How to read dates on canned food. | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

Check packaged and boxed foods for the bar code, which is not easy to decipher. It may be coded by month, day and year, such as YYMMDD or MMDDYY. Or it may be coded using Julian numbers, whereby January 1 would be 001 and December 31 would be 365. In even more convoluted codes, letters A through M (omitting the letter I) are often assigned to the months, with A being January and M being December, plus a numeric day, either preceded or followed by the numeric year.

Be aware that canned foods lose from 5 to 20 percent of their nutritional content each year, depending on length of storage and temperature. Store all canned foods in a cool, dry, dark place (less than 70 degrees F (21 C) is preferred; 50 degrees F (10 C) is optimal). Try to use up canned foods within a year--rotate older ones in front of the shelf and the newer ones in back.

Canned Good Shelf Life

And Stamped Code Decoder

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