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Richard B Smith
Here is a question that is asked a lot and probably gets a dozen different answers.
I was asking about an antibiotic oinment, Mupirocin Ointment USP, 2% I use for rough spots in my nose I get from using oxygen.
What happens when you use skin ointment that expired almost 3 years ago?
So it was answered on Quora by
This is just as true for canned and frozen foods. There are a few canned foods which are highly acidic, such as tomatoes and sliced oranges, which over time can corrode cans from the inside, and which will spoil when air intrudes and reaches the product inside. Those are easily spotted, sometimes even because the can itself gets swollen.
But in the main, canned and packaged dry foods are perfectly safe and suitable to eat, even five years or more after the expiration date. I have tested this myself, with canned foods even ten years old (just as an experiment, not as our daily fare). Long-outdated foods are indistinguishable, generally, from those which are “fresh” from the supermarket.
I have found the same with frozen packaged foods, and with coffee which was frozen either in ground form or as beans. Vacuum-packed canned coffee, unopened, will remain fresh until the Second Coming.
Don’t let yourself get suckered in, and panicked, by “expiration dates”, which are no more than a marketing gimmick.
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