Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with expiration

How Long Will Antique Drugs Still Work?

esereth — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:15:00 -0800

Ancient drugs...opium, morphine, even absinthe. Can they still be potent after decades? If you were to find your great-grandma's cocaine cough syrup, or her opium-based migraine reliever, would they still have any power left in them?

Could someone pour hot water in a 90 year old opium bottle with sludge at the bottom, swirl it around, and ease their pain with the remnant of the residue?

Similarly, what about ancient alcohols? I know wine is supposed to keep for a hundred years, but what about something as toxic as absinthe? Does it continue to ferment? Does it turn to poison? To vinegar? Does it became harmless?

For the record, I'm not trying to get wasted on old sticky medicine bottles....just research for a story. Plus now I'm really curious.

My google fu has failed again...just keep getting ask-yahoo pages about two-year-old vicodin.

Any experience or observations?

Can I take this expired cough syrup? Just for tonight?

tastybrains — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:25:25 -0800

Terrible cough, too late to leave the house in search of remedies -- can I take this expired (expired April 2009) prescription Tussionex cough syrup or is there a better solution in my house? It's after midnight and the shiny new cough I developed today has gone from irritating and annoying (earlier this afternoon) to the kind of hacking cough that hurts my whole body. It's too late to go to the drugstore, and I can't even lay down for 5 minutes comfortably.

I have most of the bottle of Tussionex from when I had a horrible chest cold around my sister's wedding last April ... so it's about 18 months old. Do you think the medication itself is still safe to take?

Other things I have tried so far....

- Hot toddies this afternoon.
- Decaf tea with lemon & honey (and now I'm out of lemon).
- Neti pot (since there is also some sinus crap going on).
- Ran hot water into a plugged sink with a towel over my head and the sink and breathed the steam for 10 minutes.
- Mucinex (guaifenesin).
- Cough drops.
- Willing myself to stop coughing.

Most thing (except the last) have been soothing but I'm still coughing like crazy and can't rest. What to do?

Tomorrow I plan to go to the pharmacy to see if I can get something better, though I think the best I'll do is get some "original" NyQuil so I can be knocked unconscious at night.

The home-made jam expiration date mystery

Baud — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:45:57 -0800

I could sell some very small-scale home-made jam. How can I know what will be the expiration date be ? Since I discovered that jam is not exactly the most complicated recipe out there (one part fruit, one part sugar) I started doing some for my own usage.

Through a sell-your-garden-stuff website about to open I could sell some of my production to people in my area.

It looks like the jams sold in supermarket have an expiration date set two years after they are manufactured.

How can I know what in the cooking process will decide when the expiration date of my home-made jame will be ?

Right now I'm applying boiling water to the pots before putting the jam in it. I suspect there may be more radical way of ensuring an expiration as far away as possible.

standard disclaimer : english is not my mother tongue.

This coffee is worth the hassle, or else I'd stick to tea.

Solon and Thanks — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:30:17 -0800

Ca phe sua da crisis! Please help me figure out the best way to have condensed milk on hand. I love Vietnamese iced coffee, but am having some issues with the condensed milk: I can't use up anywhere near a whole can before it apparently expires. Upon opening, I store it in a closed glass syrup dispenser in the fridge - but some online sources say I should toss it after anywhere from a few days to a week. I'd like to keep it longer, and not have to constantly buy new cans for a cup of coffee in the morning, but am unsure how safe this is.

How can I tell when it is expired? (Does it change color, smell weird? Does it do nothing and I should play it safe rather than sorry?)

And: Any ideas for a solution to my problem? I could buy smaller cans online, but I'd prefer to buy the bigger, less expensive ones I can get in person. Is freezing worthwhile? Are there any delicious recipes I could make to use it up a little faster?

marmite: maybe it just keeps getting better?

MaddyRex — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:12:31 -0800

When does Marmite really expire? I love Marmite, but I don't want to shell out $7 for another jar when I just found in my pantry a perfectly good, unopened & sealed jar that expired in, oh, say 2005.

So the tag says best by 2005. Buuuut, it's Marmite! What could possibly go wrong? I know "best by" doesn't mean "inedible after." Does anyone have experience eating old Marmite?

GoogleReader sez that's last week's news. You cannot haz last week's news.

ahimsa — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:37:54 -0800

So frustrated... For the past two months my GoogleReader has been making my unread items expire (i.e., not show up in the "new items" feed view) in far less than the standard 30 days. Right now I've got things about 10 days old, at one point it was down to three or four days. Why? And how the heck can I fix this? Old news is still good news! Setup details -- I'm on Windows XP, Firefox 3.0.10, using Lifehacker's Better GReader usually in the minimalistic view. I have several other add-ons installed, like greasemonkey and noscript, but I don't think any of them should be affecting GoogleReader. I'll give a full listing if someone thinks it's important. [FWIW, the expired feed items don't magically reappear if I switch over to IE or my iPhone's mobile version.]

My understanding from the forum searching I've done is that GoogleReader doesn't allow users to specify when their feed items expire but sets everything to a standard 30-day newness. But I have far too many feeds for my own good, and frequently leave things unread to check back on for days or weeks at a time. (like... hey that's a cool askme question, I'll go back and see what other people said in a few days.) That's usually fine, as I mark the uninteresting items as read, keep the interesting ones unread, and then go back to them later.

But! A couple months ago my feed items started "expiring" far far sooner - as soon as three or four days in some cases. When I have my view set to "new items" they don't show up at all. If I put the view to "all items" and scroll down to force-load additional items, the older ones show up, still unread, just not considered "new" anymore. Frustrating as all hell, because I also have to scroll past all my read items to find them, and keep switching between "all" and "new" views. Ugh!

Does anyone know if there was a change in GoogleReader's settings on expiration of new items? Or is there something gone wonky in Firefox? Or are the RSS gods displeased with me? I know I have a ton of feeds but I don't think I'm anywhere near the upper limit of allowed subscriptions. I've been tearing my hair out looking at the settings and looking at forums but I'm only getting people bitching about the standard 30-day expiration.

Help!!

When was my passport issued?

i love cheese — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:50:33 -0800

Could someone with a US Passport handy please help me with a quick question about the date of issue and expiration? I need to know when my passport was issued. I don't have it in front of me, but I do know when it expires. I believe the total length of time it is good for is 10 years.

My question is if my passport expires on, say June 15, 2009, was it issued on June 15, 1999 or June 14, 1999 or June 16, 1999?

So, how does your expiration date compare to your issue date?

Are expired multivitamins safe?

wabashbdw — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:17:56 -0800

Is it safe to take multivitamins that are past their expiration date? I bought some multivitamins a couple years ago but never got in a successful habit of taking them everyday. I would like to try again. But the expiration date on the bottle says 12/06. Is it actually dangerous (or useless) to take these pills?

I know it would be best to just buy some new vitamins, but they are somewhat expensive and I'd prefer to not make another investment knowing how well I stuck with it last time.

Travel dates in the months before passport expiration

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:12:30 -0800

My U.S. passport expires 13 Oct 08 and I need to book one international trip before then: leaving New York 17 July 08, returning 2 Aug 08 (one destination country, a non-EU-member in Eastern Europe, plus stops for flight transfers in one or two EU member countries). Is it even worth researching various countries' and airlines' how-close-to-expiration-date safety ranges for travel, or should I just assume I MUST renew my passport before then?

What are the rules for Canadian copyright terms?

seanmpuckett — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:45:50 -0800

I've got some local postcards that are 90+ years old (as determined by postmark). Are they out of copyright -- can I sell reproductions? I live in Canada and the postcards are of sites in Canada, and they were probably (but not certainly) printed in Canada. They do not have an individual photographer credit, but there is a company logo. Given their age, is it defensible to reproduce them, and what are the rules by which the determination is made (so I can assess other antique ephemera similarly)?

Expiry dates and what they are intended to mean...

scarabic — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:08:44 -0800

Are "expiration" and "sell by" dates intended to communicate how long the product will last - even once opened? Or are they only meaningful in terms of shelf life before opened? A jar of peanut butter might have an expiration date 2 years off. But that's only if it remains unopened, right? It's not going to last 2 years once exposed to oxygen, etc. Right? I read these two pages and am aware that these dates are guidance only, not law, and that they are imprecise, and sometimes refer only to flavor / quality not safety. I'm just trying to understand the opened/unopened thing.

Headache + Flu + Fever + Expired Tylenol =?

Ironmouth — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 11:10:17 -0800

I'm at home, sick with the flu. I have a headache, sore throat and a low grade fever. I've gone through all of my current tylenol. I still have a bottle with an expiration date of June '05. Its freezing and I don't want to go outside for some more. Can I take the old stuff? Will it work?

Oxycodone after expiration date?

lazaruslong — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:06:10 -0800

Is it safe to take a pill after it's expiration date? My girlfriend is feeling like crap and I want to know if it's okay for her to take this painkiller she has. It is Oxycodone W/APAP 5/325. The expiration date was 12/3/2005, 2 years ago. Do pills really "go bad"?

Expiring Domain Name Help

kmel — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 09:48:47 -0800

I'm interested in buying an expiring domain name (currently it's in redemption period). Most of the info I've found is vague, outdated, or doesn't answer my specific questions. Help me strategize! The name is made up of two short common English words which in combination make a very uncommonly-used phrase. It's not similar to any business or geographical name that I can think of. I know it's hard to assess the value of a domain based on just this info but I include it in case it's helpful.

I've read this extremely helpful post so I'm familiar with all domain-snatching services. The whole system sounds awfully shady -- not only during the auction process but after, when it comes time to transfer the domain to your preferred registrar and host. So I'd like to minimize my involvement in it while maximizing my chances to get the name (at the lowest price, of course).

The domain is currently with Dotster and, FWIW, I am currently have a handful of other domains registered with them. They say they release their names "exclusively" to namewinner.com first -- but if they offer any guarantees, I sure can't find them. Should I enlist the services of other domain snatchers as well? Or should I forget it all and go it alone?

Password expiration best practices?

pzarquon — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 11:16:36 -0800

Is there an "industry standard" for password expiration periods? With the understanding that it depends on the "industry," and ultimately at the company/agency level, can a broad generalization be made that most corporate environments enforce {x}-day password expiration periods -- be it 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, 90 days, etc.? Is there a default starting point for IT security wonks?

There are some commonalities in password policies - longer than 8 characters, mixed characters, don't reuse old passwords, etc., but I've seen a huge range in expiration periods, all the way up to none.

Any security guys here who can point to some acronymed standards body or guideline with a number? Or will it always be, "it depends"?

Why is the shelf life of organic milk so much longer than non-organic?

ParisParamus — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 09:47:16 -0800

Can anyone tell me why the expiration date of organic milk is so much longer than conventional milk..like > 1 month? Any farmers out there? Scientists? Cows? Thank you.

Who's eating my Firefox cookies?

caddis — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:26:37 -0800

Firefox question: Why do my cookies for sites such as the Washington Post or New York Times keep disappearing? I can not say for sure, but it seems time related - if I do not visit the site in a few weeks all of a sudden it is asking for my login info. Is there some way to prevent this?