There are plenty of reasons to want a fully-stocked medicine cabinet — but it's also possible to be too prepared.
Like, while that huge bottle of aspirin you bought on sale ten years ago might have seemed like a great idea, it's almost definitely expired by now.
Expired medicine might seem like a weird concept, because a lot of it doesn't get moldy or slimy like old food.
Some of it is just powder.
But it can expire.
And when it does, it's time to pitch it.
Just like with packaged food, drug manufacturers in the U. S. are required to provide an expiration date for medications.
They're estimated after seeing how samples of a drug degrade over short periods of time, or by accelerating the breakdown of the drug's active ingredients.
Like the dates on food, the dates on medicine aren't an indicator of when the drug might hurt you.
Instead, they're a guarantee that it will work as intended, as long as it's in the original, sealed packaging.
