Expired Philmont Food

[CalicoPenn]

Is your Troop part of the council? If so, I imagine a couple of pointed questions to the SE asking if he thinks the parents will respond well at FOS time if they find out their kids were given expired food and asking if it would be ok to give the Council an expired check to pay for next years camp might shake up the tree a bit.

 

Out of council? I imagine a pointed question to the SE wondering how well their marketing out of council will go when other units learn that the council gives out of date food to Scouts at their camps and bases will shake up the tree a bit.

 

Or perhaps mentioning 60 Minutes knocking on his door with some really hard questions might shake up that tree a bit.

 

I know that A Scout is Thrifty, but there is no excuse - none whatsoever, for this. Yes, the food might still be good, but I guarantee the publicity will be horrendous.

[hadulzo]

Philmont sells all their left over food at the end of the season. The intent is for shake down trips by next years crews. Obviously the council in question bought the surplus food for their program to save money. Real sure national would not be giving directives on how to handle their inventory. Expired product should be caught during a camp inspection.

[Eamonn]

The only real way to find to rule out if the food was the cause of making people sick, is to have the food tested.

While maybe the outdated food might not the cause of the illness? My feeling is that these expiration dates are put there for a reason.

Sometimes the reason is just that the company feels that after such and such a date the food is no longer at its best.

Not harmful, but not as good as they might like.

Sometimes the container the food is in starts to deteriorate a little, the acids in the food working on the metal.

The reasons for food-borne illness are many and can at times be hard to determine.

 

When it comes to buying outdated items.

Again my feeling is that the buyer needs to be given the choice.

Just as our local baker sells bread that is day old at a reduced price. I kinda think if the person who was in charge of handing out the food had said something like:

"Hey Bob, there's some cans of chicken that are past their expiration dates in there. They should be fine."

This would give Bob the opportunity to say if he was willing to accept these cans or not.

As we have seen from what has been posted so far.

Some people would accept these cans thinking it was not a big deal.

While others wouldn't go anywhere near them..

I have dried pasta that I've cooked long after its expiration date.

When it comes down to canned food?

I'd like to at least have a heads up so that I could examine and check it out before I ate it or cooked it.

Even then when it comes down to feeding it to someone else's kids. I would err on the side of caution and not bother to open the cans.

Ea.

[Basementdweller]

If I am paying to go to camp I expect to be served food that is not beyond it's expiration date.....I don't care if it is deemed safe or not. The simple fix is not to patronize that camp or program again and make sure you spread the word at round tables and other scout events.

 

My question for you.....would you do it to the boys in your troop??? I sure wouldn't, in my book it isn't worth the risk.

 

FScout....it is ok for you to deem what is safe for your personal consumption.....but if my son was with you and got sick by consuming expired food you deemed safe....we would have problems.

 

 

Our resident camp used bread from the day old store for the PB and J bar.....no biggy in my book, but if that bread was moldy, I would have had words with the steward and CD.

[txbobber]

Basementdweller hit the nail on the head, the point that we paid good money and regardless of a few people getting sick one of which was me, I would not give expired food even one day past its expiration to my worst enemy because manufactures put those labels on food products for a reason.

 

Thanks for all the help in helping me deside that I should write a letter to the SW Council.

[desertrat77]

Txbobber, thanks for the info and best wishes to you and your scouts. Ya'll deserve the very best.