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Can I still use this salt? (iili.io)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Sometimes expiration dates refer to when enough plastic from the packaging has decayed into the food material that it might be a problem. Bottled water works that way.

I don't know:

How much science there is behind the dating
How much plastic you're consuming in your food anyway and so who cares what's the difference
Whether that's what's going on with this salt package specifically

But it's not automatically crazy for there to be an expiration date on an immortal product if it comes packaged up in plastic.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (5 children)

I'm no expert, but I did watch a minidocumentary that explained that these best by dates are mostly arbitrary aside from perishable foods.

For some products they'll have taste testers rate the same product packaged at different times from 1-10 with 10 being factory fresh, and when it drops below an average of 7, that's the date they put on the packaging

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah but this kind of salt they only taste test every half million years or so, so the expiration dates cant be trusted to be that precise.

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