Uses for expired baby cereal

[milosmomma]

Yeah, I wasn't sure where to post this. Mods, feel free to move it.....

I just came across a bag of boxed baby cereal that someone gave me when Z was born. There are six boxes (rice/oatmeal/mixed). We just never used them. All but 2 are expired (by several months) and the other 2 have an expiration date of April. I'd offer those to my neighbors, but I don't think that they'd feel comfortable with it being so close to the date.

So....what can I do with them now? I feel like there must be some great use that I'm not thinking of. If nothing else, I guess I'll just compost them. But I'd love to learn that they're really useful for the garden or something like that.

Suggestions?

[ASusan]

I'd probably make it somethign for the birds to eat. Heh - I fed FLOCKS of birds (and squirrels) this past Sunday while cleaning out our pantry. DS now thinks that food is to be tossed from the deck...

you could mix up the cereal and blend it with peanut butter and/or lard and seeds and put it on pine cones, for example.

You could put it in baked goods for yourself, if you are comfortable with that. Toss spoonfuls into pancake batter...

[Denvergirlie]

Do you have some reason you wouldn't eat it yourself?

Expiration date doesn't mean much on dry good like this, we are eating "expired" cereal right now, it was date stamped Jan 2009, but it's just fine.

[milosmomma]

Hmmm, feeding birds...I like that....


No particular reason why we wouldn't use it. We just haven't eaten it in the past year, so I don't know why we'd suddenly start eating it now. (Although throwing some in pancake batter, etc is a pretty good idea).

I only mentioned that expiration date because the people we'd most likely give it to (the people we know who have babies and feed them infant cereal) WOULD be concerned with the date and would most likely throw it away anyway (if they even accepted it).


Thanks for the suggestions, btw!

[bender]

Add it to cookie dough.

[Mama~Love]

Cement. If that stuff dries, there's no getting it off!

[Sadystar]

I'm assuming it's either finely ground oats etc or could be put in a processor and finely ground? If so would make wonderful face scrub (or if you have a ton of it body scrub too).

Facial scrub: add enough oil (olive, almond etc) to make a thick paste and optionally add a drop of lemon or basil EO (really great for removing grey tired looking skin)

Body scrub: As above, though I'd use whichever carrier oil was cheapest (it's just lubricant really), perhaps using some lemon juice in addition or grapefruit or juniper EO for detoxing.

[vegancat]

Originally Posted by ASusan

I'd probably make it somethign for the birds to eat.

Ahh you beat me to it!

[bohmproof]

I put it in my homemade dog food a couple years ago to use up mine..

[lilyka]

the oatmeal makes a nice bath or facial scrub. there are recipes for teething biscuits that use baby cereal too. I wouldn't worry about it being expired.

[littlemizflava]

add water make goop for the kids to play with also got to say i done it in cookies before.

[thickcitymomma]

Baby oatmeal is really good if you ever get hives as an allergic reaction. You have to use a decent amount, cause it works a little better with regular oatmeal, but its bascially the same thing. It is so relaxing when you are itching that much!