I may throw small amounts out if I open the jar and notice the scent is weak. But I buy ground spices in bulk and store all but small amounts for immediate use in the freezer.

Carol

Like Carol, I'll throw away herbs and spices if the scent/aroma has gone out of them. But mostly I use what I have. I don't have the time or the money to replace them all annually.

Linda

I tend to buy the small jars at Penzey's for just that reason, if they have lost aroma I'm figuring they lost flavor and I toss them, but I have things (like that sumac for Lars' Algerian chicken) that are more than a year old and I still use them and they still taste good.

Annie

Those that say you should replace dried herbs and spices every six months either get a kickback from the herb or spice company or they are parroting what they have heard. If the aroma is still good then the herb or spice is still good and most are good for a long time past six months. If I had to replace mine every six months I would have to quit using more than five or six kinds. Far too expensive.

I stayed in my SIL's cabin and spent considerable time culling out spices. It was a culmination of years of cabin visitors leaving spices--and other things--in the kitchen. Some so old that the containers are no longer made!

But to your question, I try to buy in small quantities. Lately I have been using the FoodSaver to vaccum and seal in baby bottle liners. They are the perfect size, seal great, and a cheap alternative to FoodSaver bags.

I don't throw them out. But I'm not buying anymore dried spices or herbs just on impulse. I find that I use the same stuff all the time - so I buy that in bulk (peppercorns, Italian herb mix, chili mix), and most everything else I'm buying grindable stuff like cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cardamom pods, etc. instead of powdered forms. It stay fresher and tastes fresher upon grinding. I also keep dried red chiles and chipotles in the freezer, along with ginger.

I by most of my herbs and spices in bulk from Spice House or Penzey's and keep the bulk bags in the freezer refilling the small jars in the drawer as needed. They last fine in our freezer (a chest freezer) and most of the jars need refills before a year is out.

Also, I avoid using the powdered forms for just about everything except cinnamon. I get the spices in whole forms (seeds and pods) and grind as needed. For the herbs, I usually have the leaves or leaf bits rather than powders. Cinnamon, we go through quickly enough and the Cassia cinnamon bark is tough to grind (and I've heard that the cinnamon stick bark comes from a less flavorful part of the tree). When I'm using the true cinnamon, I sometimes will grind it from the sticks as that bark is thinner and easy to pound in the mortar.

Powdered ginger is the worst one to keep to long. It gets an off flavor when it gets too old. I mostly use fresh ginger. I've got cracked ginger from Penzey's which is little bits of dried ginger - it keeps better than the powder and converts easily into a powder in the mortar.

The ones I use a lot get used up reasonably fast. The ones I rarely use get stale, I suppose, but I don't throw them out.

So maybe they aren't as good -- I still just go ahead and use them rather than pitching and replacing constantly. Just too expensive for the incremental difference.

You wouldn't believe how old some of those rarely used strange things are!

No, absolutely not. If you want to be careful about freshness, I endorse a window herb garden!

I also only buy what I will actually use and not what might be tempting at the moment. And if they have lost their aroma, out it goes.
However, there are several sources of herbs and spices around me other than Penzy's, a place I have not had the fun of visiting. The Hispanic section of our grocery stores sells plastic bags of spices very reasonably priced, as does the near by Fresh Market, my favorite source.

When you're lucky like me, and live in an excellent herb-growing climate, you can have a perpetual supply of fresh herbs. However, it's impossible to grow ALL the herbs you want!

So, back in the days when I was cooking, I still had a large quantity of purchased, bottled herbs and spices, and I religiously threw them out and replaced them every year, around Christmas (an easy time to remember!). I always bought them in small quantities to ensure freshness.

Now that I can no longer cook for myself, my last batch is still sitting on my spice rack, gathering dust. They are there purely for decoration! But recently, I tossed out a few which had faded, after 3 years.

Except for things like vanilla pods and saffron, I've always found herbs to be quite inexpensive.

BTW, Cloud Swift, Cassia and Cinnamon come from 2 different plants. Cinnamon is Cinnamomum zeylanicum, mainly from Ceylon; Cassia is Cassia fistula, native to Burma.

To distinguish between the two: Cassia is thick, hard and has a flavour that is extremely bitter and burning with somewhat of a bite in the after taste. Cassia has a double curl when it dries. Ground cassia has a very reddish-brown colour.

True cinnamon has a single spiral curl and is almost papery, brittle, easily crushed or powdered. Its flavour is more subdued, less bitter and has a decidedly sweet finish in the after taste. Its smell is sweet and aromatic. The bark of cinnamon is pale yellowish brown.

I do not know why it's hard to get true cinnamon in America. Here in Australia, we can't get Cassia, if we want it!!

I'll keep dried herbs for a max of one year, but spices I'll keep a bit longer. And saffron is definitely good for a long time as long as it is not exposed to humidity.

And I never automatically toss them out; first I check for aroma (and color). I also but small amounts and store them in a cool, dark, dry place. You don't save any money buying larger quantities if they just go to waste.

Yes and no.

My main spices like cumin and black pepper mostly get used up. Sometimes the last of a 2 lb jar of cumin gets tossed in favor of a fresh jar. I use most of a jar in a year so it does not really get overly old.

Others I don't use as often get pitched when old. I like garlic salt on toast. I don't like it enough to eat even a small jar before it fades. Cinnamon and ginger tend to fall in the same category. They are not expensive enough for me to eat them if they have faded to any extent. I buy a quart of minced garlic for the fridge and pitch what is not used in a year.

Cardomon is a problem for me. Not that it is extremely expensive but I hate to pitch it.

I'm very careful with most of my spices. They stay in air tight containers in a cool dry cupboard. Some ground cayenne I sprinkle on burgers stays in the freezer.

Pickle spice I buy only what I plan to use that season. So far I've only bought pre-mixed pickle spices so there is no extra mustard seed or such to lay around.

Bay leaves I can't see lasting more then a few months. Even in an air tight jar they fade away. Cilantro I've been buying fresh and drying what I don't use right away. My home dried seems much stronger then anything I've ever bought in the store and is still fine many weeks after it was dried.

I probably need to give my spice cupboard a cleaning. I know I have several duplicates that could be culled from the herd.

: )
lyra

Part of the equation is how prominantly the spice is used. I wouldn't think twice about using 1/4t of 3 year old allspice in my Swedish Meatballs, at most I'd add a tiny bit more if it seemed to have lost some punch. But if I opened a jar of paprika and it smelled kind of dull, I'd spend a few bucks on a new jar before I'd throw a quarter cup of it into my goulash.

It does kill me to replace a 3/4 full jar of something just because it's old, but here's another way of looking at it:

I just took quick count and see that I have roughly 50 spice jars in my cabinet. Let's say the average price is $4 apiece, I didn't use any of them at all, and I insisted on replacing them every year. I'd be wasting $200 a year. Now subtract out the fact that I don't replace many of them annually, and subtract the value of what I actually do use before I throw out the unused portions, and suddenly the waste really doesn't add up to much at all in the grand scheme of my food budget.

I'm glad I'm not the only that doesn't throw them out. Moreover, I sometimes pass on a new recipe that has an obscure (for my family) spice that's critical. Will I really be able to use that five spice powder again? Nope, it'll just continue to stare at me until I finally pitch it and consider it a loss. I wish we had a neighborhood spice cabinet for donations.

Although the gene pool ran a bit dry when it comes to organization, I do date my spices (like my mother) when I open them. That way I know the cream of tartar is closing in on five years:)

Cathy in SWPA

Cathy I love your idea about using baby bottle liners. Going to have to do that!

I only throw out my spices and herbs if the colour as gone or they smell like nothing.

Chiles and paprikas will lose colour the fastest.

I love spices and tend to buy tons, but then I also use most of them regularily.

Shelley S.

I am cheap. I don't throw them out unless they no longer smell like herbs. But I use large amount of herbs so it doesn't happen often.

I toss herbs, but save spices for...well years!!
I have some nutmegs that are revolutionary! I find that once they are grated, they taste as fresh as the freshest!
I have some dried ginger root that i grate...I've had it a while, but when I grate it the flavor is good.
cinnamon, oregano, peppercorns, basil, curry etc are not an issue as they are gone before they get old.
But marjoram, and otehr dried herbs get tossed if they don't get used up soon.
Linda C

I don't keep old herbs, but then I don't keep many of them, since I keep most of what I want in my yard. Basil won't last past January, and then I just buy it fresh until I can start a new crop. Spices do keep for quite a while, but I never buy them powdered, and I have a coffee grinder that I use for grinding them. I don't drink coffee, and so that is a good way to use the coffee grinder.

Ginger I only use either fresh or pickled - I never used dried. I keep ginger root in the freezer, but I also have a jar of ginger paste that works well when I'm making Japanese or Thai soups.

There are very few dried herbs that I like, but I do keep dried sage on hand, even though I could grow it. I also keep dried oregano and dried thyme, even though I have fresh in my yard at all times. Sometimes the dried versions suffice, and they do save a bit of time.

Lars

As an aside, I was reading my Penzey's catalog and they say that the government guidelines for freshness daating is four years for whole spices and two years for ground. Penzey's points out that most spices are harvested only once a year, so it doesn't make sense to discard them every six months.

They suggest a one year supply because finely powdered spices contain hundreds of flavor components whic dissipate at different rates. It is also suggested that you smell and if it smells strong and spicy, use it, just like we've been saying we do, and they suggest keeping a small amount in your "cooking area" and freezing or refrigerating the rest.

They also say that cold will damage the flavor of vanilla extract or vanilla beans, so those should not be refrigerated or frozen...

Annie

Great tips Annie! I'm too cheap to toss. I just use more, unless like FOAS said and it would totally overpower the subtlety of the recipe. But since I'm a stew/hash cook most of the time, subtlety is not usually an issue, lol!

Thank you for validating my experience! I mostly don't throw them out unless they are really really old. I just keep reading to throw them out! throw them out! and I wondered if everyone but me was doing that!

Daisy, I'm well aware of the difference between cassia and true cinnamon. But even though cassia isn't from the same plant as cinnamon, it is almost always sold as cinnamon here. A close friend of my son told us that he had a "cinnamon" allergy. I wondered if he was really allergic to cinnamon or whether it was only to cassia. He came over prepared with his allergy medicine and tried a pumpkin pie made with the real stuff. We found that he wasn't allergic to the true cinnamon so now he can enjoy foods that we make with it.

Cathy, it isn't hard to make 5-spice powder. I've made it because it has cinnamon and my son's friend was coming over so I needed to make sure that it didn't have cassia in it. It is a mix of fennel, star anise, Szechuan pepper corns, cinnamon and cloves. All those keep well in their whole forms.

Yes, I think most of us are aware of the difference in cassia and cinnamon, especially those of us who shop regularly and Penzey's, LOL, because they have explanations posted right on the displays! They also have both available, so I don't think it's especially hard to get either.

Even here in Michigan I grow copious amounts of herbs. Even after a killing freeze I still have chives and sage, and since I've been covering the herb bed, I have basil, cilantro, tarragon, thyme, and oregano still, and I've dug sage right out of the snow and it's still green and good to use. The boss still has chocolate mint, ecinacea, lavender and rosemary if I want it, she moves the rosemary inside because it isn't cold tolerant enough to over winter here.

I nearly always have more herbs than I can use and some don't dry well, so I freeze them, like the basil.

Annie