My off-gridder friend "Jalapeno" (no, he's not Hispanic, its just what I call him) always wants to reciprocate if I give him anything. His cabin is full of interesting stashes of various food products so on one occasion, probably almost two years ago, he gave me a box of past "best use by" store brand elbow macaroni and a can of either just "expired" or soon to be so tomato sauce, basically meatless "spaghetti" sauce. They sat around in my downstairs office until about 2 weeks ago when I decided to try them out and see how "bad" they could be.

I cooked up the whole box of elbow noodles, now 3 1/2 years past "best use by" and it then dumped in the can of the tomato sauce, now 2 years past due. I topped it off with either 3 or 4 kinds of cheese (can't remember now) and fresh ground black pepper.

Was it "gourmet"..? No, but probably was never going to be so. It was tasty enough and filled by belly for lunch and gave me no issues later on. I split the rest of what was leftover and gave some to Jalapeno and some to his hoarder-farmer "landlord". No complaints from them either.

Most Americans and Canadians would have probably thrown both items
in the trash. The day may be coming, perhaps sooner than we think, when they won't...

Food for the tummy I eat food that is past date also.

I bought a dehydrator a few years ago and haven't used it much but have a few survival meals sitting on standby! Including some wild turkey chilli which may be too tough to chew? Guess I'll find out when I need a survival meal or get curious.

You're right that those best before dates can often be stretched pretty far

Had a GF that drove me nuts, she was pathological anal about use by dates, swore they would instantly turn toxic at midnight . Dry food will keep a long time past the date and canned goods are fine if the can ain't swole up.

Fella who's now passed on in my neck of the woods used to take Kraft Mac and cheese and mix in whatever leftovers where in his fridge and call it "Booger soup" he weren't much of a cook but he didn't let it go to waste!

Been to more than one Amish grocery store where all the products in the store are past their sell by date. Somebody has a deal where they go from store to store picking up all the out of date stuff and it somehow then makes it to the Amish. Frozen meats too.