Be Good To Your Spices - They'll be Good You.
Solutions for your Spices It's time for Spring cleaning in your kitchen. Take a look at all those containers of spices on your spice rack. How long do you think you can keep them before they go bad? Forever? Yes, that's correct. Spices don't really "go bad", but on the other hand they don't "stay good". What happens is that they lose their potency. Here's the general rule: Whole spices can be used up to 4 years without a problem. Think of peppercorns for example. They'll last much longer if you don't grind them until you are ready to use them. Pepper flakes might only be useful for 1-2 years. Time varies depending on how you store them. Moisture and oxygen are their enemy, so keep your spices dry and sealed until you're ready to use them. After a quick check in my pantry I found this bottle of chopped parsley. Look at that date..."Best by Sep 08, 13". So this bottle is now a Gone Girl. Turns out that fresh parsley is in season anyway! (I know Parsley is not a spice, It's an herb. But the point is the same anyway.) While spices can lose their potency over time, they can't gain strength. The lesson here is to buy good spices. Below is a photo a spice vendor at her stall at a market in the South of France (Provence). I was in this midieval town on market day and took this photo. The spices here came mostly
