they last as long as the essence or active oils still give of themselves.

if it still smells like cumin, or coriander, or tumeric, then use it, but after 10 years check that they are still dry powder (no suspicious looking mouldy bits) and use about double the recipe guidelines.

as for burning them, only woody ones like cinnemon sticks burn well, some other powdered spices can cause irritation to the lining of the nose & throat if inhaled in too large quatities ( I don't know if you're trying to get rid of a pound of chilli powder of three sticks of cinnamon??)

Nice smelling spices can be put in a pot on the stove and simmered in water to make the house smell like somebody baked something yummy.

Whole spices (ie, seeds) *might* be OK, but powdered will be shot.

We still have spices we bought when we first got married 25 years ago. They still work.







Kind of.

Thanks for all the info, bunnies. I'm forwarding the thread link to him.

I don't know why he doesn't ask himself, he has an account.

I've heard you can get a little more bang out of old spices by microwaving them, but I've never tried it.

As a personal rule I avoid eating anything a decade old.

You can use them. They won't hurt you. But they've lost the majority of their flavor. I always notice this when I replace the end of an old ground-spice powder with a new one. The new one whaps you in the face with strong scent - where the old one was sort of a faint aroma.

If you find you use certain spices very slowly - and it sounds like you do - there are a couple things you can do. First, if you live near a health food store or other hippy-crunchy store, they often carry bulk spices which you can buy in tiny amounts. That way you can always have relatively fresh spices, and not have most of a $7 bottle of spice go to waste.

Also, you can keep some spices fresh in the freezer, well wrapped.

I think the big culprit in America is that people now go to Costco or wherever and buy restaurant-sized spice containers. If you don't go through it in six months, though, you've basically wasted the resource you got. Yes, you've got some sort of powder or dried leaf addition to your recipe, but you paid for flavor...and once the spices are old and the oils have evaporated, the mojo's gone.