I ran across this post over in Zombie land - complete with photos. The individual was cleaning out a relative's home so the relative could move into an assisted living facility. Being LDS, they had a large amount food storage - put away in the late 70s and early 80s - based on the photos and package dates of the Chow. From the post, it was obvious the family had purchased a large amount of food from a multi-level marketer (sound familiar?) and packed it away for "just in case". After 40 years all that was left went to the chickens - except for what went to the dump, which was nearly all of the storage foods. I'm sharing the link and related story as - perhaps - an object lesson that one can see with their own eyes. Long Term Storage (LTS) food should be part of a plan, a plan that includes rotation (as in store what you eat, eat what you store) Correct storage containers, preparation and storage conditions Menus for using the food (for rotation) Otherwise, the money is just wasted and the food more than likely winds up in a dump. The cheapest lesson is the one learned from another's mistakes......
@DKR @Thunder5Ranch yep gotta eat em, inspect em, n rotate em regularly otherwise ya might get a nasty surprise when there is a real emergency .. ..
Yeah found a quart jar of 2001 green beans last year that somehow got lost and refound Looked good, Seal on the jar was tight, smelled fine, took one out and it turned to green slime in my hand LOL. 3 Year tops on the pressure canned veggies fer me, and 2 years fer the pressure canned meats. Usually not a problem as we are pretty much running out of the rotate out year before the new stock goes in.
Pure honey is just about good forever,I don’t think it ever goes bad. Now I’m talking about pure honey.
Usually good for 6mos to a year after the expiration date on many things like that. It is not so much a it will make you sick thing but a quality thing. Honey will eventually turn to sugar and peanut butter sours. Also those date are very dependent on how it is stored, keep it at a steady 50-55 degrees and in the dark it last a lot longer. Store it at 90 degrees in full sun and it gets pretty funky pretty fast.
Im eating 2006 Peanut Butter (pure no crap added ) its oil is on the bottom since we store upside down in a burred sea can 40' down below grass so it's 5-7c dark S
Old adage of eat what you store and store what you eat. Rotate your stores often. My limited space makes me go through my stores quickly so I'm constantly rotating.
I'm always amazed that people don't rotate their food. I was raised 1st in, 1st out rotation. I understand not rotating the toilet paper but perishible food.... I just don't get it. it's also an interesting lesson in money, time and space wasted .... prepping with no real intent but to be... what safe? Prepping is a life style not an event or a what if.
Funny thing happened to us when we started to eat our preps, item most used was spaghetti sauce. Use it with spaghetti, its intended use with meatless crumbles, cheese, olive oil etc added, with veggie meat crumbles and spices to make sloppy joes that taste great on bread or crackers, with oat meal, veggie meat, eggs and onions to make veggie patties, use sloppy joe sauce over rice, dried potatoes, with beans to make chilli, as a topping for pizza, taco and burrito filling, and the list goes on. It takes up a lot of space, is in glass and its "suggested' keep time is 2 to 3 years for most brands. It is strictly a bug in food as it would be a bear to move in a bug out situation and it must be kept from freezing. We store it in cases in the cellar, rotate the oldest case to the pantry, buy a replacement case for storage, and use the one in the pantry, rinse and repeat. Have wheat in storage that is 10 years old, taste and use of samples show it is still good, storage beans of same age now require pressure cooking, but taste OK. Use 10 times the lentils and rice that I do beans from storage, cook time of beans make it a project, but find "Bobs Red Mill soup mix" with about an hour cook time on the wood heating stove in the winter is hard to beat, and the instant onion soup mixes make a lot of storage foods "good enough to eat regularly". Again a fairly short shelf life and cans, but canned tomato's, sauce, diced, flavored, etc make a lot of storage foods into good soups, beans, etc. Again, store in storage and rotate to pantry. Cheap, 3 or so year storage life, used every day, and I know I have a couple years food with the greenhouse and garden as we have been doing it for years. Milk, bread, bananas, etc, we buy every week, but have ability to replace most of them from storage foods with a lot more work. Biggest fail has been veggie cooking oils, over the years a friend who makes home made soap has used more of it then I do. Storing it in freezer works well to extend its life, but if I thought there was going to be a crash in the next 48 hours, lard, cheese, butter, olive oil, peanut butter, crackers, spaghetti sauce, breakfast foods, dried soup mixes, brown rice, bulk spices, fresh seeds, and such would dominate my shopping list.
I've never understood why people don't eat the food they store. Not only are they wasting money if it goes bad, but they typically store food they don't even normally eat. I don't know about you but if SHTF I don't plan on eating a bunch of food I don't even like. I for one will be eating good since I store food that I actually enjoy and rotate my food supply often.