Pickled by the pickles expiration date....

Funny. I always thought they were to get you to throw out perfectly good food and buy more.

there have been some attempts to figure out how much good food is thrown out because it is past date and people assume that it is bad. The numbers are scary. 25% of people make it a practice to always throw food past date out. We throw away 50% of our food before it hits a plate, at least 25% of that is because of reflex due to date tossing.

EDIT: I am pretty sure you cant even donate out of date food to the food pantries.

EDIT2, when we were in US Army Europe the commissary and shopette routinely had out of date food due to transit times and poor management of the stores. We got told that the food safety people were sure the food was good for at least 30 days after we purchased it, and to suck it up.

I think so too.

There's obviously a buffer built in.

I won't say expiration dates are useless, but to me they are a guideline. I'm tighter or looser with it depending on the food.

Pickles?

Jesus, they're pickled. That means they've been preserved.

Saints preserve us!

Below is Saint Sofia preserving one of us....

Yes, the sushi kind of pickled ginger. (I made mine with apple cider vinegar and sugar and a little salt)

Back on the question about keeping the opened jar - I'm sure I've never gotten sick from eating something pickled that is still in the jar the manufacturer produced it in, assuming I kept it in the refrigerator.

On the other hand, there's always a first time, eh?
Most bacteria or fungi aren't all that interested in something so acidic - but I don't remember if there are exceptions.

On jars themselves, I like them for storage in the freezer. The thing to remember is not to fill it full to the very top with liquid, as that could make the jar burst when it gets frozen.

it's the same thing with those dry clean only tags on clothes. I briefly worked for a sweater designer/manufacturer a thousand years ago. I was told everything they made could be hand/machine-washed. The dry cleaning only tag was to cover the manufacturer's behind - it didn't actually mean things needed to be dry cleaned.

That occurred to me, too.

Tricky buggers. That too.

Oh yeah, for sure. Same thing.