> Frozen food and canned goods probably never expire.
They do, just much slower.
They do, just much slower.
Where we figured out manufacturing well enough, but hadn't gone fully synthetic with liners, overly minimized wall thickness, etc. Probably packaging contamination issues as well.
I've had more (young) cans rupture in the last decade than any time before, even as they're stored next to much older ones.
We're doing the same thing right now with plastic - drink bottles now weak thin and brittle vs the relatively strong/ ductile stuff of 10-15yrs ago.
Yes, you should recycle, but we all know that not everyone does.
Metal is at least mostly recoverable energy. The footprint of the contents lost is not.
And ironically the lighter plastic packaging makes it more likely to be trashed and not reused, or even attempted to be recycled. (Reuse is 1-2 magnitudes more efficient than recycling.)
It should be, but how much of that is actually recycled vs. how much ends up in a landfill.
Marginal savings is meaningless if the resulting product is worthless.
On top of that- 99% of people who find a ruptured can with black ooze are trashing it.
And the other 1% are spending more energy/resources to clean a contaminated container than the recycling will save.
(Washing things is surprisingly expensive in terms of energy/resources. Often worth it for reuse, but not recycling.)
Now you're essentially comparing mpg on a trip to no where.
you are likely to go bankrupy tho
The manufacture has an interest in delivering it undamaged, but less in storage or handling or longevity.
They used to overshoot to ensure hitting the goal they car about.
It's probably efficient for them. They draw the system boundary after delivery.
Because that doesn't necessarily make the full Life Cycle of the container and contents efficient as its actually used.
It's similar to 'water saving' toilets. The manufacture sells a product with gal/flush, not gal/use.
Real world use differs from nominal, and interests aren't always aligned, especially if regulatory bodies are involved.
But the point is- the number is different depending on if you're the manufacturer, retailer, consumer, or recycling/ waste agency.
Maximizing one parties efficiency doesn't mean an increase in net efficiency as viewed by others.
https://www.joannasimon.com/post/lightly-does-it-reducing-bo...
But also from big picture pollution/environmental and even carbon perspectives.
then use your vacuum sealer.
custom, roll yer own, jacklinks rule, esp. caribou
I've had a few occasions where someone cleared out cabinets in their kitchen, and gave contents away. General findings:
Dry stuff (pasta, cookies, rice, beans, spices, etc): fine for years (if not a decade+) past its best-before date.
Canned food: if hermetic seal is intact, it's edible. Personal record: ~25y old fruit cocktail. Physical structure was poor and taste was bland, but it was edible.
For fresh foods like meat, dairy, vegetables etc: look, feel & sniff. It's almost always obvious when it's gone bad.
I tried some 10 year old saffron kept in a corked vial, and it really didn't do much. I basically had to use the whole thing to get any yellow out of it, probably $20 worth.
Definitely not a universal truth. Canned food can develop botulism, you do not want to mess with it. Any cans that are bulged or show signs of swelling should be discarded - don't even risk opening them.
There are guys on YouTube who explore old army rations (which were basically all canned food prior to the 1980s), and when they decide to open a bulged can "for science" they will often literally break out a gas mask. That said, it's also not terribly uncommon for them to find rations dating back to WW2 and older that are still partially edible.
I don't think that has much to do with age though. Sometimes canning is done wrong.