eat 'em. pay attention to taste and smell. your body is usually pretty good at detecting obvious threats to it. if it smells funny, don't eat it. if it smells fine but tastes funny, you may have missed something when smelling it so think about it for a minute, whether you're a) just paranoid b)tasting a new flavor or one you didn't expect, or c) it's bad. if c, spit it out.

if you're like me, and have stomach with some pretty good enzymes and a relatively decent immune system, you could eat a little even of something before realizing it's bad and suffer comparatively little ill effects. even if not, paying attention to your own defense mechanisms and erring on the side of caution pays off.

but sealed and only a few months old? they're probably barely stale, if that.

I think you'll be fine.

Fucking stoners.

LOL j/k blicks XOXO

I would eat them. that date is often just a suggestion.

More goddamn government regulation ruining my freedom. Socialism sucks.

you'n totally eat those. that's just the sell by date anyways. doesn't say nothing about eat by.

With those ingredients the only thing bad that can happen is staleness. And maybe mold if it's humid and you wait long enough.

Like beargrinder says, your taste and smell can usually tell you if something is off.

Also, for wet foods like meat, tofu, things in jars etc. one giveaway is a viscous texture, like saliva or honey. This comes from cells broken down into sticky matter by active bacteria.

And finally, if a food just doesn't seem right, like they say in restaurants, "When in doubt, throw it out."

I feel crunchy myself eating this.

I thought it was "when in doubt, throw the health inspector out"

most food items like that have a best by date that's total bullshit.

this is good for me because the candy store that my fiance runs is always stocked with 'out of code' treats that they cant sell but i can come in and steal and eat or give to friends.

The individual ingredients I could give more guidance on. The sugars in that mix would be ripe for bacteria or fungus growth if their were any kind of moisture present, but there's likely not, given that the package was sealed. The dried fruit in the absence of moisture has a sugar content so high that microbes can't thrive in the presence of the osmotic pressure. Salted preserved goods have this same feature, though it's osmotic pressure from the salt, rather than the sugar. I might also be worry about the nuts going rancid if they weren't stored in a vacuum.

I could probably write a whole essay on food preservation and spoilage, but I'm a little drunk and lazy, plus I doubt most folks want to read it. The food safety information published by the USDA is so excessively conservative and wasteful as to be wholly useless. As if I should really cook my fucking pork chops to a charred mess when the only food safety threat is trichinella that dies quite readily at 137F which is way pinker than most people want to eat.

Ian is right. Smell it, taste it, check it out a little at a time. Your body will tell you what's what.

GOOD IFNO

Should clarify that they weren't in a "sealed" container, but rather a reasonably airtight plastic clamshell (thicker and with a stronger seal than a to-go restaurant clamshell). It appears they were baked and packaged at whole foods.

If any of you guys like tempeh, tofu, veggie "meat" (stuff made mostly of soy), really the biggest thing you have to watch out for is pink mold. With tempeh at least, brown/grey mold is good mold, it's the beans fermenting. I threw away a good brick of tempeh before I learned this.

feels good when heath backs up something you say.

speaking of munchies

ate all the vegan ones already.

Are those gelatin based?

report back? did you et them?

those gummy bears are gelatin based, but we have other stuff that is not

http://www.naturalcandystore.com/category/vegan-gummy-candy

sorta spendy, even at wholesale, but i been munching on these (vegan too i think):

oh, and strawberry shot bloks are so good i always eat too many.

I need munchies ifno. Okay so I got turkey, cheddar, and jalapenos. What else should I add for a great sandwich?

maybe some bread

i lol'd

sprouts
moar kinds of cheese
moar kinds of meats
tomatoes
mustard

and yes, bread.

i need to have the munchies soon

oh shit, so that means my coke has coke in it?

p.s. there actually isn't any honey in them. they must be trying to satisfy bitchy vegans for some reason.

AND BACON

how does excluding honey from one's diet make one "bitchy"?

p.s. those totally have honey in them.

Honey liquor is really good.

Used to drink the shit out of this when I was living in waltham. It was first a novelty, then it turned into a lifestyle. The Bärenjäger life.

i have never seen this but i am now on a quest to find it.

i thought that was a given. kinda like, breathe air when making the sandwich.

No dude... no.

On the other hand, Ethiopian honey wine can be tasty.

been there done that, said things that never should have been said