Check Your Pantry: These Foods May Be Expired

This story is part of Home Tips, CNET’s collection of practical advice for getting the most out of your home, inside and out.

If you’re planning for the apocalypse, some foods are a better bet than others. While expiration dates provide loose guidance on how long foods are good after purchase, they don’t typically provide much information on how long you should keep them around after you’ve popped the top and oxygen starts to do its thing. 

This guide to storing groceries in the fridge so they last longer will help some. But, save for Grey’s Anatomy, nothing lasts forever and certain foods spoil much faster than you might think. 

The bad news? Your fancy olive oil is definitely not getting better with age, and that 25-pound bag of brown rice from Costco won’t actually last forever. The good news? Once you’ve mastered food expiration and grocery shelf life, you can cut down on waste and guard yourself against contamination or foul-tasting food. 

Below are five foods that spoil faster than you’d think so you can predict when the end is nigh. If you’ve got some ingredients you need to use before they go, try these nine cooking hacks that actually work.

Olive oil

Oil just seems like something that would last forever, right? You might even think olive oil gets better with age. It doesn’t — quite the opposite, in fact. While olive oil has a fairly long shelf life, about 12 to 18 months, it starts to lose oomph as soon as it’s bottled and especially once you’ve opened it. While it won’t pose a health risk, over time olive oil can be rendered virtually tasteless by the elements. 

This is especially good to know if you have an expensive bottle of EVOO that you’ve been trying to use sparingly. You’re better off going for it while it has most of its flavor intact, and experts recommend using olive oil within 60 days of cracking the seal. Considering fresh olive oil is good olive oil, you’ll also want to check the bottle or harvest date before you buy, since it’ll lose some of its profile even before opening. 

Brown rice

Brown rice is another pantry mainstay that appears shelf-stable but should actually be used within a relatively short period of time. While white rice can last years if stored in an airtight container, brown rice really only lasts about three or four months before it starts to turn. This is mostly due to brown rice’s higher oil content.

Cooked rice, white or brown, has an even shorter life. If left unrefrigerated for even 90 minutes, cooked rice poses a real risk of food poisoning. 

Mayonnaise 

Mayo has a healthy dose of vinegar, so you might think it would be good for a while. Not the case. The egg in mayonnaise makes it prone to spoilage, and most mayo should be used within about two months of opening. It’s also only good in the pantry unopened for about three months. 

The same goes for most salad dressings — about two months in the fridge after opening. While the vinegar helps keep them in good shape for a while, other ingredients aren’t as resistant to spoiling.

Spices

While spices don’t go bad, per se, they become pretty much useless after a certain point, losing a lot of their flavor even when stored in those little airtight jars. Try to avoid buying large bottles of spices and be selective about what you throw in the cart. It’s one of the reasons I love high-quality spice mixes, which I find myself going through more quickly than the odd bottle of cardamom or clove. (You can also grow certain pricey spices, including saffron, at home.)

Wine

I know, I know, wine gets better with age. That’s true, but it really only applies to red wine, and all wine has to be stored carefully or it’ll turn into something you really don’t want to drink. I found this out the hard way having been gifted a case one holiday. I confidently stacked the bottles on a wine rack in my very much not temperature-controlled living room. When I uncorked one less than a year later, the damage had been done.

While some varietals can be aged, most white wines should be consumed within one to two years. To last even that long, bottles of white wine should be stored away from light and at a temperature above 40 and below 50 degrees F. To keep red wine from turning on you, cool and dark is the key. Red wine should be stored away from direct light somewhere with a temperature between 50 and 59 degrees F. 

To check similar information for other foods, the FDA’s FoodKeeper App has a suggested list of storage times and protocols for just about anything edible or drinkable.

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