Interesting findings
Maybe I’m a little bored.
I just got done going through our refrigerator, cleaning out and throwing away everything that’s past its expiration date or doesn’t need to be in there. We’re pretty good about keeping up, considering that every two weeks before we go to Cub, we toss anything old. Also, any leftovers (such as the sloppy joes from last night) are always consumed with unmatchable excitement the very next night. No lingering Tupperware in our household.
There is one exception: Shauna’s pop that graces the entire bottom shelf of the fridge. That’s right; stacked two cans tall and six cans deep are twelve cans each of Coke, Sierra Mist, Orange, Lemonade, Root Beer, and a couple of Minute Maid fruity juices. She’s given up Mountain Dew (for the most part) so this is how it gets replaced. With a plethora of flavors, including her other vice, Coke. I will applaud her efforts; she is down from her old 4 Cokes per day to only having a few over the weekend. I should know how hard it is, I kicked my own soda habit five years ago.
This has presented a problem though. We keep a 12-pack of each flavor in our pantry and replace the ones in the fridge as needed. We never gave thought to the ones in the back, considering Shauna still goes through them quickly enough. Or so we thought.
I decided to use my best supermarket knowledge and re-stack all the pop by their freshness date. Now Shauna is drinking two-year-old pop just to get to the good stuff. I’m not kidding, we’ve got cans that expired in April ‘05. That means they were probably purchased in late 2004.
It’s sad. We used to give Shauna’s parents a hard time about the freshness dates on their pop. They had cans with ads for Star Wars on them. You’d think I mean the newer, crappy Star Wars of recent past. Nope; I think I saw Han Solo on a can.
Just kidding, we can’t even make fun of them anymore due to my discovery in our very own refrigerator.
I can top that. Dad thinks everything has to be bought at Sam’s Club, because it’s such a good deal. A while ago (I’ll get to the expiration date in a minute!), Dad bought lemon juice at Sam’s. It is in a 48 oz. bottle, and of course two bottles were packaged together! How much lemon juice can one use I ask you?! We are finally on our second bottle. It expired Mar. 20, 2003! His theory is…it doesn’t go bad – it’s sour to begin with!
Comment by Becky — April 19, 2007 @ 6:17 am
Sounds like my place. I have a wide assortment of sodas dating back to the year 2005. I’m not sure what to do with the old ones. Do they still taste fresh? I know now for a fact that a year-old 2 liter bottle of Mt. Dew will NOT be fresh when you open it. Nary a fizzle.
The old Minute Maid fruit juice drink boxes have me a tad concerned as well. How fresh is a boxed drink? And is that just putting kids at risk for drinking wine in a box later in life?
Comment by Susan — April 20, 2007 @ 10:32 pm