About and sources

Nonperishables answers one question well: how long does this food keep? The storage times for all 661 foods come from the FoodKeeper data published by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, which is in the public domain.

How to read the times

The times are for best quality, not a hard safety line, and they assume safe storage: a cool, dry pantry, a fridge at 40°F or below, and a freezer at 0°F. Frozen food stays safe indefinitely; the freezer time is when quality starts to drop. "Shelf stable" on this site means a food keeps at least a month in the pantry unopened.

When to throw it out

Discard cans that bulge, leak, spurt when opened or are deeply dented along a seam, and any food that smells or looks wrong, whatever the date says.

How the site is paid for

Some pages link to shops we partner with. If you buy through them we may earn a commission, at no cost to you. It never changes the storage times, which come straight from the USDA data.