We Have Not Panic Bought Anything,

you may think that buying 4 three liter boxes of wine,

is panic buying, but that is what we normally buy, the three times we have been out shopping we have bought exactly as we normally do, we run on the assumption if it is on the shelf, fine, if not, go without, but I guess a number of people now have stocks of food or might have found the odd tin in the pantry, all of which are nearing or have gone past their expiry dates, so what to do? listen to this, the first thing you should know: Expiration dates are not expiration dates!, food product dating, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls it, is completely voluntary for all products with the exception of baby food, not only that, but it has nothing to do with safety. It acts solely as the manufacturer’s best guess as to when its product will no longer be at peak quality, whatever that means. Food manufacturers also tend to be rather conservative with those dates, knowing that not all of us keep our pantries dark and open our refrigerators as minimally as necessary, the article proceeds to give a guide on how certain foods may last, you can find the article from the New York Times here, it goes on to say these are the things you definitely don’t have to worry about. Vinegars, honey, vanilla or other extracts, sugar, salt, corn syrup and molasses will last virtually forever with little change in quality. Regular steel-cut or rolled oats will last for a year or so before they start to go rancid, but parcooked oats (or instant oats) can last nearly forever, illustration by Jonathan Carlson, the article is of course using the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but I would guess the same would apply in the UK, from the article, 'how many times have you actually smelled a bad egg? Once? Twice? Never? Probably never, that’s because it takes a long time for eggs to go bad, how long? The Julian date printed on each carton (that’s the three-digit number ranging from 001 for Jan. 1 to 365 for Dec. 31) represents the date the eggs were packed, which, in most parts of the country, can be up to 30 days after the egg was actually laid. The sell-by stamp can be another 30 days after the pack date, that’s 60 full days! But odds are good that they’ll still be palatable for several weeks longer than that. You’ll run out of hoarded toilet paper before those eggs go bad!' so there you have it, I wonder how many of us throw away perfectly good food, just because the expiry date has passed? any way it is an informative article if you have time for a read.