History Main / IndestructibleEdible

** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_ready_to_eat Meal, Ready to Eat]]. Shelf life is nominally three and a half years at 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit) so long as it is kept sealed. In long-term storage, it is kept at -18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) and can last longer without affecting the quality (which in the earlier ones was [[MasochistsMeal certainly dubious]], leading to nicknames like [[FunWithAcronyms "Meal, Rarely Edible"]]).[[note]]Also [[ToiletHumor Meals Ready to Excrete, Meals Refusing to Exit]] (referring to their ability to cause constipation), [[EveryoneHasStandards Meals Rejected by the Enemy, Meals Rejected by Everyone]], and even [[EvenBeggarsWontChooseIt Meals Rejected by Ethiopians]] (referring to [[BlackComedy a famine in Ethiopia from 1983-'85]]).[[/note]] Modern examples are more palatable, but servicemen will still damn their taste in the same breath used to recognize their durability:

* ''VideoGame/DontStarve'' gives us the [[JokeItem Powdercake]]. This meal made of a piece of corn, one honey (which already lasts long), and one twig. It lasts ''[[RagnarokProofing 18750 days]]'' before turning into rot. Although it will last only half that being as edible as before, it is still a ridiculous amount of time. It adds no hunger and takes 3 health upon consumption. Nevertheless, it can be used as [[LethalJokeItem everlasting]] [[NotTheIntendedUse bait for]] [[GameBreaker traps]].

* ''Turbatrix aceti'', the "vinegar eel", is a type of nematode that feeds off of the microbial culture that ferments sugars and cellulose and is thus often found in "mother of vinegar" (a jelly-like stage between cider and vinegar, with LOTS of active bacteria). If the resulting vinegar is not filtered, one can find ugly (but harmless) little critters swimming in it. They don't affect the vinegar, though.
* Tiny airtight-sealed condiment packets can last quite a while without refrigeration, so long as they remain intact. Tabasco lasts the longest at 3-4 years (at least in part because its primary ingredient is vinegar), but even ''mayonnaise'' can go up to a year without spoiling, which is at least triple as long as an opened jar of mayonnaise will stay good in the refrigerator.

* Military rations:

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chocolate_(United_States)#Logan_Bar_or_D_ration World War II American D Rations]] were bars of specially formulated chocolate that were effectively just bricks of nutrients. Eating them took a bit of work since biting straight into a bar might just break your teeth; some soldiers found it easier to use a knife to shave slices off the bar instead. They were so hardy that they could be fired from artillery cannons to soldiers who were trapped behind enemy lines. The military commissioned Hershey to make the bars so unappealing to soldiers that they wouldn't eat them unless they absolutely had to. (The commission literally specified that the bars should taste "slightly better than a boiled potato.")

* For thousands of years, people in parts of Europe, particularly Ireland and to a lesser extent Scotland, buried [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_butter large lumps of butter and other fats in peat bogs]] in order to preserve it. Hundreds of these masses of preserved fat have been recovered from bogs; the oldest known, from Ireland, is about 3,000 years old, and it was still being made in the Middle Ages. They still have the look and texture of butter or margarine, and sometimes still smell like dairy. Supposedly, it's still edible, and quite a few people have eaten small samples; it's said to taste like a hard, sour cheese.

* A Website/YouTube video exists of a twelve-year-old Pot Noodle[[note]]a popular British brand of cup ramen[[/note]] being reconstituted with boiling water. And eaten. Chicken and mushroom flavour, apparently.

* In general, canned or packaged foods that don't need refrigeration can last much longer than their expiration dates, provided they're stored in a cool, dry environment. This is in part because manufacturers often put short expiration dates on the packages to encourage people to replace it on a regular basis. If the seal isn't broken and there's no bulging, discoloration, odd smells, or rust (in the case of metal cans) it's probably still edible. But if in doubt, throw it out.

** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_ready_to_eat Meal, Ready to Eat]]. Shelf life is nominally three and a half years at 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit) so long as it is kept sealed. In long-term storage, it is kept at -18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) and can last longer without affecting the quality (which in the earlier ones was [[MasochistsMeal certainly dubious]], leading to nicknames like [[FunWithAcronyms "Meal, Rarely Edible"]]).[[note]]Also [[ToiletHumor Meals Ready to Excrete, Meals Refusing to Exit]] (referring to their ability to cause constipation), [[EveryoneHasStandards Meals Rejected by the Enemy, Meals Rejected by Everyone]], and even [[BlackComedy Meals Rejected by Ethiopians]] (referring to [[EvenBeggarsWontChooseIt a famine in Ethiopia from 1983-'85]]).[[/note]] Modern examples are more palatable, but servicemen will still damn their taste in the same breath used to recognize their durability:

* Tiny airtight-sealed condiment packets can last quite a while without refrigeration, so long as they remain intact. Tabasco lasts the longest at 3-4 years, but even ''mayonnaise'' can go up to a year without spoiling, which is at least triple as long as an opened jar of mayonnaise will stay good in the refrigerator.

->''"Even the long loaf of dwarf bread that he carried into battle, and which could shatter a troll skull, was by his side. Dwarf scholars had, with delicacy and care and the blunting of fifteen saw blades, removed a tiny slice of it. Miraculously, it had turned out still to be as inedible now as the day it was baked."''
-->-- '''Creator/TerryPratchett''', ''Literature/{{Thud}}''

* Literature/CiaphasCain, '''[[MemeticMutation HERO OF THE IMPERIUM]]''' often refers to Imperial standard ([[HumanResources corpse starch]]) ration bars as equally unpalatable and indestructible. The bars he abandoned in a life pod during the first invasion of Perlia may still be good during the second... eighty years later. The bars can survive several forms of Exterminatus, though anyone being around to eat them after is questionable.
* In ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'', despite having been underground for 241 years, the city still had some canned food, including fruit cocktail and other canned fruit, that had been stocked there in the beginning.

* In Creator/StephenieMeyer's ''Literature/{{The Host|2008}}'', the protagonist scavenges Twinkies from an abandoned house at one point.

* The sailors and Marines of ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' (by Creator/JohnHemry, writing as Jack Campbell) frequently have to subsist on ration bars left behind on mothballed enemy facilities in [[DyingTown worlds bypassed by the]] [[PortalNetwork hyperspace gate network]]. The best that can be said about them is that they make fewer sailors complain about short rations. They're still edible despite being WayPastTheExpirationDate -- by ''decades'' in many cases -- is justified by their usually being stored in hard vacuum. A possible example also exists in the utterly revolting Danaka Yoruk bars, which nobody on either side will eat if they have an alternative (They apparently taste better than stale Syndic rations, but that's their only known virtue). Geary is amazed that they're still making the things, given that they were reviled back when he was put into cryo a century previous, and Desjani counters that they stopped making them a century ago, but the Alliance is still trying to get rid of the ones they already made.

* Creator/JohnHemry's ''Literature/PaulSinclair'' novel ''A Just Determination'' has a scene in which a New Year's celebration aboard a U.S. Navy spaceship includes firing a fruitcake into the depths of space "as a warning to all the universe of the awful culinary weapons available to the human race." It's also stated that billions of years in the future, the fruitcake will be just as edible and tasty as it is at that moment.
* A ''Series/RedDwarf'' tie-in book contains mention of the fact that Kryten's pastry can bring down GELF ships when fired at them.
* In ''Literature/ShardsOfHonor'', Aral claims that his Barrayaran emergency military rations can go for years without spoiling... and probably have already.
* One of Robert Sheckley's stories had alien astronauts sustain themselves on some super-nutrient nut... that, going on a human technology, takes a hydraulic press to crack.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', the world of ''[[UltraSuperHappyCuteBabyFestFarmer3000 Sugar Rush]]'' has jawbreakers that, according to Vanellope, are [[MadeOfIndestructium unbreakable]]. [[SubvertedTrope Cue her surprise]] when [[StoutStrength Ralph]] splits one in half after several pounding strikes during a fit of rage.