Sorting the loft yesterday only to discover I have loads of energy gels been sitting there for a year. Can I still use it? Best before date 2015 😐

Try one, what’s the worst that can happen?

if the packet is sealed and it tastes ok, then as Willard says.

I used some bb Nov 2015 at the weekend with no issues…tasted the same as usual and no picolax type issues in the hours that followed 😉

sugar is a preservative so should be okay I reckon.

Anything with a 2 yr best before life is hardly going to go off the next week!

Try one, what’s the worst that can happen?

It will taste rank, and give you slight indigestion for 20 mins or so…

…or it might be fine.

I had two on Monday with a 2012 best before date.

I’m still here 🙂

I’ve got a box somewhere that are about 2 years past the date! Still taste fine.

I’d only bin them if they swelled up or had a hole in them.

As above: if the packaging is undamaged and they taste okay they’ll be fine. Sugar is a preservative.

The whole best before and use by date thing really boils my piss. I have a constant battle at home with my teenage daughter who’s been brainwashed at school in Home Economics about best before and use by dates. I am aware of the difference between use by and best before dates, but FFS any common sense is removed from decision making and so much food gets wasted just because of a date printed on it. So much so that I’ve started removing or obliterating dates … no one has died and we haven’t had any food poisoning.

She’s an intelligent kid (straight A stars predicted at GCSE) but last night this really took the biscuit. I was presented with a punnet of perfectly ripe and delicious strawberries I’d picked up from the farm shop on the way home: “Dad, are these safe to eat? There’s no use by date on them”.

“Dad, are these safe to eat? There’s no use by date on them”.

“hmm, no, I don’t think you should risk it”, (then eat strawberries).

I’m glad I’m not the only one, my 10yo Daughter is constantly questioning the safety of food, there seems to be no rational thought involved in the guidance they receive on this.
Oh, and eat the gels they’ll be fine but day old rice wraps are not (I have never evacuated myself so hard or so long, maybe my Daughter has a point).

Didn’t even know they had best before dates. (Gels, not strawberries)

Seeing as i’ve not bought any since 2012, i guess mine are all dead now………

I’ll have them if you’re throwing them out. Gels seem to suffer no ill effects at all. Bars get dark and chewier.

Currently working my way through my mother’s ‘nuclear bunker store’ of out of code food. 1999 Strawberry Jam was almost black but tasted fine (whereas a ‘just out of code’ blackcurrent had gone crystalline). Early 90’s Pataks fruit and nut chutney was fine.

Green & Blacks chocolate spread goes rancid somewhere between code and 5 years old. We’re got some *really* old stuff in cans but that should all be fine.

How does anything chocolate go near 5 years old?
Not in my house,not even 5 minutes!
Ha ha!
Max

My mum carries stock. We also bought back some old Nutella. Still left a few jars behind.

” best before ” not ” use by ” I’d eat them .

Am I the only cynic on here? Use by and best before dates are just a ploy to get us to throw stuff away and buy more?

Maybe just a bit like the gel manufactures who suggest “three per hour of exercise” …just some marketing ploy to get us to buy more?! Do the math … that’s 12 gels on a four hour ride … for one, my guts would know about that!!

Not really given that as I posted above, I’m still using gels with a BB date of 2012.

I would not do the same for meat/fish however 🙂

Sugar is a preservative..id maybe bin them if they’re 5 years past date.
As for the advice “one every 20 mins” just no.dentists are expensive, stopqand have a sandwich or something unless you’re a pro racer.
I just use them as emergency anti bonking aids.

Sugar is a preservative

well, the alcohol it ferments into is, anyway.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/will-i-die-from-having-out-of-date-energy-gel

I had a large tub or Torq powder with a date of June 2012, used it all last year to no ill effects. I don’t think I’ve ever had an in date gel, you’ll live.

The always excellent 99 percent invisible podcast did an, admittedly US centric, episode on best before and use by dates: Best enjoyed by. Best before dates are usually derived by giving people progressively older samples of the food until they say it doesn’t taste as good or different. Nothing to do with safety. Use by might be a bit different.

Well if energy gels ferment into alcohol, that’s a secret bonus in my book.

Send me your out of date gel packs!

the Nectar ones I mentioned in the other thread ALL ballooned (some actually failing at the seal), which has to be due to gas given off during a chemical reaction. Distant foggy memories of chem lessons suggest fermentation can be (or has to be?) anaerobic (so would work in a sealed container like a gel packet) and it gives of CO2, and the one I gave a tentative taste test (easier to type than say!) had definitely gone off.

Yeh I’d say that’s probably off!

Mine are all BB May 2013. They taste fine with no ill effects

Best Before means it will be fine.

It’s past its optimum taste / condition but is fine to eat way beyond. It means use common sense.

Sealed sterile gel probably fine for a decade.

Have you ever seen a “gone off” packet of sugar or a jar of “gone off” Lyles Golden Syrup?

Your gels are just a very expensive packet of the above.

Maybe just a bit like the gel manufactures who suggest “three per hour of exercise” …just some marketing ploy to get us to buy more?! Do the math … that’s 12 gels on a four hour ride … for one, my guts would know about that!!

It’s mostly as the science behind it all won’t fit on the back of a gel packet so they have to put something for the simpletons to go by… 😉

Being able to differentiate between a 4hr flat out red line ride and a 4hr excursion with some riding at nowhere near your limits isn’t that hard though. If I was doing something like XCM and 90km in the 4 and a bit hours then 12 gels might help.

Anyway OP try one when your in easy reach of some soothing bog roll and see what happens.

What the hell type of date are you going on, which you need to take ‘energy gels’ !

I always end up with out of date gels to no ill effect, a couple have certainly changed to a more fizzy/alcoholic form and they get binned.

It will taste rank, and give you slight indigestion for 20 mins or so…

So no change there then!

I’ve been in food factories where the “re-packaging” dept rips off the boxes with an out of date use-by and sticks them back into new ones.

I’ve just found a load at the back of a cupboard, best before August 2012.
Big ride planned for tomorrow, so will scoff them then.
Will report back if I die.

Don’t forget to take a spare pair of shorts 😀

They give you the trots anyway, what’s the worst that can happen

I had a very old SIS one a while ago, it had separated out a bit and was a bit chewy/gritty at the end. definitely past it’s best, not tasty but safe

Time to find some that agree with you then. Can’t imagine the entire pro peloton lives with the sits for 9 months of the year

We have plenty of out of date stuff at work that gets used and no-one has died. I’m working my way through a box of GO Hydro tablets which are 6 months past best before. They are fine.