Today, my mother decided to inform me that she doesn't believe canned food can have an expiry date and that the food is still okay to eat years after the 'supposed' expiry date. She's probably been cooking my dinner with expired food for over 17 years. FML
Collection
Halloween
A failed costume, stolen candy and a very real scare: Halloween, the one night when fear is allowed.
Today, I opened up a can of tomato soup I'd taken from my parents' house recently. After eating the whole can, I started feeling a little off, so I checked the expiration date. It expired 12 years ago. FML
Today, I threw out all the food in the freezer that my mom had been keeping since 2013. When she found out, she said, "frozen food doesn't go bad." FML
Today, I saw my mom changing the expiry date on milk. She genuinely thought this would make the milk sour later. FML
Today, I cleaned out the fridge for my mother. I didn't throw out a single thing that was less than a month past its expiration. Instead of thanks, she complained about everything that I threw away being still good, including a tub of butter that had been expired for two years. FML
Today, I found out that my boyfriend's mom doesn't believe you can get food poisoning from food that is cooked. She gave us food that had sat out all day/night and then got angry when I said we could get sick. FML
Today, a friend invited me over for dinner. She presented me with a "gourmet" homemade meal. As I started eating, I realized it tasted… off. She looked at me expectantly, so I politely ate it all. Afterwards, she told me it was a new recipe she was trying "tuna casserole" made with canned tuna… which we found out later expired in 2015. FML
Today, while tidying up my grandmother's fridge, I got to play expiration-date-bingo. The winner was some type of concentrated apple sauce supposed to be used for salad dressings. It expired in 1986. FML
Today, surprisingly, my roommate made a nice meal. Within an hour, I started throwing up. When I confronted her, she confessed that she'd used long expired ingredients, including meat, because she didn't want the garbage men to think she's "the type that wastes food." FML
Today, while my mom was out, my family agreed upon the assumption that she has a "shopping problem." I argued against it for quite a while, until she pulled up minutes later with a what seemed like a life-time supply of canned condensed milk. FML
Today, I'm worried my mother might have the early onset of senility. She started making gumbo, only to lose the plot halfway through, and then began throwing in the ingredients for chili. The result was an inedible mess, and she insisted we've had this for years. Then she tasted it, and yelled, "What the hell is this?" FML
Feel like sharing it with the other FML users?
Thanks, your FML was submitted, and will appear in the moderation queue soon!
Top comments
adrianh1090 12
You've made it this far.
Welshite 40
Canned food is good for a long time after the expiration date. Just sayin'. Manufactures print the "best by" date, but that doesn't mean it's spoiled even months later.
Add a comment · Reply to
You must be logged in to be able to post comments!
Comments (126)
brittyboo123 35
Well, you are still alive...
nitant 13
Same as above. makes sense. People throw away food too easily, I think.
DasHaas 9
They even put a "best before" date on bags of salt. They mean next to nothing. Just use your own common sense. If the can is warped or the stench is unbearable, don't eat it. If you see and smell nothing weird, it's fine. Most goods, especially canned ones, are high enough on conservation materials that they can last for decades.
Mauskau 36
My mum does the same, even with fresh food and meat. It can be a month after the best before date, it will smell and the packaging will bulge, and she still cooks it.
Gallifreya 3
A best before date is not the same as an expiry date, it's a mandatory date put on non-perishable food, and the date is supposedly when the food is at its best until, but it's even put on substances that will never change in composition like salt. Canned food, when sealed, is airtight and free from anything that might cause it to rot, so it is good for years after the best before date. Rarely, some canned foods if left long enough can begin to eat away at the can, and at that point they are no longer particularly nice or airtight and therefore not good to eat.
polluxdc 10
If the can starts to bulge, it's gone bad. Otherwise use common sense, sight and smell should tell you something. Canned food lasts a loooong time.
Tishbob 3
actually you're fine, canned food doesn't go off at all so long as it's not opened. that's why you see it in post apocalyptic films, canned food can survive nuclear war and still be edible.
Fou_Lou 20
I wouldnt advise to eat food that was exposed to the Radiation of an atomic war. Im pretty sure you can get Radiation sickness out of eating those.
polluxdc 10
Out of curiosity, anyone every seen an expiry or best by date on honey? It's the one food that will never spoil.
amisenho 11
One of the reasons honey keeps so well is because of its high sugar content. It's the same way with cane sugar or any food product with a high sugar content (roughly 20%, but I could be wrong). It works the same way with extremely salty foods (usually 5-10% salt), like pickles and other brine-preserved items; most microbes can't handle that concentration of sugar or salt, so it works both as a flavor agent and a preservative. The only microbe you need to keep in mind when it comes to honey is Clostridium botulinum (or C. bot). That microbe is responsible for botulism (flaccid paralysis caused by the toxin they produce) and the cosmetic pharmaceutical, Botox (which is a deactivated form of the toxin).
FalconWhitaker 20
You know, one Roman emperor (I think) tried to make himself immune to poison by eating small quantities over a long period of time so that his body would build up a resistance to it. I wonder if the same thing has happened to the OP... And for anyone wondering, the Roman dude then heard his enemies were coming for him and tried to kill himself before they could... with poison. And it didn't work. So he had to stab himself instead. Oops.
JanisEvans 10
She's right, you know. I'd be more worried about living off canned food for 17 years.