Strawberry Cattle Bone Delight, Anyone?

OK, I was reading one of my favorite new blogs, Fried Okra, where our dear Megan happened to mention in passing that Jello is made out of ground horse hooves. Even if this is the stuff of urban legend, this was news to me. So of course I do what an self-respecting curious person would do and I googled it. On a website maintained by food engineers and experts was this statement:

"Jello, and other gelatin desserts, use gelatin obtained primarily from cattle skins and bones. Gelatin can be made from almost any animal skin and bones, including pork and horses, if they were available, but there are very few horses slaughtered for food. The skins and bones are treated as food, even though the process highly purifies the gelatin. Different grades of gelatin are obtained, which are used in film, capsules for pharmaceuticals, and foods."

Eeeww. Blech. Ok, I won't think about that now.

Regardless of the ingredients of Jello, am I the only one that stockpiles this stuff? I'm not kidding, if you look in my pantry you'd think either I'm hosting a huge end of the summer "Jello Jubilee" or that I was preparing for possible rationing on the stuff. Starwberry, lemon-lime, orange, blue raspberry...you name it. That doesn't even touch the number of pudding boxes I've attained. Do I ever make Jello? No. But there's something domestic about having those boxes neatly stacked (labels all facing the same direction, thankyouverymuch). Just knowing that I could whip up a gelatin mold at a moment's notice surely is worth some sort of Mommy-Bonus Points, right?

What's the shelf life of the stuff anyway? I know I must have a box from 1995 in there. I just know it.