How long doDiet powder mixes and drink mixeslast in the pantry once opened?

How vague the source is about this one

The source is unusually unsure about this one. Its widest range, the pantry after opening, runs from 1 month to 3 months, a factor of three between the cautious end and the optimistic one, on a figure most people read as a single number.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA rates this item in the pantry and nowhere else, one of 84 foods of the 466 it files that way.

• Unopened · in the pantry18 months to 24 months
• Once opened · in the pantry1 month to 3 months

Turning the range into a date

Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 2 rows in all.

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by18 months to 24 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the pantryUse by1 month to 3 months after the day you opened it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 1 month to 3 months in the pantry once opened. The USDA rating this place at all is the USDA saying Diet powder mixes and drink mixes keeps there, so the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Diet powder mixes and drink mixes past its 1 month to 3 months in the pantry once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Fizzing that should not be there, cloudiness, floating strands or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

Among the 22 items the USDA files under Beverages, this item ranks 6 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Coffee holds 2 years, Nectar, papaya, mango, guava, or guavabana holds 18 months. Among the 244 foods the USDA also gives a pantry figure, it keeps longer than 68% of them.

Items that behave the same way

The 6 items below are the closest match to this item by storage behavior, running 18 months to 2 years and bracketing its 24 months.

• White winekeeps 1 day in the fridge once openedup to 2 years in the pantry
• Coffeekeeps 1 month in the fridge once openedcommercial ground, non-vacuum · up to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Nectar, papaya, mango, guava, or guavabanakeeps 12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Lemon juicekeeps 2 months in the fridge once openedup to 18 months sealed in the pantry
• Vegetable juicekeeps 18 months sealed in the pantryshelf-stable

Products the USDA rates in the same places

This is a common shape of record: 30 of the 466 products are rated in the same places, pantry from the day of purchase and pantry after opening, and 7 of the nine slots are left blank on all of them. Sorted by how close their windows are to this one, the nearest are Cornstarch, Textured soy protein and Chocolate, and the rest of that group is what the list below draws on. Of the 8 shown, 7 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Textured soy protein at 2 years.

• Cornstarch18 months in the pantry once opened
• Textured soy protein3 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Chocolate1 year in the pantry once opened
• Vegetable oil sprays1 year in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Shortening6 months in the pantry once openedup to 2 years sealed in the pantry
• Chili powder2 years in the pantry once opened
• Seasoning blends1 year in the pantry once opened
• Beans1 year in the pantry once opened

The rest of the Beverages shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Beverages shelf together with 21 others, and 5 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Red wine at 5 years down to Soda at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are White wine, Coffee and Nectar, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Beverages the same product ranks 6 of 22. The middle of the shelf is Yuzu juice, at 12 months. 2 products on this shelf publish no window outside the freezer and stay out of the order.

• White wine2 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Coffee2 years1 month in the fridge once opened
• Nectar18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Lemon juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Vegetable juice18 months18 months sealed in the pantry
• Tea36 months6 months in the pantry once opened
• Coconut water12 months1 day in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 24 months, Beverages offers 2 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Red wine at 5 years against this one's 24 months, and the rest are Nutrition supplement drinks. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 12 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Coconut water and Yuzu juice among them. The largest step the category offers is Nutrition supplement drinks at 5 years.

• Red wine5 years1 day in the fridge once opened
• Nutrition supplement drinks5 years2 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 403 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in months, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. Every figure here comes from one fixed snapshot, USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026, and is not refreshed page by page.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: diet powder, Diet powder mixes, drink, drink mixes, mix, mixes, powder mixes

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.