June 3, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I was rifling through my mother’s cupboards the other day looking for a snack, when I found this:

I was less interested in the tomato soup than the contest advertised on the side where you could win a walk-on role on the TV show American Dreams. If you’re not familiar with American Dreams, that’s probably because IT WAS CANCELED IN 2005.

I’m pretty sure that contest has expired, and looking at the red stamps that say “August 2006″ on the bottom of the cans, I’m pretty sure the soup has expired too. This is one American dream that won’t come true.
ETA: I just discovered when spell-checking this entry that both “canceled” and “cancelled” are considered proper spellings. The former is American, whereas the latter is British, but since this post is about American Dreams, I went all American.
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12 Comments
Alison • June 3, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I LOVED that show!! If I ate tomato soup, I would have been so excited back then that I probably would have bought cases and cases to try to win that walk-on!
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Tami • June 3, 2010 at 4:57 pm
my mother has more expired food in her house than anyone i know. she lives by herself now but still shops at costo/bj/warehouse stores.
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Plumptious • June 3, 2010 at 5:45 pm
When I was little I used to stay at my Grandma’s every summer. As she got older I began to cook for her. I was once looking through her cupboards for something to make and found some canned mixed vegetables- expiry date May 1967! This was in the early 90′s! It even had a price sticker with ’6d’ on it- it pre-dated UK decimilisaition in 1971! God bless her!
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KeithW • June 3, 2010 at 5:50 pm
The soup will be fine as long as the can isn’t damaged, though.
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Amy • June 3, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Dude, you know when McCormick came out with that ad a few years ago? It had pictures of all the different years of their products and we found 40 year old spices in my dad’s cabinet. It was a genuine “if you haven’t used it by now you don’t need it” experience.
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cindy • June 3, 2010 at 10:01 pm
I have never trusted food at my mother’s house. Even as a kid, I sniffed everything before even thinking about eating it. Kinda wonder how I ever became obese…
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Dyan • June 4, 2010 at 9:56 am
We recently had to clean out my mom and dad’s garage. Long story short, my mom passed away in 2005 and nothing in that garage had been touched. There were cans of food from like 1980. A bottle of V-8 was practically black.
My dad was like, “Take what you want, no need to waste food.”
YUM!
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SG • June 4, 2010 at 12:59 pm
hahhaha! i take it you guys arent big tomato soup drinkers.
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anji • June 6, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Cancelled is also Canadian but I encourage all to support their culture so… cancel away!
I found recently salad dressing in my mom’s fridge that expired back in 2005. That means, it was probably there a year before. So, since 2004. Which is like, really gross. Ew.
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Laura • June 8, 2010 at 10:35 am
(1) i loved that show!
(2) i was recently at my grandparents and in cleaning out their bathroom cabinets, we found a shoe polish where the rebate offer on the box had expired in 1959. truly.
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Maris • June 9, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I often experiment with exotic dishes and had to buy some exotic ingredients that could not be used for any other dish except the one which sent me to hunt it down in the beginning. So, although exasperating, I always end up having more than enough expired food to throw away and make me feel guilty about.
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Sefi • June 15, 2010 at 6:06 am
When I was visiting my grandmother last winter I saw a box of muffin mix in a flavor I had wanted to try and mentioned that I was a bit sad it was going to charity so I couldn’t try it. She told me the muffin mixes were a bit stale so we could keep them if I wanted to make them. Somehow “a bit stale” turned out to mean they had expired a year ago!
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