Storing and Buying Spices

Dry, uncontaminated spices are usually weak before they are unsafe. Discard spices with mold, pests, wet clumps, musty odor, or damaged packaging.

Per gram it often is, especially from online grocers and in larger bags. The saving only holds if you use the spice before it fades, so a small jar you finish can cost less than a big bag you throw half of away.

Usually yes. Age takes flavor from a dry spice rather than making it harmful. Moisture, mold, insects or a rancid smell are the exceptions, and they end a jar whatever the date says.

For flavor, usually yes, starting with about three quarters of the volume and adding it later in the cooking. For the job, sometimes no. A biryani, a pickling jar or an infused braise uses whole spices partly so they…

Drugstore and cigarette beetles are not known to bite or spread disease, so swallowing one is unpleasant rather than dangerous. The infested jar still goes, because larvae and droppings are through the whole powder.