Can instant oatmeal really expire?

bake_betty

I ask because I ate a package of Quaker instant oatmeal (maple/brown sugar) at work today, it was just kinda a single package sitting in our "snack pantry". I looked for a date and it didn't have one. But I had forgotten breakfast and decided eh it should be ok. So I made it, and while it tasted blandish, it didn't taste bad. It didn't smell bad it smelt like normal oatmeal. However I looked at the Instant Oatmeal package and noticed the Quaker...

Originally asked by Mercfh on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

A copyright date isn't a good way to determine the age of the food. It's likely that the copyright date is much older unless the design is very recent. As far as whether it goes bad, StillTasty gives it 1 year past its date, unopened.

Full answer by briantist: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/58931 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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