Sat, Aug-05-06, 07:44
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Senior Member
Posts: 4,629
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Plan: Generic LC with tweaks
Stats: 204/178/165
BF:
Progress: 67%
Location: NC
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How were they stored?
Expiration dates are mostly an urban myth. Coca-Cola expires?? Really? For vitamins, it all depends on storage--if the products were kept under even temperatures and dry, they'll likely be fine for a while. If not--if they were allowed to get hot--then you're at more risk of having a product that's not going to do you any good.
1. Most dates are no more than a year from manufacture. They don't test; they simply slap a date on the product so that they have a limit to liability and ownership.
2. The US Army actually tested real drugs--important stuff--for viability and discovered most products lasted LONG past the expiration date. Saved the US Taxpayer a lot of money in not having to discard drugs.
3. What do they smell like when you open a bottle? They won't be bad, per se. If it's very yeasty, the Bs are probably gone. They are the most fragile, in my experience. And there's never enough C in a multi- to matter for me, so I take that by the additional handful anyway.
The biggest concern from a food bank is how was the case stored? Do you know where it came from? The store can't legally sell the stuff past the date, is the biggest problem.
Another guideline you might want to look at: Go into a store and see how far out the expiration dates are on the products they have in the store today. That will tell you how old the stuff really is; when it left the manufacturing plant.
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