A number of us from the North Shore volunteered at a food bank yesterday and today. It was quite interesting. Our neighbor's sister is visiting from Boston and she had the kindness to help us out.

Some things I never knew about food collection:

1. They can't accept food if ingredients aren't listed on the packaging. This means no home canned products. This also means that some individual packets of things like Easy Mac and sometimes oatmeal can't be accepted unless the box..which lists the ingredients is attached.


2. No jarred baby food. Not Even the sealed kind. They were concerned with contaminants getting up under the lid.

3. Despite what the expiration date says... undamaged canned goods will last 20-30 years, or so they say.

4. People donate a lot of tunafish and mac&cheese, I'm not sure why these items are so popular.

5. People donate some terribly old items. I won the prize for unpacking oldest and most unusual food item. The oldest was a box of jello pudding mix that was dated '1981'. Their record for oldest item was 1979, and the most unusual item was a can of grass jelly.

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