Peanut butter is a different kettle of fish (hows that for a metaphor mash.)

Peanut butter is not canned, pasteurized or high-temperature sterilized in packaging. Chemical changes within the product and deterioration by oxidation will cause even factory sealed packages to become taste and color altered (if not actually unhealthy) after about 24 months. Oils will become rancid and make the product unpalatable.

Once opened it is best used within 3-4 months. Un-hydrogenated peanut butter will separate much sooner, but can be remixed and used for the same period.

Something I have also pondered on long scavenging hunts in the wastes.

However—like in certain third-world countries—dog & cat food might have an entirely different connotation in the post-apocalyptic world. Here, kitty kitty kitty.

Eating a cat would be a waste. Instead, you adopt a cat and just leave your shoes out at night and in the morning you'll find them full of tasty mice and birds. Mmm mmm.

-JJ

Pet food on a Ritz cracker, mmm-mmm!

Cats and dogs would be hunted for food *and* kept as pets. You keep your own and trap/shoot other people's. <_<

I though the cans' interior are lamented?

I used to eat spinach out of the can like Popeye. Bean and Bacon by campbells is pretty good cold.

Actually that was true. The term 'tin can' came from 'tinned' can. The inner surface of steel was coated with tin to prevent corrosion. Strictly speaking this is laminated. Unfortunately it took some time to learn how to extrude tubing to form cans so the steel was joined with a solder containing lead.

Nowadays most cans are aluminum or mostly aluminum.

EWWWW! :yuck:

That said, I've eaten cold canned pasta before and plain tuna fish; those are all right. I'm rather wondering how stuff in jars would hold up compared to cans - pickles, fruit, sauces and so on. Honey, btw, is basically forever. I've heard of honey being taken from Egyptian tombs, heated up so it melted back into liquid form and it was perfectly edible.