I have a huge pantry and things are known to get pushed to the back. I don’t think I have anything as old as @ChoatieMom though! The last thing that was pitched was circa 2012, I think.
Well, @momofsenior1’s post about tinned spices made me go look. The list is too long, but the Shaw’s stickers indicate that many are pre-‘99. In my defense, we have always had a thriving herb garden, so many of those tins got old because we always use fresh.
Today, I am going to toss everything that hasn’t been used because it will never be used, like those salad dressing and sloppy joe mixes. We haven’t had ground hamburger in decades, and we make salad dressing fresh every time. Perhaps I’ll have something to post over in the Bag a Week thread. 
I told DH about this thread and he said, “Man, I bet everyone on CC is making a mental note to decline any invitation to eat at our house.”
I’d eat at your house, @ChoatieMom! I hear the food and drinks there are awesome.
Herbs and spices are hard - I make a lot of things that call for tiny portions of something unusual. Now I go to our co-op and buy smaller quantities from bulk. That just means I have little plastic bags lurking around now instead - with writing and labels I can no longer read!
I have a lot of old spices, don’t worry to much about the dry stuff. But this week I saw a recipe posted to my HealthHabits thread and though “oh, fish sauce… I have some of that to use up in the fridge”. It was open, with date of 2015… I tossed it.
There is a GEICO commercial that this thread brings to mind: couple is talking about the great house they’ve bought, but they have an infestation of “aunts”. Obnoxious aunts have moved in.
Relevance: One of them is standing in front of the fridge, tossing items over her shoulder while yelling “EXPIRED!”, “EXPIRED!”, “EXPIRED!”…
Cleaning out the garage and we found a few boxes we never opened from the last move. Haha! Inside was unopened baby food jars and powdered formula from 2006. Our daughter is a teenager now, and she didn’t want it. Can’t imagine why.
In the early days of Covid, I tried to use older canned food to avoid trips to the grocery store. Those were not too bad, but rarely over 2 years past expiration. No bulging cans.
However, I also found several packs of dried yeast dated 1990! Obviously I was not on the bread baking bandwagon.
Well…I don’t think these had expiration dates…but…I was cleaning out a shelf unit in my utility room and found three cans of Rust O Leom Black spray paint.
I need to go on the record…we have never owned anything that was black metal of any kind. Except a cast iron fry pan but you wouldn’t spray paint that.
And I can’t say the previous owners left it…we built this house.
I threw out some canned soup that I don’t think I ever liked…maybe husband bought it? “Best by” date of 2005.
The more embarrassing part is that I took that can and some other odds and ends out of the pantry when I reorganized (quite beautifully, I might add) all my canned goods at the beginning of sheltering in place…i.e. in March. I culled enough to fill a shoe box and then couldn’t quite finish throwing them away because 1) I would have to empty the food into the compost and put the can in the recycling and 2) I kept thinking maybe things would get bad enough that we would be willing to eat soup from 15 years ago and 3) once I got that far, I put the box aside and kept forgetting to deal with it until about 2 weeks ago.
It is gone now, though!
Ha, I made a cake from a mix that had expired in 2012. It tasted and looked just fine. I am pretty sure that was the oldest thing in the pantry. Some of my spices are a bit old but tend to be items I don’t use very often. They probably aren’t even worth using as I am sure they are stale.
We always find expired yogurt in the back of the fridge. Our kids learned when they were really young to read the expiration date on any yogurt that their other parent handed them because only one of us ever reads them.
@Onward I would expect cake mix from 2012 would be fine. Maybe the leavening wouldn’t work as well, so I wouldn’t make it for an important occasion without having a backup plan, but otherwise, no problem.
I am trying really hard to use up all the old stuff first. One problem is that some stuff gets purchased that I don’t really care to eat at all, like pancake mix or cereal. And then there are the things like cans of soup that maybe we would eat if we were sick or something but that I just don’t see us eating now.
If you find you have stuff that is approaching its expiration date (but not expired) donate it to your local food pantry. There’s an increased need due to the current economy.