Non- (food storage)

[cjsmith]

You wouldn't BELIEVE, or maybe you would, what canned sodas do after about six years sitting in a cabinet. Despite its lack of carbonation the Hawaiian Punch is no better (although I admit it's older - Jan 1998, and have you ever seen Hawaiian Punch that is yellow?). It is very disturbing how many of those cans were empty. The cabinet shelving is in very bad shape.

Oh dear. Rob reports that he has found bricks of this stuff hissing. He is risking life and limb by carrying them with his bare hands to the sink. I am hiding at the far end of the living room.

Word to the wise: this is what happens when you give up sodas and start drinking more healthfully. Don't do it, people. Learn from my mistake. The sodas want REVENGE.

Comments

[anirishpenguin.livejournal.com]

Yellow Hawaiian Punch sounds quite scary?

Hopefully Rob will not be injured by any of the cans.
Can the shelves be saved or fixed?

Good luck

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

Don't do it, people. Learn from my mistake. The sodas want REVENGE.

that is precisely why i went on a soda-drinking binge of sorts prior to quitting it completely: i had to clean out what was in my house!

if your stuff was hissing, surely it was getting ready to mobilize. sounds like you staged your counter-attack at just the right time!

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Diet Coke left in the trunk of the car for the summer is pretty nasty, too.
FWIW, if you ever drink Hawaiian Punch again, mix it with a nice lime-aide, it's actually rather nice, then.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

He seems to have wiped out the enemy with minimal losses to his own forces. The bottom shelf of the cabinet is a goner, but that's okay. We were planning to tear it out some day anyway.

[nosrednayduj]

Interesting. I bought 82 cases of vintage Tab in 1984 (when they switched from saccharine to aspartame, and I hated the new stuff -- I drove around to every supermarket within a 15 mile radius buying up the old stuff). I started out with my usual 4 or so cans a day, but slowly ramped down. When I moved across the country in 1988 I had 28 cases left, and lost 7 cases in transit (what a mess!) Those final 21 cases lasted until 1993, when I was down to about one a week. I did have some storage failures, because I had them in a moldy basement for a while, and when I went to wash them all off some had indeed lost integrity, so I lost a bunch then. I kept them in a cleaner environment after that. I rarely had them fail to be carbonated when I opened them, up to the end. Any such failures were obvious beforehand, because the can was squashy rather than rigid, but they were not common.

I sang, "One more can of tab on the shelf, one more can of tab... take it down, drink it myself, NO MORE CANS OF TAB ON THE SHELF!" at a party while drinking the final one. So, mine lasted 9 years. But, of course, I don't know whether it REALLY tasted the same the whole time, and if it were poison by the end I had built up resistance. (Yeah, yeah, it was poison the whole time, I know, I know.)

Actually I sort of have one left, it was a failure in packaging, and the pop-top lid never got attached. I'm keeping it as a memento. It proves how old it is -- there's a contest which "offer expires 9-30-84" printed on the top. But that can's now 22 years old, and it's still intact. It's in a "cool dry place", though, on top of my dresser away from direct sunlight. I figure it's surely not food anymore (modulo the above disclaimer) so I put a label on it "Display only, do not drink". I kept the empty can from the last swallow as well (with the same contest).

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Isn't it funny that we'd rather let this stuff wreck the insides of our bodies than wreck a wooden board? :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ew, I can only imagine what the trunk of that car must have been like! Heat does NOT help!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow! Those did last a long time! O'course, you had some failures too. For our cabinet, it took only a few failures to wreck the area.

Glass bottles in particular *really* last. I should ask Rob how old the glass bottles of Coke in his parents' basement are. They're pre-"New Coke".

Our Hawaiian Punch cans had bowed outward and were under quite a bit of pressure. It is clear they had fermented. They were only eight years old, but they did have sugars in them. Oops.

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Oh, it didn't blow up or anything. But I made the mistake of tasting it.
Ewwwwwwwwww!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh yuck! I remember burning my tongue on Coke once. Your experience was probably just about that bad. Ugh! Things we could happily have gone to our deathbed not having experienced!

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

Somewhere I have a C and C cola can from a girl scout picnic in the 1970's. This was when you had to use can openers on soda - and just before we opened it, we discovered the sealed can was empty!

[lkeele.livejournal.com]

Yep, food does take its revenge, doesn't it? I never would have thought sodas would be so violent, though. Sure, I've had a few explode on me in my time, but to gang up on you like that is so wrong.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

They vandalized the house, too. The nerve! I'm glad I broke up with them when I did. They're obviously not to be trusted.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

That's scary! I had an old can of Coke that had been a commemorative of something or other, so I had saved it. It was at least 9 or 10 years old -- still sealed, but I have no idea what it was like inside. I didn't want it any more, so I freecycled it. I hope the recipient wanted it for the commemorative can and wasn't planning to drink it! I figured such ancient soda would be flat ... but I had no idea it would do all the scary things described in your post and some of the comments!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

The can may well maintain its integrity for a long time. The failure rate in our cabinets didn't have to be high to make a serious mess. :-)