LOL.. guilty as well and get a kick out of finding something ten years old that is still good but expired nine years ago! My daughter has a bird with expiry dates and keeps asking if we are eating my Y2K stock 😆 😆 😆 😆 That’s been gone through but she would have a bird if she knew she is eating something nine years past it’s safe limit. Wife tells me not to tease her and tell her after a meal.

A medical supply friend says the Europeans have much longer expiry dates on their medical supplies. Not sure if accurate but what with the con of North American business marketing approach, it wouldn’t surprise me.. trust but verify is a good model and that works on everything, including peanut butter,peas, medicines, people of authority and most definitely our political masters ( but in their case, perhaps it would be better to never trust 😆 )

We all have to remember that these are "best before" dates, not "magically goes rotten on" dates. The manufacturer simply won't guarantee freshness or nutritional values after that date.

We all have to remember that these are "best before" dates, not "magically goes rotten on" dates. The manufacturer simply won't guarantee freshness or nutritional values after that date.

I don't take best before dates seriously. I somehow am not to worried about the stuff I have at home when I can find meat like this sitting on the shelf at superstore. Seen this today while shopping. I serve my dog fresher meat....But at least its 30% off.

Meat like that i buy. All i do is cook it and make a bunch of different meals then freeze it. Good to go longer that way. But then again I personally hate can soups. I make my own and every one I know always want some of it.

Meat like that i buy. All i do is cook it and make a bunch of different meals then freeze it. Good to go longer that way. But then again I personally hate can soups. I make my own and every one I know always want some of it.

You are a braver man than me, though I suspect you are right and its safe. Great minds think alike Term0shad, on my quest for healthier eating I too have been making my own soups from scratch, Turkey, and Chicken soups specifically. I have it right down to a science, I cook up 50, 1 pint serving sizes at a time. I even have the packaging down to a science so it takes up the least amount of space in the frezzer. I use frezzer bags that I stack flat so they take up the least space, but unthaw the fastest.

Downstairs frezzer,

I try and keep somewhere from 100 to 200 prefrozen soups on hand. I should get into canning but this way I find is less work, and takes up way less space than jars. There are 45 one pint soups just in the swing out door of that 10cuft freezer. No way could I store 45 1 pint jars in the same space. Some people will say what if the power fails...Im good, I have that covered, and back ups covered, and now that I am becoming Lithium powered I am good for life, well my life!
All fresh vegetables, no added salt, chicken and turkey from a local butcher, free range. I pay a little more for the meat than going to Costco but I don't mind. I should raise my own, and I will, but everything takes time and I am not there yet.

Funny story. I have a relative that works for a veterans club. Every so often they do a big dinner. When it is turkey or beef etc I get the bones for soup stock. Getting 8 turkey carcasses at once is great. One year he dropped off a bunch near Christmas. No room/time to deal with them so I took them to work and put them in the small chest freezer we have. It got unplugged accidentally. About three weeks later someone opened it... Well its funny now.

Both peanut butters, not edible. They had started to go bad.

It's peanut butter....can you define "bad"?

Guessing oil separation and gon rancid...

On a different note, i love the idea of the flat soups!

One rancid, and one starting to be so. You must use freezer bags for the soups, sandwich types are just to thin. From memory the 8x7 inch size is perfect for holding 1 pint. I buy them from the dollar store something like 12 or 15 in a box. The per bag cost from memory works out to be somewhere around 15-20 cents per meal. The red tab bags in the picture are the best. Here is a tip if you do up large quantities like I do, 50 pints or so in size. That is a lot of hot meals to throw right in to a freezer. I have two 5 gallon pails of cold water 3/4 full, by the stove, as I scoop a pint quantity out of the steaming hot pot, I pour it into the bag, close the bag and drop it into one of the pails of cold water By the time I have finished filling 50 bags, or more, the soup bags have all cooled down enough that you can take them straight out of the pails and place into the freezer.
Another great thing about this method is cooking, I just toss the bag in a bowl and nuke it, or on the gas stove set the bag into a pot of boiling water...clean up is easy. ( I am a lazy man after all, and proudly so)

I just happened to be at the dollar store and since its time to start harvesting from the garden I stocked up on some bags. These are my best value bags, 1.25 for 12 freezer bags, so that's 11 cents per serving.

If you notice in the news lately a lot of talk about banning single use plastic, I don't know what will come of this talk, but since freezing is my favorite way to store food from the garden I am going to be stocking up big time,and I mean big time, just in case!! 110 dollars will buy 1000 bags,cheap if you ask me! I think I roughly need about 4000-5000 bags of this size, that will roughly carry me through about 10 years of premade soup meals, I think I use about 300 to 400 of this size bags in a year.

I've had pretty bad luck with those exact bags...zippers not working or falling off, not holding seals, you name it.
Maybe I just got a bad batch or two, but I'll never buy those ones again and I've noticed the local stores are changing brands too.

Wow, I don't know what to say, they have worked perfect for me, been economical, I think I have largely been using this brand for about 3 years, never had a zipper seal pop open. Never had a zipper fail to work, I did once or twice have the zipper closer thing fall off after closing the bag but I thought I was just being clumsy. The below picture is as I was stacking them still warm, into the freezer in that picture, they are 9 high, so the lowest bag has 8 pints above it pressing down without a problem, and I think I still managed to get a few more on top after that picture.

But you do have me worried now. I don't want to stock up on a few thousand if there may be questions of quality. I will give this last batch a good test before I buy more.

I just happened to be at the dollar store and since its time to start harvesting from the garden I stocked up on some bags. These are my best value bags, 1.25 for 12 freezer bags, so that's 11 cents per serving.
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If you notice in the news lately a lot of talk about banning single use plastic, I don't know what will come of this talk, but since freezing is my favorite way to store food from the garden I am going to be stocking up big time,and I mean big time, just in case!! 110 dollars will buy 1000 bags,cheap if you ask me! I think I roughly need about 4000-5000 bags of this size, that will roughly carry me through about 10 years of premade soup meals, I think I use about 300 to 400 of this size bags in a year.

I hope these bags don’t get hit with plastic ban. I reuse my bags until seal breaks down. Simply turn them inside out and rinse with hot water, let dry and reuse!
Either for food or for none perishable preps.