Sometimes little used spices sit in our spice racks for years–even decades.  After all, how many times a year do you really need poultry seasoning or pumpkin pie spice?  But, did you know that ground spices can lose their flavor after a few years?  Here’s how to know when to throw out your kitchen spices, and start over:

Basic Guidelines: How long do spices last? According to OChef, ground spices maintain their freshness for 2 to 3 years, and whole spices such as cinnamon sticks maintain their freshness for 4 years, and probably even longer.

The Nose Knows: Open up the container and give it a little shake.  Does it have the same robust smell you remember?  Is there any smell?  If not, pitch it.

Cool Tool: McCormick offers a How Old Are Your Spices online tool for determining the age of your McCormick spices.  Enter the code on the bottom of the container, and they’ll tell you exactly when the spice was packaged. Just FYI- if your McCormick spices are in metal tins, they are at least 15 years old!  Time for a shopping trip!

The spice rack above will hold 16 different spices.  It’s made of sugar maple, has a rotating base, and the bottles are included.  If found it at Kitchen Universe.

If you or someone you know has the unpleasant problem of reeking onions and garlic after a meal, Cooking and Blogging is here to help.  I personally love to use both of those bulbs, but I’ve have had to lay off because of the stinking and burping effects it leaves on some of those I’m feeding.  Is there a way to get the same taste with out the nasty side effects?

YES WE CAN.

It comes in the form of an Indian spice called asafoetida (pronounced as-fi-TI-da) powder or hing.  I was first introduced to it when learning some tricks from ayurvedic cooking by my friend John Joseph.  The sage-old, Indian diet is devised for optimum health of people and the planet and is one of the tastier, good-for-you eating philosophies I’ve tried.  That is due to the well-crafted use of spices, and asafoetida is one of the star players.  It is used instead of onions and garlic because it leaves no aftertaste or smell on the palette.  However, it does stink before it’s cooked, but don’t let that alarm you, just keep it tightly sealed when storing.  You can pretty much cook with it the same way as garlic or onion - when you start a sauce or stew you can saute it in a little oil then build your culinary masterpiece from there.  Basically, anytime a recipe calls for chopped onion or garlic use the same amount of the powder, or maybe a little less until you get used to it.

If you can’t find hing at your grocery or health food store you can buy it online.  I got mine from kalyx.  They seemed to be the cheapest at $5.21 per bottle, a small price to pay for a huge improvement in the smell of your breath!

(Asafoetida is the white powder toward the top left of the picture above)