If it smells ok and looks ok its good enough to eat. No chances taken with shellfish though. But for everything else, the expiry date is just a suggestion

Wow, you have single handedly created a new branch of science: Gastroarcheology!
Marmite. That evil sludge is concocted by scraping the residue out of engine oil sumps, it will be around long after this current geological era.
Mint sauce: I doubt any mints had to die for that chemical spill.
Beans get better with age, as long as the tin doesn´t rattle you should be ok.
Heinz tomato soup, an edible lubricant, if it´s the semi solid stuff, stick a wick in and hey presto; a candle.
Fray Bentos Steak and Ale Pie from 2006? Zap it with electricity and watch a second genesis.
And corned beef just wants to die anyway.

But in all seriousness, as long as the can isn´t bloated or has a drop of lead solder on it or there is no overpressure when you get stabby with an opener it should be ok, but put some toilet paper in the freezer just in case.

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Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

There is a Youtuber which I watch from time to time and he specializes in eating old MREs. The oldest "thing" (I can't name it any other way) he has eaten is a cracker from the American civil war.

Do you really think that this applies to everything except shellfish?

Exactly, because botulism ain't fun.

It crossed my mind too.....

Not sure what it is, apparently some people here use to keep food products many years past their expiry date.

Why, how....what?

I have eaten stuff past its best because wasting food is probably the only pet peeve I got, so. But to be completely frank, I prefer better experiments with oneself

You are a hero.

Wasn´t there some Russian scientists who fried them selves some woolly mammoth burgers during an expedition to Siberia?

To be clear, these dates on packaged foods are not "Expiry Dates" - they are best before or consume before. They do not become poisonous after these dates but in the opinion of the producers, they will be in best condition before these dates. As Ace1 pointed out, after that date the taste, texture or colour may not be as good as when first packaged.

There is absolutely no problem in eating a tin of baked beans 10 years past this date - other than they might be a bit mushy.

The only foods you need to be careful with are meat and fish - but even then, if it's a few days past and it looks and smells good, then it will be fine.

I can't but think of those old stories of expeditions to the north and south poles. Imagine battling your way through a blizzard for days until you reach that supply camp only to find -- the baked beans are past their sell by date

Readers beware: survival bias might affect this thread.

Many yonks ago Slammer worked on board a Tramp ship as a cook.
A tramp is a ship with no fix route and will take any trade it can beg steal or borrow. If no trade was available we would go out into the north sea and simply drift for a while.
One day I decided to check the condition of the supplies in the lifeboats. This ship was a so-called "Weselmann" a type built in Germany in the late ´40ties and I found that the supplies had not been changed since then, tins of condensed milk sealed with lead solder, by now the milk was green, along with the water in the tanks, the cans of preserves were so bloated you could bowl with them and any packages were alive with weevils.
I told the captain and got a bollocking for doing something I had not been ordered to do.
In the end it all landed at the bottom of the northsea.

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Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

Moral of the story?
Don't go on a cruise with slammer.

Jokes aside, that's pretty aweful. Can you imagine, escaping a catastrophe and then finding that nasty stuff on board a lifeboat. It speaks volumes of the overall safety standards of that shipping line.

"Weevil Safety

Weevils, whether in larval or adult stage, are not harmful to humans or animals. Although it may seem unsavory to you, they can be eaten along with any food they have infested without causing any ill effects. ... If weevils eat the grains and die, observers know pesticides are present."

(from www.animals.mom.me/weevils-dangerous-8076.html)

Interesting. I have never seen those actually. They are tiny, aren't they.

On the MS Europa, Germany´s top cruiseliner and another of Slammer´s ships, it was very much the same, but not as bad as on the MS Patricia, on a cruiseliner the supplies get checked every time they go in for their equivalent of a MFK, but, they don´t have to be changed, just checked by one overworked don´t-give-a- yard hand.
Happy to mention though that on the Prinz Hamlet, the Hamburg-Harwich ferry the lifeboat supplies were changed regularly.

The most inappropriate food on a lifeboat:

My starters: Durian

In the case of having a choice of them in your food, you should look to the lesser of two weevils.

But surely the bigger the weevil the better ?

I'm surprised at some people's reactions to old tinned goods, but it's always been accepted by food science that as long as a tin is still intact, no bulging, no corrosion, no dents, the contents cannot have developed any form of bacteria. The whole point is that the goods have been sterilised by heating _after_ the tin is sealed, so the physical barrier keeps it that way.

So hundred year old corned beef? Yeah, bring it on.

As it happens, I just watched an episode of BBC's "Inside the factory" where they said exactly this (well, it was 45 year old fish, not corned beef, but meh).