It's Personal...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jun 07, 2014 12:01 pm

ask around with farmers if they want it as pig food or something?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Jun 07, 2014 3:28 pm

Do you have a soup kitchen/food bank/place that cooks meals for poor people? Try asking them... Stahlseele's suggestion is good. Craigslist? Gardening place for compost?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Jun 07, 2014 4:15 pm

If it's past the expiration date it's only fit for compost or the landfill.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Jun 07, 2014 9:31 pm

Maj wrote:Do you have a soup kitchen/food bank/place that cooks meals for poor people? Try asking them... Stahlseele's suggestion is good. Craigslist? Gardening place for compost?

"Hey poor people, here's some expired food that's not fit for human consumption that we sure as shit won't eat, but you can".

I don't think you meant to be offensive, but that was VERY offensive. I still remember the maggoty bread and 15 year old canned vegetables that had disintegrated into sludge that the Salvation Army gave me that one time...

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 1:27 am

I've been to our local food bank plenty of times. I've eaten expired food plenty of times. I remember the moldy bread and the mouse poop in the bottom of the crackers. I have no clue what the actual status of the food in question is because I'm not looking at it, but sometimes - a good many times - expired food is just fine. Even frozen mystery meat can make a great stew if someone knows how to cook it.

So be offended. I've been where you've been and came out the other side with a different opinion.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 2:16 am

A smart company wants to avoid being sued, so they'll find out what the earliest possible date when the food might go bad is, and then sets the expiration date a few days before that. I don't know how many companies are actually smart or how accurate our prediction of when food will spoil is, but my guess would be that eating food only a few days past expiration is only a small risk.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 2:22 am

Let's not forget also that frozen food lasts a good bit longer than it usually would, and canned food is pasteurized in the sealed can and therefore lasts basically forever unless tainted with botulism, which you can tell if it is because the can will be deformed by the gasses produced by Clostridium botulinum during anaerobic respiration which is why you never eat out of a can that is dented or has bulges in it. So while fifteen year old canned green beans may not be the most palatable thing in the world they certainly won't kill you and it's much better than nothing at all.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:33 am

Maj wrote: So be offended. I've been where you've been and came out the other side with a different opinion.

Indeed. You came out thinking it's alright to give literal garbage to poor people to eat. I'm not sure that you were the one that came out of the experience for the better in this case.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 5:56 am

No. She's saying that just because the label says it is expired does not necessarily mean it is literal garbage.

Tons of places throw out good food all the time. That said, I'd probably still dump it because I wouldn't want the liability either.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 3:30 pm

erik wrote:No. She's saying that just because the label says it is expired does not necessarily mean it is literal garbage.

Yes. Because I've been grateful to have it over being hungry.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Jun 08, 2014 3:50 pm

Stuff can still be edible after the expiration date, but if you donate it somewhere it's reasonably likely it'll sit around for a while. That does assume that the expiration date is on something meant to be kept frozen; if ordinary food got stuck in the freezer past its expiration date it should still be good.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Jun 08, 2014 4:33 pm

Maj wrote:
erik wrote:No. She's saying that just because the label says it is expired does not necessarily mean it is literal garbage.
Yes. Because I've been grateful to have it over being hungry.

Ah, I get you know. You came out as more grateful, I came out as more defiant and ambitious. Which when I moved to an area with more economic opportunities became extremely valuable.

Criticism retracted.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:51 am

Thanks for the suggestions. To put the frozen food into context, I was over at the house the other night and I seem to remember seeing a chilled pizza in the freezer with an expiry date of 2005. We've already chucked out dried food with expiry dates of over a decade ago, and some foods close to my age.

I'll have another look at whether places like the YMCA take frozen food like that, but I think someone else had a look and she couldn't find anywhere local that would take the food.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:56 am

Honestly, stuff like a frozen pizza is probably still good even nine years past expiration, they tend to be full of preservatives and such. Stuff like that, I would be tempted to just put up a craigslist ad for along the lines of "Hey! College students! I have a crap load of frozen, heavily processed food here that is past expiration. If you want to take your chances on it, that's your decision, and I'll just give it to you if you pick it up."

And then dump if you don't get any responses after a few days. Official places (like a soup kitchen or food shelter) probably have regulations against taking food they know to be expired (doesn't mean they follow them or keep up with their inventory). But a lot of college students will give a nine year old frozen pizza a shot.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 3:32 pm

There is also a difference between "Best Before ___" and "Expires ___". The former means it can lose flavour, or taste bad, or become hard/soft or otherwise make it less enjoyable than fresh. Like cookies. The latter means you might die. Like fish.

So, I have made my application to start TAFE (it's kinda like tech school or community college - it's tertiary education, but not as good (or expensive) as Uni, and it's more focused on the practical side and specifically teaching you competencies as vocational training) next semester. I know I'm not as smart, motivated or educated as others here, so this is about what I can manage. Looking at starting at a Cert II in Info Tech (half of which I can probably get prior recognition for), and go on to Cert III then Cert IV. 4 requires a specialist branch, it's like a prestige class, so for employability reasons I will likely choose Networking, even though Web Design or Software Development is more to my interest.

It's all external, so I won't need to make 2 hour trips into the city, and can even work on it while at work. The campus looks nice, it'd be fun to go and attend, pretending to be a Uni student in my early twenties and all that. But it's too far, and really, I'm 29, I'm too old to be doing tequila shots during the day. Which I assume is the main thing you do in Uni. It was when I was 20 and regularly showing up at a Uni to hang out with friends and occasionally attend lectures for the hell of it.

Anyway. Yes. Should be good, and by the end of next year I should be properly certified to be hired by companies in general.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jun 10, 2014 9:04 pm

Koumei wrote:But it's too far, and really, I'm 29, I'm too old to be doing tequila shots during the day. Which I assume is the main thing you do in Uni. It was when I was 20 and regularly showing up at a Uni to hang out with friends and occasionally attend lectures for the hell of it.

Wait, is that the cut off? Shit, I need to get on that in the next two years.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:54 am

Found out one of the chicks I was messing with was married... I really wish people would tell me these things. Seriously, this has happened multiple times in the past couple months.

I'd be more sad if it wasn't funny how much I corrupted that chick first...

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Thu Jun 12, 2014 4:15 am

Koumei wrote: There is also a difference between "Best Before ___" and "Expires ___". The former means it can lose flavour, or taste bad, or become hard/soft or otherwise make it less enjoyable than fresh. Like cookies. The latter means you might die. Like fish.

Very much this.
I always do the smell test as well.
Also, I've never been above just cutting off the worst parts and choking down the rest.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:02 pm

Koumei wrote:There is also a difference between "Best Before ___" and "Expires ___". The former means it can lose flavour, or taste bad, or become hard/soft or otherwise make it less enjoyable than fresh. Like cookies. The latter means you might die. Like fish.

So when I ordered water in the restaurant, I noticed it had an expires date. Can I die, from drinking water past that date?

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:40 pm

I heard something about water that's been in plastic containers over long periods of time being potentially unsafe for drinking for some reason.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:48 pm

Was in a glass bottle.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:13 pm

warm and moist.
2 things that bacteria loves more than anything.
so if it had been kept closed AND cooled, it's probably not that much of a problem i guess.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 3:47 am

Bit late, but you really shouldn't drink old water at all. Water-borne diseases are nasty fuckers and mostly eliminated in rich countries because we are collectively very, very careful with our water supplies.

Bottling things doesn't really do anything. You can preserve wet things by boiling them and adding various poisons and then bottling them to keep any new contaminants out, but water stuck in a bottle doesn't have any of that. Normally they've got an unusually clean source of water to bottle, but nothing's perfect, and they put a date on it for a reason.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:03 am

radthemad4 wrote:I heard something about water that's been in plastic containers over long periods of time being potentially unsafe for drinking for some reason.

The polymers in the plastic can break down into other stuff that's not good to drink. Heat especially accelerates this process. I forget the name of it, but there's some sort of plastic that had to be recalled from its use in baby bottles because hot milk would make very small, but effective, amounts melt off into the stuff and cause problems for the babies.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Jun 18, 2014 5:19 am

BPA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A