Does salt or pepper expire?

salt no, pepper maybe next century?

Salt will be OK for about 5 million years or so. Pepper maybe a couple of hundred.

Depends alot on the container. Glass is best.

Morton's (and others) paper based containers are subject to moisture and anthing carried by moisture.

Sealed paper packets are vulnerable as well. Keep them in a big glass container.

Just to give you an example, I have a warehouse I do work in that has the occasional mouse, extremely large bug, etc. (it's in Florida). I will NOT use any paper packet of salt, pepper, etc. that has been laying around in the open and out of my sight. You never know what might have been done to those packets when you'r not looking. The same can happen to a lesser extent inside the average kitchen cabinet if theya re not kept in sealed gless containers.

The flavor and aroma that makes pepper a useful condiment is an aerosal that gradually evaporates into the surrounding atmosphere, thus it does degrade, and depending on how tightly it is sealed as well as the temperature, it will become nearly flavorless/useless after a decade or so. That's why fancy restaurants freshly grind pepper over your Caesar salad. Just try freshly ground pepper and your taste buds will really know the difference. Most spices are the same, aromatic oils diffuse out of the spice over time, some much faster than others. Salt is a mineral and as stated by posters above can last forever, although it can "cake" if exposed to moisture.

Iv'e recently put some pepper corns into a grinder after they were in a glass jar for about 9-10 yrs - and they were not new then! - but they still taste good.

Honey also never goes bad!!!!!!!

But it gets "gummy".....Like it separates into 2 types of liquid....

heat it, let it melt, itll reform

fuck yea pepper expires .. it loses potentcy fast, starting within a month or so

Salt no. It can however under go changes in its chemistry loosing it's saltiness a tad. Mind table salt is not pure sodium, it is a mixture (man mixed) of sodium and iodine.

Pepper is an organic substance, meaning a seed which is ground up, it has a shelf life (in sealed, dry container) of 5 years after that is it no good for use in cooking/eating.

Does everyone know that table salt (yea that blue canister of mortons0 contains sugar? You can quickly win a bet. You will see there is actually an ingredient list on your beloved salt container and dextrose is an ingredient. Sick isn't it?

so does salt and pepper expire???? no one realy answered the question

It's in there to stabilize the iodine, in iodized table salt. In extremely insignificant quanities.

Do you even know what dextrose is?

Or is it just some scary science-sounding word that frightens your little woo-woo brain?

Pure salt (NaCl) is a mineral and providing it doesn't get contaminated (eg with iron from stainless steel) it'll keep for thousands of years. Even pure water won't harm it though you would probably want to dry it and regrind.

Pepper is a seed and is likely to loose potency after a few years or go off if exposed to water. Store dry peppercorns in an airtight glass container, keep them in a cool, dark place (UV will destroy the aromatics) and they'll probably be OK for a few years. Alternatively plant fresh percorns and harvest annually then store after drying.

Hope this helps but remember, many commercial table salts and peppers have all sorts of crap added to enhance and pad them out so anything could happen during storage.

I think salt may over time loose a kick but pepper can go if it is in a container that has an expiration date on it, such as mine did when I started to refill my shaker!

huh

do salt or pepper expire after 5 years

In Wieliczka (Poland) they have 15 mil years old salt and it did not expire yet.

:11:

nope

salt - forever

pepper - ground, 6-months & peppercorns, 2 years

I enjoy your enthusiasm

dextrose = corn sugar

Salt is a mineral, non-organic, so it lasts pretty much forever.

Pepper, on the other hand, IS organic, and while it doesn't really 'go bad', it does lose it's 'pepperness' with time, and becomes useless as a spice.