Don't Throw Those Meds Away!: The Shelf-Life Extension Program

Disclaimer:  This is not medical advice.  The following post is for education and information only.  You should always consult your physician before taking any medication, whether over the counter or prescription.  It is unlawful to take any prescription medication that has been prescribed for another individual.  Only a licensed physician has the authority to re-allocate prescription drugs for use by another individual.

Have you ever wondered about those "use by" dates printed on the bottles of your prescriptions and over-the-counter medications?  Have you ever suspected that if, say, aspirin in a bottle labeled "use by October 2021" was safe to take on October 31, 2021, that it might also be safe to take on November 1, 2021?

Wonder no more.  About thirty-ish years ago, the US government began to wonder the same thing and financed some studies.   Basically, the government recognized it was wasting money if it threw away perfectly good medicines. (I'm totally in shock about this and still trying to wrap my head around it.  Since when has our government ever been concerned about wasting money?) Drug  manufacturers felt about the same.  The results of the studies have been published in a few medical journals, but there doesn't seem to have been much effort to disseminate this information to the general public.  They might not buy as many OTC medicines if they knew.

https://www.fda.gov/EmergencyPreparedness/Counterterrorism/MedicalCountermeasures/MCMLegalRegulatoryandPolicyFramework/ucm411446.htm

https://www.ghdonline.org/uploads/drugs-Stability_Profiles-vencimiento.pdf

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(15)00667-9/pdf

http://www.formatex.info/microbiology4/vol3/1721-1725.pdf

I highly recommend reading the articles yourself.  But in case you don't have time for that right now, the gist of the articles is that it's better to use new stuff, but if there is a bioterrorist attack, or a public health emergency like a massive earthquake, or an epidemic, then it's ok to use older stock. 

??

So, if it's going to save the government money (but not you, because they're going to take all they can get from you, regardless), or there's a crisis that the government can't handle with what supplies it currently has, then it's safe to use older stock.

Translate that however you wish.  Both doctors I took classes from said they had no problem with using older medications--providing that they had been stored properly.  Furthermore, there was no hazard per se to using expired medications, only that they gradually decrease in efficacy.   (But if you have a serious infection and your antibiotic is less effective, that could be hazardous.)  Both doctors stated this was true even for tetracycline family antibiotics (including minocycline and doxycycline, the latter being a drug of choice in treating anthrax).  While tetracycline family antibiotics used to become toxic soon after their use-by date, both physicians said that they have been re-formulated so that this is no longer the case.  According to The Medical Letter, a professional newsletter, "The only report of human toxicity that may have been caused by chemical or physical degradation of a pharmaceutical product is renal tubular damage that was associated with the use of degraded tetracycline...  Current tetracycline preparations have been reformulated with different fillers to minimize degradation and are unlikely to have this effect"  (The Medical Letter, Vol. 44, Issue 1142, 28 October 2002).


There is a major exception, and that is for liquid medications.  Those simply do not have the shelf-life of tablets and capsules.  But again, they don't generally become toxic; they just become less effective.  Epi-pens do decrease in efficacy, but even five years past the use-by date they still have 60% efficacy of dosage, and that may be enough to save a life.  One of my doctor-teachers said he heard of a patient that needed seventeen shots of epinephrine before he was stabilized--until the allergen was completely eliminated from his system. Save those out-of-date epi-pens.  And for those of you with insulin-dependent diabetics in your family, my husband has found that his insulin, one of the boutique insulins (can't remember which off the top of my head) decreases in efficacy about 18 months after its use-by date.  We've read that the cheaper insulins have a longer shelf-life, up to three years. 

Now you know.

 

More Dealing with Homemade Bread Failures: Bread Pudding

When I make our regular sandwich bread, I make three loaves at a time.  When my sandwich bread fails, it fails with three loaves at a time.  That’s a lot of bread not to waste.  Bread crumbs, using the recipe in yesterday’s post, will use up one loaf of bread.  One down, two to go.

So I decided for the very first time in my life to make some bread pudding.  I figured it was something my husband grew up with.  (Apparently, he did not.  Maybe he just forgot.  I think he’s talked about it enough.  His memory isn’t that great.  Yeah, I’m going to go with that story.)

Anyway, I had another loaf of bread to use up.  So I searched Food.com for recipes.  I wanted a basic bread pudding recipe, one without too much sugar or exotic ingredients.  I certainly didn’t need a recipe that called for brandy or bourbon.  And gee whiz, they’ve got over a thousand recipes for bread pudding.  Wowza.

Clearly, the best plan of attack was to select the most popular recipe and tweak it ever so slightly to be more food storage-friendly.

Bread Pudding

4 cups bread cubes

3 eggs, beaten

1 ¾ cups whole milk

¼ cup butter, melted

¾ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dash cinnamon and nutmeg

Place bread cubes in a greased 9x9” pan.  Whisk together the eggs, milk, butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract.  Pour over the bread cubes and stir to coat evenly.  Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and nutmeg.  Bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes.  Serve warm with warm brown sugar sauce, recipe below.

Brown Sugar Sauce

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup boiling water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, cut butter into flour.  Stir in the brown sugar.  Gradually add boiling water and stir until smooth.  Bring to a boil over medium heat and continue cooking until thick.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. 

 

The original recipe says stale white bread is best; I used day-old whole wheat bread.  I’ve seen other recipes suggesting that stale hamburger or hotdog buns are even better.  The chef at the hospital where my husband used to work, St. Mary’s in Reno, used day-old donuts.  The original recipe also called for a cup of whipping cream.  I decided on 1 ¾ cups of milk and ¼ cup of butter.  I feel that whipping cream may be hard to come by in the future.  Those were the only two modifications I made the first time. 

Family reviews:  My husband was initially a little skeptical; I think he was having thirds by the time I left the house this evening, and he definitely wanted some in his lunch for tomorrow.  Jared had at least one serving.  I think Lydia had two.  And even I, someone a bit biased against bread pudding, thought it tasted pretty good.  As my husband noted, it kinda tastes like French toast, but better.  Also, the brown sugar sauce is like a less expensive version of the caramel syrup that we use with pumpkin waffles and yogurt-banana pancakes.  The caramel syrup would take this bread pudding up a notch.  Likewise, the brown sugar sauce could be used as a more economical substitute for the caramel syrup with waffles and pancakes.  I wouldn’t hesitate to use the brown sugar syrup with kids or anyone else I didn’t need to impress.  The brown sugar syrup doesn’t have anywhere near as much butter or other fat, so it’s a little lower in calories. (Oh, and wow.  There was one serving left when I got home last night, and then some shameless ruffian had it for breakfast this morning.)

Two days later, I still had one loaf of less desirable bread left to use.  I had just left it on the counter without bagging it because I was so mad that it didn't rise well.  So it was really dry.  And I decided, what the heck, I'd make another pan of bread pudding.  But this time, I decided to go all out on the food storage ingredients.  Powdered eggs, powdered milk, coconut oil added to the milk to increase the fat content, and coconut oil instead of butter.  I had leftover caramel syrup, so we used that instead of the brown sugar syrup that was long gone anyway.  

Was it as good as the other?  I didn't ask.  The kids noted it was a little drier.  (Probably because I left the bread uncovered for two days, duh.)  I will admit that it lasted a whole 60 minutes longer than the other pan.  So basically, using all long-term food storage to make this totally works. At least, around here it does.

Links to related posts:

Pumpkin Waffles and Caramel Syrup

Yogurt-Banana Pancakes

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Homemade Bread Crumbs

 

Dealing with Homemade Bread Failures—DIY Bread Crumb Recipes

After spending most every morning for the past six months in the garden, I was rather excited yesterday to have a day in the kitchen.  Too excited.  In addition to making bread, I took on a few other challenges.  I had too many irons in the fire.  I put the formed loaves of bread dough in the oven to rise.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t allowed the oven to cool enough from the previous bake job.  The dough didn’t rise much as it should have.  It was barely acceptable.  But around here, that’s not good enough, and so no one will eat more than a slice or two.  The bread will just be wasted.

Unfortunately, we are entering times when we will truly not be able to afford to waste food.  And while the dogs are always happy to take a failed loaf off my hands, and they never turn their noses up at it, I understand not everyone has such self-sacrificing dogs.  We’ve got to have ways of not wasting our recipe failures.  Homemade bread crumbs are one great way to deal with a failed loaf of bread.

Soft Bread Crumbs

1 slice or roll of bread

Tear into small pieces.  Add the bread pieces to the bowl of a food processor with the chopping blade.  Pulse repeatedly until the bread is torn into tiny crumbs.  Alternatively, put the slice or roll on a cutting board and use a fork to tear off tiny crumbs.  If not using immediately, store in an airtight container in the freezer until ready to use.  One slice yields about ½ cup of soft bread crumbs.

Dry Bread Crumbs

To prepare bread crumbs, place thinly sliced bread on a cookie sheet and bake at 225°F for about 30 minutes, turning once halfway through.  Process dried slices in a food processor.  Return the crumbs to the cookie sheet and bake for another 30 minutes.  Let cool.

Italian Bread Crumbs

3 3/4 cups dry bread crumbs

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons parsley flakes

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon oregano

 

Combine all ingredients in an airtight container.

Panko Bread Crumbs

1 loaf of white bread (or saltine or oyster crackers)

Push the white bread through the shredding disk of a food processor to yield coarse crumbs.  Spread the bread crumbs on a cookie sheet and bake at 300°F for 6-8 minutes, until the crumbs are dry but not toasted.  You do not want them to brown.  Remove from oven and let cool.  When completely cooled, store in an airtight container.

 

Potato Pancakes as Prep Food

When I started the vegetable garden this spring, we were still in the throes of COVID (still are, but far fewer of us are buying the fake news).  My older son was still sick and recovering from his injury several years earlier, my two older daughters opted for online college classes that semester, fearing a repeat of what had happened a year earlier and wanting to avoid that mess.  And Lydia was still in high school, so naturally she was still at home. 

Six months later, as I harvested the potatoes, the family dynamic has changed drastically.  Jared is doing much, much better.  He’s not 100%, but has been able to work full-time and is getting married to a beautiful girl next week.  Becky has returned to school.  Queen of the Picky Eaters is serving as a missionary in Illinois and Missouri (and is having to eat whatever is served her—bwahaha!!!).  Lydia will be the only child at home.  And I’ve got a boatload of potatoes.  I haven’t weighed them yet, but I’d say there’s easily over 100 pounds.  And while I’m not complaining, that’s a lot of spuds, and I’ve got to figure out new ways to serve and preserve them.  I certainly don’t want them to go to waste.

Right now, there is quite the pile of potatoes sitting on the tile floor by the pantry.  We had to harvest them quickly last week due to a forecast of temperatures in the low 20s.  (And I was really sad about that.  The russets were nowhere near ready—the vines had just barely started to die back.  If I’d just had another week or two, the harvest would have been a lot more substantial.) The potatoes couldn’t be left outside to cure the skins, so they were just staring at me.  I figured I’d use a few to make breakfast. 

I’d read about potato pancakes but never had them, so I looked up a few recipes online. 

At their most basic, they’re just hash browns with a few additional ingredients, depending on which culture the potato pancake is coming from.  A beaten egg added to the grated potatoes ups the protein substantially.  Some people add a little milk and/or flour.  Germans opt for onions.  Another option is mixing in some shredded carrots.  And finally, some people just greased the pan or added a little oil while others went for the full deep-fry. 

As we’re looking at what we can make when some ingredients are scarce or need to be conserved, I omitted those items that didn’t seem to be essential.  I skipped the flour and baking powder and certainly felt no need to deep fry.   I did want to increase the protein a bit, so I included an egg.  For added flavor, I used bacon grease instead of cooking oil.  (And because I had some bacon in the fridge, I threw a couple of tablespoons of bacon bits in, but those are entirely optional.)

Following is the recipe I created after looking at so many others.

Potato Pancakes

2 medium-large potatoes, shredded

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon minced onion

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons diced bacon, optional

Pepper to taste

1-2 tablespoons oil for frying (bacon grease is really nice here)

 

Combine everything except the oil for frying in a small mixing bowl.  Add the oil for frying to a skillet over medium heat.  Spoon the mixture into the skillet, using a metal spatula to flatten into patties.  Cook over medium to medium-low heat for 10 minutes on each side, until browned and crispy.