opened it ... inside was salt meat in brine. Still looked good, though the bits that stuck up over the then level of the brine were ... well, mummified. They realised that they '1815' was the YEAR it had been laid down.

As far as they could figure it had been kicked from ship to ship as an old one decommissioned and a new one took on stores ... since 1815.

So don't assume that preserved foods of any sort will go off as fast as the Use By date regime in your country implies they will.

Phil
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