Some of you purchase our Ohkinam Chaga products, take them diligently, and then, either because your condition improves or for personal reasons, forget about them for a while. Then one day you find the chaga extract powder in a drawer or a storage cabinet, see that its expiration date passed a few months ago, and come to us asking, "Is it okay to eat this? It seems too wasteful to throw away."
To begin with the conclusion: if there was no major problem with how it was stored, it is fine to eat even if it is a few months past the expiration date. However, I am not saying "it's fine" without any conditions. Let me explain why it is safe to eat and what you should check.
Legal Expiration Date
The official expiration date of our Ohkinam Chaga Extract Powder product is three years from the date of manufacture. But there is one fact you should know here. The expiration date printed on food is not determined by precisely calculating the inherent biological lifespan limit of that food; rather, it is a period uniformly assigned under the Food Sanitation Act to the category of chaga extract and solid tea. Selling a product past its expiration date is a legal problem, but a product you have already purchased and keep at home and consume yourself is an entirely different matter.
The Stability of Chaga Extract Powder
High-quality chaga extract powder made properly has a structure in which microorganisms and bacteria cannot easily multiply, thanks to the strong inherent antibacterial power of the raw material itself and its stable molecular structure. This is precisely why it can have a long expiration date of three years despite being a 100% natural food with no preservatives added at all.
Loss of Nutrients Over Time and the Importance of Storage
Of course, since chaga is a natural substance, it is natural that some active nutrients, such as physiologically active substances, gradually diminish as time passes after manufacture. However, in the case of extract powder products whose tissue has been stabilized through low-temperature extraction and rapid drying according to principles, the nutritional components do not disappear abruptly overnight just because the expiration date is slightly past, and the amount lost is also not as large as you might think.
That said, there may be differences depending on whether the product was opened and how it was stored. If it has been kept safely at a cool, dry room temperature away from direct sunlight or in a sealed freezer, the risk of deterioration is very low. On the other hand, if it was left open in a humid environment, there is a possibility of deterioration.
How to Check for Deterioration Yourself
The surest criteria a consumer can check before eating a product that has been stored are "smell" and "condition."
If, when you open the lid and smell it, there is no sour or unpleasant off-odor such as spoiled food gives off, and the characteristic bitter aroma of chaga is maintained as it is, you can eat it with confidence. And if the powder has not severely hardened like a lump of rice cake with mold growing on it, it has not deteriorated.
However, if the product you are currently taking is not extract powder but chaga pieces or ground powder, the story is different. These two products, due to the nature of natural materials, always carry the possibility of mold or bacterial contamination during distribution and storage, and their expiration dates are short. In this case, it is safer not to eat them if the expiration date has passed. Today's discussion applies to 100% extract powder products.
In Summary
Although it is difficult to say that the quality is 100% intact compared with a freshly produced product, it is still more than sufficient to feel the inherent power and beneficial effects of chaga. Since it is a product you obtained with care, if it does not smell spoiled, do not throw it away wastefully and please keep taking it consistently.
- Kinam Oh, kinam_oh@hanmail.net
