[paul.fr]

99% of students have had these as part of their...diet...but for how long after the use by date are dry foods edible for?

[RD]

Ancient noodle rewrites history
15 October 2005

Magazine issue 2521
WHO invented the noodle is a hotly contested topic - with the Chinese, Italians and Arabs all staking a claim.

But the discovery of a pot of thin yellow noodles preserved for 4000 years in Yellow river silt may have tipped the bowl in China's favour. It suggests that people were eating noodles at least 1000 years earlier than previously thought, and many centuries before such dishes were documented in Europe.

"These are undoubtedly the oldest noodles ever found," says Houyuan Lu at China's Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. His team found the noodles buried 3 metres deep in flood-plain sediment at Lajia in north-eastern China after lifting out an upturned bowl. The "spaghetti-like" noodles, up to 50 centimetres long, sat atop a mound of silt which had sealed them in the bowl following a major earthquake and flood.

Lu's team report in Nature (vol 437, p 967) ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825212.800

They've definitely passed their "best before" date [].

[RD]

The Korean vegetarian version of this snack: "Not-Poodle Pot-Noodle"  [].

[SquarishTriangle]

Those things are NEVER edible!! Euuuurghh.

[rosalind dna]

If you want dry food then have some toast or similar stuff.
But I agree Pot Noodles are yukky and full of additives some
of them are illegal in the EU now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_Noodle

[blakestyger]

Pot noodles are definitely toxic.

[LeeE]

Dunno about noodles, but I've cooked and eaten dried Spaghetti that was over eight years old - about five years after it's 'eat by date'.

It seemed fine and no unpleasent side effects:)

Perhaps I should mention that as a young child my diet was apparently virtually unlimited and I've been told by my parents that I tried to eat virtually everything, and succeeded most of the time i.e earth & worms, but as separate menu items.  Heh - I actually remember licking some spilled sherbet off paving slabs when I was about three years old.  Possibly, as a consequence, I seem to have developed a pretty robust digestive system that still works well to this day.

[SquarishTriangle]

Dunno about noodles, but I've cooked and eaten dried Spaghetti that was over eight years old - about five years after it's 'eat by date'.

It seemed fine and no unpleasent side effects:)

Perhaps I should mention that as a young child my diet was apparently virtually unlimited and I've been told by my parents that I tried to eat virtually everything, and succeeded most of the time i.e earth & worms, but as separate menu items.  Heh - I actually remember licking some spilled sherbet off paving slabs when I was about three years old.  Possibly, as a consequence, I seem to have developed a pretty robust digestive system that still works well to this day.

Champ! One that comes to mind for me was eating out of the bin at school when I was 5. I was possibly the world's slowest eater and I could never finish a sandwich over the hour we had for lunch so I would throw half of it out. But I was equally terrified that my mum would find out that I was throwing food away, meaning I would later retrieve a sandwich (quite possibly not mine) from the bin and eat it...nice! (Clearly hadn't learnt how to lie at that stage.