Does Nutrament need to be refrigerated

By Isabella Storyclaire

last updated September 16, 2024

Contributions sourced from

How Long Does Nutritional Yeast Last? Does It Expire or Go Bad?

Do you know your nutritional yeast could go bad even if the packaging isnt opened? Wondering how long nutritional yeast lasts before it spoils? Youre in the right place.

Nutritional yeast should last for about two years. It is recommended to store your nutritional yeast in an air-tight container in a cool, dry place. Storing your nutritional yeast in the refrigerator or freezer is optional and may extend its shelf life.

For some reason, its hard to find good answers about nutritional yeast going bad online. I hope this resource helps some of you who are trying to determine if your nooch is still good!

Nutritional Yeast Shelf Life

Nutritional yeast should last for two years after the packaging date. Thats the best-case scenario. But if you dont store it correctly, nutritional yeast can spoil before its expiry date.

Can Unopened Nutritional Yeast Go Bad?

Its unlikely for unopened nutritional yeast to go bad unless you expose it to high heat or moisture.

That said, the shelf life of nutritional yeast is only about 24 months, so it would still be unadvised to eat it beyond that point, even if it was unopened.

How Long Is Nutritional Yeast Good After the Expiration Date?

If you buy your nutritional yeast in bulk, you might not even have any expiration date to go off of, since theres no package. But if you buy your nooch pre-packaged, there should be an expiration date you can find.

Nutritional yeast can generally be used for a while after its expiration date. If youre storing it in the fridge, youll have 2 or 4 extra months of good yeast.

That said, if youre storing it in your kitchen pantry, it may be exposed to heat in the summer. In that case, its better to stick to the expiration date.

Side Note: This is the best free video introduction Ive found on adopting a plant-based dietthe right way. Youll learn how to lower your risk of cancer, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, Alzheimers, and obesityall with plants. Watch the free Masterclass here.

How to Tell If Your Nutritional Yeast Is Bad

Nutritional yeast slowly changes in appearance as it goes bad. The normally light yellow color will turn darker, potentially more brown.

Additionally, instead of being smooth flowing when you pour it, it will start clumping together.

It may also develop a bitter taste as it goes bad. You should be able to notice these changes clearly. Unfortunately for people who are new to nutritional yeast, the taste itself can be foreign at first, making it harder to tell if its gone bad.

Should I Keep Nutritional Yeast in the Fridge?

Storing your nutritional yeast in the fridge or freezer will extend its shelf life, but it is not necessary. The general rule is that you should store nutritional yeast in a cool, dry, dark place.

Many people keep their unopened nutritional yeast in a pantry, and then they move it to the refrigerator after opening it. Personally, I just keep mine on a shelf in my kitchen in a jar like this one (Amazon link)but maybe it would last longer if I stored it in a dark place.

When kept in a dry, cool place thats not subject to light, nutritional yeast should be good for up to two years from the packaging day.

How Should I Store Nutritional Yeast?

Nutritional yeast should be stored in an air-tight container. You can use a lid-sealed plastic container, a freezer bag, a zipped plastic bag, or even a glass jar like I use (those are Amazon links). These are all air-tight and suitable for nutritional yeast storage.

Once you have your nooch in an air-tight container, ideally you store the container inside a cupboard, pantry, or in the fridge. Everyone says the ideal places to put it are dry, cool, and dark. Ive had no problem storing it on an open shelf in my kitchen, either, though.

Bonus nutritional yeast storage tip: if you have a cat, put your nooch in a place where it cant be reached. Cats tend to be attracted to nutritional yeast and will rip right through a plastic bag with no remorse!

Nutritional Yeast Food Ideas

Did you know you can add nutritional yeast to your pets food? Most pets love it, and it supplies extra nutrients, too. (I covered this in my post, Which Mock Meats and Other Vegan Foods Can Dogs Eat?

There are many uses for nutritional yeast. You can sprinkle it over the pasta youll have for lunch, or over your popcorn while watching a movie. (You may need to add extra oil to get it to stick to popcorn.)

Nutritional yeast also works well in soup. You can stir it into your soup for flavor, and you can use it as a thickener.

You can also use nooch in all kinds of vegan sauces for a cheesy flavor. Nutritional yeast together with plant milk is the beginning of a great cheese sauce.

Two More Recommendations for Your Plant-Based Journey

1. This is the best free video training Ive found on plant-based nutrition. Youll learn how to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimers, and obesityall with plant-based food. Watch the free Food for Health Masterclass here.

2. This is thebest vegan multivitamin Ive foundin my 14 years of being vegan.It has vitamin B12, vitamin D, omega-3and nothing else. Translation: It only has the nutrients vegans areactually low in. Read myfull review of Future Kinds multivitamin here(with 10% discount).

Tyler McFarland

Im Tyler McFarland, the editor and main author here. When I first went vegan 13 years ago, convenience products like veggie burgers and soy milk were a lot harder to find. Now theyre everywhere!

Where can I buy Nutrament?

Nutrament is available at select retail establishments in Florida and New York
Nutrament is also available through online retailers such as Amazon.com

Is Nutrament gluten-free?

Yes, Nutrament is gluten-free. Wheat is not an ingredient in the product

Is there soy in Nutrament?

Yes, there is soy lecithin in Nutrament

Does Nutrament contain caffeine?

The only flavor of Nutrament to have caffeine is chocolate. Due to the cocoa content, it has approximately 5.1mg of caffeine per 8 ounces

Does Nutrament have nuts?

There are no nuts in Nutrament

Is Nutrament kosher?

Nutrament is kosher certified OU-D

How much protein does Nutrament contain? How much do I need in a day?

Nutrament contains 15 grams of protein or 29% of the daily value, based on a 2,000 calorie diet. We suggest that you speak with your doctor or health care professional about the actual amount of protein you should have to support your daily nutritional requirements

How long after a can is opened can I drink Nutrament?

It should be consumed within 48 hours of opening as long as it was covered and kept refrigerated
Do not refrigerate after drinking directly from the can and discard contents if left at room temperature for more than an hour

What is the shelf life of Nutrament?

Nutrament has a shelf life of 15 months from the time it was manufactured

Nutrient paste dispenser

For the meal the dispenser dispenses, see

Nutrient paste meal

Nutrient paste dispenser

A machine that synthesizes edible nutrient paste from organic feedstocks placed in adjacent hoppers. It consumes less ingredients and time than any other meal production method - but nobody likes eating nutrient paste. Accepts raw food, but not rough plant matter like hay.

Base Stats

Type: Building Production

Market Value: 340 ^[Note]

HP: 350

Flammability: 50%

Building

Size: 34

Minifiable: False

Placeable: True

Passability: impassable

Cover Effectiveness: 75%

Blocks Wind: True

Terrain Affordance: Heavy

Power: -200 W

Creation

Required Research: Nutrient paste

Skill Required: Construction 5

Work To Make: 2,200ticks (36.67secs)

Resources to make: 125 + 3

Deconstruct yield: 62 - 63 + 1 - 2

Destroy yield: 31 - 32 + 0 - 1

The nutrient paste dispenser is an electrical device that converts raw food placed in an adjacent hopper into nutrient paste meals.

Acquisition[edit]

Nutrient paste dispensers can be constructed once the nutrient paste research project has been completed. Each requires 125Steel, 3Components, 2,200ticks (36.67secs) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder, and a construction skill of 5.

Once constructed, they cannot be re-installed, they can only be deconstructed.

By default, New Arrivals start with nutrient paste available.

Summary[edit]

All valid

hopper

positions.

Gold tile is the interaction spot. Numbers indicate order the hoppers will be drawn from - Note that this order is

not

rotated if the disperser is.

An orange dispenser marked for prisoner use.

The nutrient paste dispenser is an impassible object, acting like a wall for room and temperature mechanics. Pawns will dispense meals from the interaction spot, the front-center tile indicated by the circle during placement. If this spot is inside a prison cell, then the machine will change color to orange and only prisoners will be allowed to use it. You cannot build objects on the interaction spot, nor can you build the dispenser with it blocked. Chunks placed there after construction will prevent use until they are hauled away.

The dispenser creates 1 nutrient paste meal for 0.3 nutrition worth of food placed in an adjacent hopper. Hoppers can be placed in any cardinally adjacent tile, except for the interaction spot. The dispenser will attempt to draw food from the southwesternmost hopper first, regardless of dispenser orientation. If insufficient food is present in this hopper, then it will be emptied of any food inside, and then the process is repeated on each hopper proceeding counterclockwise around the dispenser until sufficient food has been collected to make a meal or all hoppers have been checked. If there is insufficient food to make a meal in all of the attached hoppers, no food will be consumed and no meal will be produced.

Colonists will deliver food as both Hauling and Cooking tasks. Make sure to set the Priority of the hoppers to be higher than other stockpiles. Only one type of food can be placed into each hopper. Any food except hay will be used, including corpses, but colonists will only load it with raw food. It is possible to force other foods on top of a hopper by taking it to a pawn's inventory and then manually dropping it in front of the hopper. This may be considered an exploit.

Colonists or prisoners will automatically use the dispenser any time they would otherwise look for a meal to pick up and eat, assuming it is powered, accessible, has enough food, the pawn is allowed to eat nutrient paste meals per their food restrictions and there are no preferable unrestricted meals available. No work bills or tasks can be performed at the machine, and no skills are necessary to use it. Wardens can also deliver nutrient paste from an external machine to prisoners, and Doctors will do the same for patients. Doctors can use prison-designated dispensers to feed prisoner patients. Animals cannot operate the dispenser but will eat meals if provided. In order to produce meals for storage or animals, you must manually manipulate a pawn - see below for details.

Nutrient paste[edit]

Nutrient paste converts 0.3 nutrition of raw food to a 0.9 nutrition meal, tripling your food. But when consumed, nutrient paste gives a 4 mood penalty ("Ate awful meal"). This is at least better than eating raw food. Pawns will always prefer a more tasty food, so unless their Food Restriction is specifically assigned to "Paste" (located at the top of a colonist's Health tab), they will only use the dispenser if no better option is available. The mood penalty is negated if the colonist eating it has the Ascetic trait, or the Eating Nutrient Paste: Don't mind precept in their ideoligion.

Use of human meat, insect meat, or, if the Ideology DLC is enabled, raw fungus, in a nutrient paste meal will still apply their regular moodlets, on top of the one for nutrient paste.

When you build a NPD, the game will notify a hopper is needed
Hopper storage menu to select ingredients
Hopper mouse indicator will turn from red to green for correct placement and colonists will pick NP meals from the dispenser

Analysis[edit]

At 300% nutritional efficiency, Nutrient paste is the most efficient way to prepare a meal. Compared to the next best method, simple and fine meals with 180% efficiency, paste gives 66.67% more food. This makes nutrient paste useful in a famine, even if you don't plan to use it indefinitely. In addition, no cooking is necessary. There's no risk of food poisoning, and it can save a lot of time off a cook's hands - cooking is often a full time job in large colonies. Overall, a nutrient paste dispenser can accelerate the development of a colony, and may be necessary in an extreme biome like ice sheet.

However, nutrient paste meals give a 4 mood debuff, which ends up being -9 net mood compared to fine meals. It is advised to not give nutrient paste to pawns with a trait that gives a negative modifier to mental break threshold, because they can push a pawn over the edge. Because pawns prefer normal meals over nutrient paste, you can set restrictions to prevent normal pawns from consuming all of the good meals and leaving none to the volatile ones. In contrast, Ascetics can eat paste without worry.

Transhumanist ideoligions can eat these meals without penalty, but still miss out on +5 mood from fine meals. Due to the increased hunger from using neural superchargers and sleep accelerators, a paste dispenser may be preferred.

The dispenser has a minor quirk - because colonists have to dispense meals as needed, they will never carry meals in their inventory. By preventing outdoor snacking, it forces colonists to eat at a nearby dining area, always giving the <Impressive> dining room moodlets while preventing 3 Ate without Table. However, this makes colonists slightly less efficient, as they'll have to travel to the dispenser every time they want to eat.

The paste dispenser also makes it a lot easier to keep animals that need to be fed by the colonists (such as dogs and grazing animals off the growing season). Feeding animals with paste requires occasional micro-management to create meal reserves, since animals cannot trigger the dispenser themselves.

Throne rooms[edit]

With Royalty active, it is possible to combine a throne room with a dining room. However, nutrient paste dispensers count as a "Production" building, and are not allowed in the room. Having the NPD very close is still possible, even as close as one door away.

NPD with interaction cell inside a door to the throne room

Manually producing meals[edit]

Using the paste dispenser is an automatic task that cannot be explicitly triggered. It is still possible to make a pawn produce as many meals as you want, until the machine runs out of raw food to process.

You need at least one pawn to be hungry enough to demand a meal. This will happen at least once per day, per pawn.

Forcing the pawn to create meals exploits the fact that a pawn stops their current action when they are drafted. We also need to keep the colonist away from any food, so they will be forced to keep producing new meals at the paste dispenser.

Method 1: using a special zone restriction (recommended)[edit]

The following method uses a 1-tile zone restriction that is placed in the middle of the dispenser. This is the easiest method for producing more than one stack of meals at a time. In detail:

Create a new area that covers exactly 1 tile in the center of the main body of the nutrient paste dispenser (as shown in the screenshot). The exact location of this area matters, in order for the pawn to be able to path to the paste dispenser.
When one of your colonists (it does not matter which one) becomes hungry, and is about to eat a meal, pause the game and restrict the pawn to the area created in step one. You might also have to draft and undraft the colonist so he will stop the current action. The pawn will now be unable to do anything except produce meals at the paste dispenser, due to the zone restriction he is now under. He will even be unable to grab meals that are right on top of him, including the ones he produces from the machine!
Wait for the colonist to walk up to the paste dispenser and draw a meal from the machine. Pause the game again at this point.
To start mass producing meals, simply draft and undraft the pawn as many times as desired. Each cycle will instantly procure another meal from the dispenser, using up some of the resources from the hoppers. The meal is not consumed by the colonist, because drafting him will make him drop the meal on the floor, where it will be out of reach (due to the zone restriction). You can hold down the draft hotkey to rapidly mass produce meals.
When you are finished, simply undraft the pawn a final time and remove the zone restriction from him. Done.

The entire process will require no in-game time, since the game is paused all the way.

Notes:

If you wait a little to long with pausing the game, after the pawn has produced a meal, they will move away from the dispenser and consume the meal (ignoring the zone restriction). This is not a problem: simply draft and undraft the pawn, they will drop the meal on the ground and you can resume again at step 3 above.
Pawns may prefer to eat meals that are already made, and not use the paste dispenser in those situations, depending on several factors that are difficult to control. If you want to protect your bulk-produced meals from colonists, you have to forbid the stacks or exclude the colonists from the area they are stored in. Domesticated animals will not eat from forbidden stacks, so an exclusion zone has to be used to reserve the food for animals.
Many pawns want to eat after getting up in the morning. This makes it easier to watch for hungry pawns if you plan to mass produce some meals.

The pawn is restricted to a 1-by-1 tile wide area which is placed in the middle of the nutrient paste dispenser. The precise location of the zone is important. The pawn will now produce meals indefinitely when drafted and undrafted in front of the dispenser (while there is material on top of the hoppers).
This is the state after all hoppers are depleted. The pawn is now surrounded by stacks of nutrient paste meals. He is still unable to eat any of them, due to the zone restriction (which can now be removed and the pawn undrafted). Note that none of the meal stacks are forbidden, because that is not necessary with this method.

Now you can have as many nutrient paste meals as your heart desires!Enough to take with you on cold journeys!Enough to make an emergency food stockpile!Enough to use as animal fodder!

Method 2: manually forbidding stacks (casual use)[edit]

If you do not want to deal with zone restrictions, you proceed as in method 1, but then you have to forbid any new meal stacks that are created, before continuing to cycle the drafting. This method is a little inconvenient if you want to produce more than a single stack of meals, or if you repeat the process regularly (eg. to produce animal food).

The pawn has just grabbed a meal from the dispenser, and wants to eat it. The game is paused at this point. If you draft the pawn now, he will drop the meal on the floor.
This is how it looks like after a couple of stacks have been produced, simply by drafting and undrafting the pawn. The game remains paused all the way. When a new stack appears, it has to be forbidden for the process to continue.
Beyond 3 tiles, you do not even need to forbid stacks any more.