What is the oldest date you can find

500 g of island Muritian Vanilla Tea i brought back from the island in 2008.its its vacuumed sealed so should be ok

Vanilla tea from Ile Maurice indian ocean 2008

If the tin is perfectly sound, and the beans look and smell all right once it’s opened, personally I wouldn’t worry, 52Bright.

It’s only rusty or damaged tins I’d chuck, but then I’m a bit of a Using-Up devotee.

I agree with you Witzend... your husband is right 52Bright so enjoy his cooking and be thankful he wants to do it.

Have a packet of Miss Muffet junket tablets with a sticker of 1/6d in my cupboard. Won’t use them but somehow can’t throw them away

DH made some bread a few weeks ago with rye flour and treacle (black treacle for those of you south of the border!). The treacle had a sell-by-date in 1998, but we are still here, and the bread was very nice.

I can also claim a box of Lux flakes which must be at least 30 years old as once I discovered Stergene for washing jumpers I gave up on trying to dissolve Lux. Suppose it might come in handy if we run out of soap.

Oldest item with a date is 1/4 bottle of yellow food colouring, 2001. Quite a lot older than that but undated is a pack of gelatine, probably from mid 1990s.

I've recently used bread flour BBE April 2017 and instant yeast BBE July 2018, and the bread was absolutely fine. I do always put new bags of flour in the freezer when I get them home, for at least 24 hours but sometimes forget them for months!

...And I emptied my chest freezer last autumn and found two legs of lamb that had been in there since 2013, thawed and slow roasted them together, sliced and froze again. All eaten now, and lovely too.

To anyone with unwanted ancient whisky:

Try this:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/top-10-ways-cook-whisky

I’ve used out of date yeast before and the bread hasn’t risen. Not an issue normally but I wouldn’t want to waste flour on it atm.

I don't know how old my bottle of gravy browning is BUT I can tell you that it travelled with me from England to Italy about 1963, then to what was Rhodesia for a spell, back to Italy, on to Portugal, then to S.A.,back to Italy, and then on to various parts of the UK! And,yes, it's still with me in middle England
Me=Gotta my Gravy Browning,will travel