No Can Do!

Believe it or not, canned food does not last forever. There is a lot of guesswork around figuring out the vintage of a particular can, especially if the illegible numbers are as indecipherable as some ancient code. We know there is a shelf life to every can. We prefer the term used by the British. They refer to it as "the death date". We have witnessed unspeakable cupboard disasters, the result of cans left far too long. Sometimes they explode and leave a residue similar to the consistency of asphalt. Other times they are sneaky, corroding from the inside-out, and leach their way into cementing themselves onto your shelves. We know this from experience.

Any organizing job we encounter entailing the sorting and purging of the contents of a long-lost kitchen cupboard, is administered by us in garb reminiscent of a gear donned by a bomb squad!! Exploding cans of food can cause extreme damage. OK, maybe we haven’t seen a detonation in action. But we can attest to the fact that the ooze from leaky cans is far superior than contact-cement for gluing down ceramic tiles...forever! Paper shelf-liners are no defense. We caution you to be particularly watchful of pineapple and tomato based products. They are the most dangerous.

Expired canned food is most likely to be found in the impossible corner kitchen cabinet that lies between your sink and your stove. You know the one we mean. It's the cupboard that only a contortionist can fit into. It is probably also known as the burial ground for long lost gadgets like broken toasters, the juicer you bought on the home shopping channel or the yellowed and cracked ice cube trays from your old refrigerator from 70's.

Challenge
Don’t for one second think about giving that expired food to the food bank! Take an hour or so to comb through the cans. Dented ones go first. Anything with a coating of dust is a sure throw-away. If you can’t read the “Best Before” date and can’t remember where, when or why you bought the chick peas, remember to err on the side of caution. After all, this is your life we're talking about!