When is expired food too old to eat?

After helping Grandpa with a long-overdue cleanout of his food pantry, I was inspired to search the dark corners of my own cabinets, and soon the counter was covered with boxes of expired food items. Here is the quandary - for "non-perishable" edibles, how far past the label date can you safely consume them? We decided to sort into two piles - "throw away" and "eat soon."

Shoestring beets, 2010 - hmmm...do they always look that scary? Trash. Kidney beans four years past date - surely beans keep forever. Eat soon. I opened a box of dried plums, freshest by Sept. 2003 - let me tell you, there are rocks in my driveway fresher than those nuggets! We discarded a jar of pickle relish (2009) with a grayish-green hue, dried cranberries sporting a suspicious fuzz, and creamed corn more brownish than yellow. Always looking to shave a few dollars off my grocery bill, this process became increasingly painful for me, especially when my husband pushed a canister of soup crackers toward the discard pile without even opening the lid. 

"You didn't even check them!" I shrieked, snatching them back. "I might make soup tomorrow!"

Silently he pointed at the plastic top - BEST BY AUG 2001. Clutching the cylinder, I struggled for an intelligent response. Could we really eat something that expired the year my daughters (now in college) started kindergarten? Even in the NEW! Stay Fresh Canister?  But then I knew...

"The goats can eat them!!"

Here's the truth. While it is clearly a myth that goats will eat anything, there are an awful lot of really awful things they do eat. Look, brother, I found this perfectly good grapefruit rind in the compost pile! The locust pods they crave emit the pungent odor of turpentine...Emerson loves to raid the recycling bin on trash day, and last week we had a ferocious battle when he found a discarded and stained fast food bag in the woods and was determined to eat it. Not much is too foul for a goat.

That evening I crammed a dozen or so of the fancy "Mandlen" crackers into my coat pocket, along with the usual ration of dried orange peels. Elliot sniffed and turned away from my hand, but Emerson chomped down a handful of treats - then gagged and regurgitated a slimy cracker back at my feet. After some revolting choking sounds, out retched a wad of orange peels as well. He gulped at least a quart of water, scowled at me, and fled into the darkness of the yard. 

Further inspection of the container revealed that the primary ingredient in the offensive crackers was "whole eggs" - I concede that fourteen years just might be a bit too long...and now we know the answer to the question in the title of this blog. When is expired food too old to eat?

When even the goats won't eat it. (Hey, maybe I can hire them out as food tasters!)