Lisanne

Interesting that you posted this now - I was thinking of doing a similar thread just this morning.

It's not like food is fine and then on ONE DAY it suddenly turns bad. So IMO food might be okay if it's near its expiration date or even a few months after it, especially canned food, but it surely won't be as good as it was months ago or a year or so ago.

I'm thinking of things like Hostess cupcakes or Twinkies, which definitely taste old a week or two before their exp. date. Maybe for cake mix it's different. Certainly worth a try.

OTOH, I'd rather be cautious. I once moved into an apartment where the woman who was moving out offered to leave me her canned goods because she didn't feel like packing them. I didn't even think to check the exp. dates. I opened a can of soup, and it looked vile! Something had grown in there and the smell was awful. I'd never seen/smelled anything like that from a can. As I was throwing it out, I noticed that the exp. date was FOUR years earlier... now I know this is an extreme case, but my point is, the food does slowly go bad, even inside a can.

(I had to throw out some cans of tomato sauce, tomato paste, pineapple, coconut milk and soup today because they had expired. On the other hand, my cans of tuna, broth and green beans are still well within the period before they expire, so even though they were in storage for over a year, I'll give them a try.)