Do canned foods ever go bad?

Question

My husbands grandmother is a serious hoarder. She lived back during the depression, so she has lots of canned foods that shes hangin onto just in case. Some of these cans date back to the early and mid nineties. Are they ok to eat. Do canned foods ever expire. Please help, we dont want botulism.

Answer 1

I'm not trying to sound like a smart*ss, but it comes down to this: how hungry are you? Manufacturers cook the canned goods in the can before they are sealed and in my opinion, canned goods can last for years. I have eaten Viet Nam-era k-rations when I was camping and they were fine. Last month, I baked a cobbler from peaches dated 2006. As long as the can isn't bulging, bubbling or hissing, it's edible. When something is past its "best by" date, it's still good, although there may be some degradation of quality. To avoid this problem in your household, use a magic marker to write the month and year on canned goods when you come home from grocery shopping because those codes are often impossible to decipher.

If you decide to throw the food away, please compost what you can and recycle the steel. Our landfills are composed of 30% food and yard waste.  

Answer 2

I wouldn't be eating them.  However, once when diving on a wreck, we found some canned foods and milk.  They must have been over 30 years old. We opened them out of interest, and they still look and smelled OK.

Answer 3

Yes.They dry out and evaporate.But you can check if they are by the

Check them out by the expiration date on the bottom or top

Answer 4

yes they do get bad. After probably a couple of years 7-8 at the most probably they start to go bad. Canned foods do not last forever.

Answer 5

Yes, they expire. Preservatives don't last forever.

Answer 6

Yes, They have an expiration date on the bottom of the can. PLEASE DONT EAT IT. Food Poisioning  

Answer 7

Yes, I found a can of water chestnuts that could have been at the back of my cupboard for 5 years or so. When I opened the can the chestnuts were black.