Exact Answer: 3 Months To 1 Year
You need to know the right way to store various things. Especially if we talk about edibles, it becomes even more important to store them well as they might cause harm to your health if they expire.
When you know the shelf life of a food item, you can store it in the right place for the right amount of time. Dates are one of those dry fruits that many people love. Dates can be dry, soft, and semi-dry as well.
You just need to know their shelf life to make sure they don’t get spoiled. Many people face problems because they don’t know about the shelf life of dates. Once you know how to store them, you won’t face any problems.
How Long Do Dates Last?
| Place Of Storage | Duration |
| Pantry | 1-2 Months |
| Refrigerator | 1 Year |
| Freezer | 1-2 Years |
Dates are delicious, high-nutrient fruit that many people consume regularly due to their well-known health advantages. In the market, there are many different sorts of dates.
Depending on your tastes, you can choose fresh, semi-dry, or dry ones.
Dates, like all other fruits, can go sour. They do, however, have a lengthy shelf life and will most likely be consumed before they go bad. When properly stored, they will last much longer than the expiration date on the label.
Dates, like all fruits, ripen and decay over time, therefore they can’t be kept fresh indefinitely. Their quality will likely deteriorate over time.
If you come across these fruits in your cupboard after a long period, they will have completely dried up. Not just this, they become hard and rubbery. And, you should not eat them like this.
When you keep your dates open at room temperature, they can be fine for 2 to 3 months. And, if you decide to put them in the fridge, they will not get spoiled for more than 6 months. Moreover, if you store them safely, they can even last up to 1 year.
After the label date has passed, you can store any of these date kinds in your cupboard for several months. Furthermore, storing them in the refrigerator will extend their shelf life even further.
Fresh dates have a shorter shelf life than dried dates, so keep them refrigerated if you plan to keep them for a long time. The shelf life of dates is also determined by their ripeness, so read the packaging carefully.
Why Do Dates Last That Long?
If you store dates incorrectly, mold and bacteria can grow on them, causing them to spoil. The good news is that you’ll be able to tell when it’s time to discard this fruit with ease.
When dates deteriorate, the foul stench is the first thing you’ll notice. This fruit has a faint, neutral aroma in general, but once it gets bad, it has an unpleasant, rancid, or alcoholic stench.
The next warning indicator is a colour shift. Dates that have darkened or have pale patches on the surface are unfit to eat. In most situations, discolouration is accompanied by a moldy appearance.
When you notice that your dates have become sticky when you touch them, you know it’s time to toss them out. When combined with other symptoms, this indicates that consuming them is not a good idea.
Dates’ flavour will fluctuate over time, much like their quality. Safe dates, on the other hand, will not have any bitterness or acidity. Throw away the rest of the package if the flavour has changed dramatically.
After detecting white specks on their surface and mixing them with mold, it’s not uncommon for people to trash perfectly edible dates. Mould is a good warning of rotten dates, but along with it, the scent, colour, and texture also change.
The pale patches beneath and on top of the date’s skin could be separated from fruit sugar crystals. To see if the marks erase, softly heat the dates. They are completely safe to eat if this happens.
Conclusion
It happens many times that you have dates at home but you don’t know how to store them. Sometimes people buy dates to use as an ingredient in some dishes and are left with some extra dates. In that situation, if you know the right way to store them and about their shelf life, it is fine.
It can be quite dangerous when you don’t know how long dates last. You may end up eating spoiled or expired dates. Once you know about the shelf life of dates, you will be safe from all these possibilities.
References
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098108004887
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-003-0315-4
- https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2008.01436.x
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