Japan is a disaster-rich country like earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and typhoons. Companies over a certain magnitude are required by law to always keep necessities for employees to survive several days just after the disaster. My company stores 5-year drinkable water, food, materials for emergency aid for all employees who are left stranded in their workplaces.
The other day all those items were replaced by new ones due to the expiration of their appreciation limit. Old expired items were going to be thrown away, but some workers insisted that it's a huge wastefulness because they can still be useful. Actually I thought that the food was still edible. Under the consensus on their own responsibility, abandoned food was delivered to employees who wanted it. I'm one of them and received a box of small hard dry biscuits that do not spoil easily. A box contains 60 packs with 400 kcal in each pack.
I don't have hard evidence about the security of eating them, but the food which has a 5-day appreciation limit would keep its freshness for at least 6 days in general. The biscuits I received, which have a 5-year limit, would be likewise ok for 6 years, maybe. The biscuits are put in my office and car as an usual snack. They're tasty and I like them.
There's a problem with this biscuit. It spawns small pieces of biscuit when I eat it. It scatters on my chest and in my car. I can dust my chest, but I couldn't remove the small pieces that dropped into narrow spaces in the car. Mice would never invade into my car, but I become irritated.
When I made a trip to a nearby electrical appliance store to get some dry cells, I happened to find a small charge type vacuum cleaner, which looked nice for narrow and small spaces. I bought one without a second thought. This was a very good purchase! The best thing which I did today was the discovery of this type of cleaner in the store.
(Vocabulary)
appreciation limit 賞味期限
spawn [他] …を引き起こす, 生じさせる
dust [他] 〈家具・部屋など〉 のほこりを払う［ふく］ [自] ほこりを払う
dry cell/battery 乾電池
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