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by autoexec 615 days ago
> Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks.

They're probably full of things that are bad for you too.

Your salt is full of microplastics (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...). Your oats are full of chlormequat. Your spices are full of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, and lead), and the same is true for vinegar, nuts, beans, and rice. Most honey sold in stores isn't real honey but comes from China and can be filled with chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics. Almost all of the extra virgin olive oil sold in US stores is fake and can also be contaminated with phthalates. Around half the garlic sold in the US comes from china and according to some this is Communist Sewage-Garlic, and a threat to national security (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67662779) which can also be covered in chemicals (the common claim is methyl bromide is used although I haven't seen anything to back that up)

The quinoa sitting on your shelf seems the least likely to be toxic or bad for you, but you might want to avoid it for other reasons (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jan/25/quinoa-g...)

2 comments

You're not wrong. The safest play is to not consume anything.
None of these issues have anything to do with shelf life, though.