What Happens if you eat Expired Jelly Beans?

Jelly Beans are one of my favorite parts of an easter basket! Move over Peeps and Chocolate Bunnies, I want the jelly beans just not the black or white ones.

My husband and I used to have a bad habit of buying up tons of clearance candy after holidays. This is fine if it gets eaten, but occasionally that candy just sits around until the holiday rolls back around again. Let’s deep dive into everything we need to know about expired jellybeans!

Do jelly beans go bad?

Just like any other food, jelly beans can go bad. Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar, corn syrup, and corn starch. All of these ingredients are considered shelf stable and actually have long shelf lives.

The main issue with jelly beans is exposure to air and moisture. Prolonged exposure to air can make jelly beans hard and taste stale or just not as strong of a taste.

If jelly beans are exposed to moisture or wetness, they will degrade and can start growing mold. A jelly bean by itself won’t grow mold, but if it gets wet the liquid mixing with the sugar will become a breeding ground for mold and bacteria.

The suggestive storage conditions for jelly beans are to keep them stored in a cool dark place. You will want to avoid sunlight and high heat because this will cause the jellybeans to melt.

I think everyone knows that sweet old lady that has jelly beans sitting in a candy jar with a lid, but those containers are rarely air tight. This means the beans will start to absorb moisture and humidity from the air and get sticky and harden.

As a good rule of thumb, anytime you open a new bag of jelly beans roll them up tight and secure with a clip or store in them in a Ziploc container. This will keep air and moisture away from your jelly beans.

How to tell if jelly beans are bad?

Thankfully I have asked all my friends and neighbors to pass along any expired foods that they come across, and today I have a bag of Nice Jelly Beans from Walgreens. The expiration date says “best by” July 2022 and that was about 7 months ago.

We will go through the 5 senses and common sense to determine if these expired jelly beans are safe to eat!

Sight– First I completely inspect the outside of the bag for tears or holes in the plastic packaging. Everything appears sealed with no damage to the bag. Since the bag is plastic, it is hard to tell if it has gotten wet before but I don’t see any discoloration so I think this bag is probably not affected by moisture.

Once I opened the bag and poured the jelly beans out on a plate, I notice a few beans that have discoloration, but I think that is more from them being cheap jelly beans.

Sound– Technically there is no real sound from jelly beans so we will keep moving forward.

Touch– Most jelly beans have a hard shell and do not feel super sticky. I picked up a few jelly beans and they seem pretty hard and no real stickiness or wet residue.

Smell– Jelly beans being made out of sugar means they should have a nice sweet candy smell. This bag smells completely normal!

Taste– So far this bag of jelly beans seems completely fine, so I am going in for the taste test! At first bite these jelly beans are a tiny bit harder than normal. The outside shell is a little but tougher than most jelly beans.

I doubt that a lot of air or moisture got into the sealed bag, but it may have experienced some hot temperatures.

The overall taste was fine and there was no aftertaste. Even though the beans are a tad bit harder than normal, I would still eat these and not worry about any lasting effects.

How long are jelly belly beans good for?

Since most candy is made out of sugar and sugar can basically last forever in ideal storage conditions, jelly beans are going to be as good as they are stored.

I would say that in most cases, jelly beans are fine to eat 6-12 months past the expiration date as long as they look, smell, and feel normal.

Whenever there is a doubt about jelly beans, I would go ahead and toss them. If they feel super sticky or seem wet, I would go ahead and be cautious enough to throw them away.

Since birds and wild animals can’t eat jelly beans and they are not good for composting, unfortunately bad beans will need to go in the trash or used for a craft project!

For more information about commonly expired foods, check out our experiments on Great Grains Cereal and Sour Patch Kids candy.