Flushin Toilet

Is that an expiry date or "best before end of" date? I don't remember an expiry date on fish in cans, and, In general, fish in oil lasts ages after the BBE date. I doubt in any case it's the fish which might be the problem. If they're in tomato sauce it's the acidity of that which is likely to be the limiting factor. Having said that, the tins of tomatoes I have have a BBE and not E date on them.

Have you opened a can and checked to see what it smells like?

If you decide to dispose of the contents why not leave them in the garden for the carrion eaters to deal with?.

You know what they say of allowed flushables, the 4 Ps Piss,poo, paper and pilchards

So it was you, was it?

Eat them, even if they are rotten, as a punishment for having helped create food shortages.

Very good. :)

Not sure what this has to do with DIY - but - keep them until next time you fancy a Pilchard (!!) If the tin seems OK when you open it then it's almost certainly OK to eat them. If the coating of the tin is damaged, or there's a metallic smell, put them out for the birds.

Just chuck the tin, unopened in the general waste. Or open the tin, sniff the contents and eat if they don't smell too bad.

And small flushable Pets.

The usual gauge I use is if the tin is showing signs of swelling. If it isn't, you've got a pretty good chance the contents are OK. Remember it's in the mfr's interests for you to throw stuff away prematurely and buy fresh, and they're protecting themselves at the same time.

I often eat stuff beyond the BBF or E date, and I'm still here, and can't recall ever suffering from an upset tummy.

Why not eat them?

Tinned food should last forever.

The 'best before' simply means 'dont sue us if they dont taste so good after'

In other words it is a guarantee of quality before that date, not a guarantee of badness after it.

This!

Part of what lies behind the BBE thing for tinned foods is the leaching of oestrogen-mimicking compounds from the tin’s lining. The food may look, smell, and taste good, but it’s possibly contaminated. Bung ‘em (the unopened tins) in the wheelie-bin.

We had a Christmas Pudding with a best before date of July 2012 at Christmas 2013. Tasted fine, we're all still here.

Didn't the Victorians eat tins from a doomed naval expedition that were

you needed a hammer and chisel to open the tins.

Search a few newsgroups for some good tinned pilchard recipes.

Pilchards on toast, Pilchard Pate, Curried Pilchard...

P.S. Google came up with (I kid you not):

Tinned Sardine(sic!) Salad Tinned Pilchard Rougaille Tinned fish cakes Macaroni, tinned fish and baked beans Pilchards and baked beans...

Having read through that lot, now would be a good time to chuck then in the bin.

Surely a Xmas pud should have a "Best After" date, not a best before?

They need time to mature.

Now if you said you ate it at Christmas 2021, that would be notable.

The correct method is described (in detail) in "Three Men in a Boat".

There was a story in the papers in 2006, of a man that cooked and ate a

ISTR that someone brought canned meat from the 1907 Shackleton expedition back for testing 40 or 50 years later, but someone ate it before it could be tested and again was fine.

One of those failed north or south pole early expeditions where they found some of the bodies recently. Analysing the bones, disn't they find extremely high lead contamination, enough to suggest the expedition could have come to grief due to the use of lead to seal the cans of early canned foodstuffs.

You'd think after 43 years being a programmer I would be able to type!

We had a pudding with a best before date of July 2012 at Christmas 2023. Eleven years past the best before date.

It was delicious.