I was going though the last "mystery box" in the garage (If you have ever made a few military moves you know what I am talking about) and found that it had about 70 cans of various food items in it, all dating back from 1994.

None are corroded or are bulging or look/smell strange.
How long are they good for?

If there is no rust or buldges...I would eat it.


SGatr15

tagged. sure I've got some several-year-old canned goods at the moutain retreat.

Does the pasteurization process used in canning really keep it good for a wildly long time??

It can vary greatly. Factors to consider are amount of light the food was exposed to, how much heat it had been exposed to, if it was possible it could have frozen, even the type of food itself.

I've seen some cans of soup that have a date to 5 years in advance or more. There are probably cases where 10 year old canned food properly stored would still be edible.

But the food is so old that it has likely lost whatever nutritional value it had. While it still may not technically be "spoiled", food that old generally has lost it's good values. Most survivalists who store food try to rotate their canned stocks so as to eat up anything before it gets older than 1 year. After that, the nutritional value really starts to recede, fast.

Granted, you aren't depending on this as your sole source of food. But I'd dump it in the trash and not chance eating it. I mean you just never know. No point in risking getting sick by crap food that only costs $0.40 per can anyway.

www.momsview.com/discus/messages/41/11150.html

Canned foods can last a long time, as long as the can is not bulged, ie it will be edible. The problem over time is that the contents loose flavor, or won't taste as good.

If it has been in reasonable storage conditions it will be good for a very long time. When I was stationed in Pearl Harbor in '82 I was on a working party bringing stores aboard. I carried a box of 4-10 lb. tins of boned chicken on board that was dated 1959. Those chickens died before I was born and nobody got sick off of them. However I didn't eat any chicken until I knew we had fresh stores on board. But with my luck I probably ate stuff left over from Korea.