Shelf Life of Food

Knowing the shelf life of the food in your stockpile is handy. I’ve already shared this site where you can check the shelf life of foods before, but it bears repeating, because it’s just SO darned handy.

Still Tasty: Your ultimate shelf life guide

Today’s post by StillTasty was about peanut butter. They confirmed what I was taught growing up: peanut butter doesn’t have to be refrigerated after opening. That helps, too, ’cause it’s too hard to spread when it’s cold. They go on to discuss the average shelf life of peanut butter, and that it can be extended by refrigeration.

I’m always pretty careful about food storage, I don’t want anyone I’m feeding to get sick from bad food. I was so paranoid about it years ago that I actually threw out a pot of cooked rice that had been on the stove a few hours after dinner. My mom set me straight on that one… no meat, no dairy, no eggs, it was plain cooked rice that had been at a boil for 20 minutes. Nothing gonna grow in THAT pot over the course of two hours.  But you can bet I’ll still chuck leftover potato salad if it’s been sitting out too long.

Knowing the shelf life of foods is handy for those of us who stockpile, we need to plan for how long things will keep. Getting food at a discount doesn’t do any good if you have to throw it out because it’s gone bad.