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Staring at the date on the side of a can of smoked cod liver — March 19, 2020, stamped in red ink — I felt wasteful. It had seemed too special to eat, which is why the tin had been gathering dust in my cupboard since I returned from Iceland in the fall of 2015. Luckily, hermetically sealed in its tin, it turns out my cod liver isn’t destined for the bin.
As Jeffrey Farber, professor of food science at the University of Guelph, underscores, “Best-before dates do not tell you anything about the safety of the product.” Not only that, but canned foods especially have a much longer shelf life than their dates might suggest. As long as the can is in good condition — no dents, bulges or rust — “there are no food safety issues.”
Best-before dates — the manufacturer’s estimate of when a product may start to degrade in quality — “go out the window” once you’ve actually opened it. But if you’re facing your cupboards, assessing how long you can go without a trip to the grocery store, rest assured that you can push well beyond the best-before dates for many categories of foods. While the commercial shelf life marked on canned goods is usually two to three years, Farber recommends up to a decade past best-before dates as a benchmark.