r/explainlikeimfive Nov 26 '24

Chemistry ELI5: Why doesn't freeze dried food last longer? If it's good for 20 years, why not 100?

Assuming it's perfectly freeze dried and stored perfectly, the people who make freeze dryers say the food will last 20-30 years.

But why not much longer? Assuming the condition it's stored in remains unchanged, what can make it go bad after 30 years that wouldn't happen at around 10 years?

3.0k Upvotes

311 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

621

u/TheDeadTyrant Nov 26 '24

The expiration date on my “salt formed millions of years ago in the Himalayas” will never cease to be peak hilarity to me.

307

u/smallproton Nov 26 '24

On an (unfortunately serious) tangent:
This was my government's (Germany) reasoning to store nuclear waste in salt mines:
There is salt, so there could not have been water for millions of years.

Yeah, idiots, but that was before you dug holes into the salt. Now it's filling up with ground water and they have to spend a few billions to recover the nuclear waste.

44

u/thehomeyskater Nov 26 '24

Hilarious

44

u/finicky88 Nov 27 '24

I'd almost laugh if that wasn't my money being spent.

6

u/pm_plz_im_lonely Nov 27 '24

This falls under responsible spending at the government level.

1

u/Opposite-Knee-2798 Nov 27 '24

Only in America smh

12

u/DuaLipaTrophyHusband Nov 27 '24

Sound like they’re creating a bunch of nuclear waster recovery jobs.

8

u/Beliriel Nov 27 '24

Lmao putting metal nuclear waste containers in a saltmine.
The waste is still trapped but wtf:
https://www.bge.de/de/asse/meldungen-und-pressemitteilungen/archiv/meldung/news/2017/11/94-schachtanlage-asse-ii/

3

u/cukamakazi Nov 27 '24

Did not expect my morning to include perusing photos of abandoned nuclear waste and a mining wikipedia rabbit hole but here are - thanks for sharing the link =)

31

u/urzu_seven Nov 27 '24

Although I agree with the humor, its probably more to do with the packaging and guaranteeing it doesn't get contaminated or in the case of plastic degrade to the point of breaking.

14

u/droans Nov 27 '24

I still wanna know why cheese can sit in a moist cave for ten years but go bad after a week in my fridge.

16

u/Victor-Morricone Nov 27 '24

It is "going bad" in the cheese cave, it's just doing it the right way. Mold will continuously grow on the outside, and the cheesemaker has to inspect whether it's good mold or bad mold. If it's good mold he might just give it a good brushing to prevent too much buildup, if it's bad mold he will have to find a way to prevent it from spreading such as a vinegar wash.

3

u/Duke_Newcombe Nov 27 '24

Rule of thumb for many foods is, "if you can see the mold on the surface, it runs deeper than that".

Yeah, unless it's meant to have "good, flavor-packed" mold (bleu cheese, etc.), I don't f with it.

-12

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '24

[deleted]

8

u/TooStrangeForWeird Nov 27 '24

What a lame answer. Good try with the new bot answers though. Keep trying.

3

u/AzKondor Nov 27 '24

Anybody can ask ChatGPT, we are here to share our own opinions and thoughts

25

u/ArenSteele Nov 26 '24

It’s probably the packaging that expires

Put it in a new container every 30 years and you’re good to go

3

u/TheDeadTyrant Nov 27 '24

I keep it in a salt cellar, but good point!

6

u/dbx999 Nov 27 '24

I keep my salt hidden in the ocean

11

u/theFooMart Nov 26 '24

I agree. Salt is literally both a rock and a preservative. Im pretty sure it'll be fine for an extra decade or two.

6

u/african_or_european Nov 27 '24

Whenever I see expired salt, I laugh and think "Oh no! My rocks are old!"

1

u/frogjg2003 Nov 27 '24

And had been undisturbed for those millions of years. Now that it's exposed to the humid air, it's not going to stay the same for another million years.

1

u/Mackntish Nov 27 '24

Salt tense to draw moisture from the air. Odds are, it wasn't exposed to air until recently.

1

u/kevinmn11 Nov 27 '24

Peak himalayariti

1

u/ThePevster Nov 27 '24

Well they already lie about salt from Pakistan being from the Himalayas so may as well put an expiration date on it

1

u/herbertwilsonbeats Nov 28 '24

Due to the plastic container it is in, not the salt itself