Long shelf life foods

Pretty good

I ordered a sample box from this site http://www.longlifefood.com/ Really good stuff I tryed some cajun rice W/beans and beef sausage and some chicken breast w/pasta. All good.... Fast shipping I got my item's in 1 week. My girlfriend is so picky in her food and she liked both items. check em out..
 
Ok, stupid question time. How do you even begin to figure out what (and how much) you should be storing away "just in case"? Where do you start?

Thanks,
-Cuz.
 
I think the best way, is to monitor what you/family consumes in a set amount of time. As for how much you will be storing? That's rather personal to each person involved in preparing. Personally, I like to have more than a years supply of food for myself on hand. I also like to keep some extra on hand to compensate for extra bodies I might take in...
 
What Adam has said is correct. You should also store what you eat. We are all different. One of the best books I picked up was Making the Best of Basics Family Prepardness handbook by James Talmage Stevens. It will give you some guidlines and also show you the shelf life for various things.
 
One other thing to keep in mind when starting to put things away, is all the other incidental items you need and use daily.
 
I eat the mountain house and other freeze dried foods when i go backpacking in the mountians and i love them all. they are very good. many different recipes, also everything from breakfast to dessert for anyone who wants to live well during a crisis.
 
This isn't as sophisticated as what you are looking at, but I keep 20 or 30 packs of grocery store tuna fish handy. They have a shelf life of four to five years, are relatively cheap and nutritional and don't take up much room
 
This isn't as sophisticated as what you are looking at, but I keep 20 or 30 packs of grocery store tuna fish handy. They have a shelf life of four to five years, are relatively cheap and nutritional and don't take up much room

I keep alot of canned goods around, but you have to rotate it. Basically eat what you store. Tuna is in my cupboards also.
 
Also, I don't consider anything "long shelf life" unless it's good for at least 10 years. Everything else gets rotated out on a regular basis.
 
What about oatmeal packets? How long could someone reasonably expect to store, say a case of quaker oatmeal packets around, before they go "bad" ?

-Mike
 
What about oatmeal packets? How long could someone reasonably expect to store, say a case of quaker oatmeal packets around, before they go "bad" ?

-Mike

It all depends on how you can store them. If say you keep the packets inside a mylar bag, with silica to keep them dry, and som O2 absorbers to keep the O2 away, and of course heat sealed the mylar bag, and that inside a bucket with a gasket lid, I would guess you could easily store them for 10 years. At least that's what I am shooting for with mine! [smile]
 
It's amazing how long food can last if it's cut off from oxygen. When I was a Marine during Desert Shield (before it became Storm), we spent over week in the Omani desert on a field exercise. This would have been early '91 or late '90 (my memory is fading these days). My team was supplied a box of MREs for the week. The date stamp was March of '85. I thought it was funny at the time since that was also the month I went off to bootcamp.
 
I got a vacuum sealer, less than $100 I think, and one of things I have done with it seal dry foods like oatmeal and corn meal. It's pretty cheap and seems like it should extend
the shelf life to many years. It does crush things when it sucks the air out, so things like crackers are not going to work well. Mostly we use it to save stuff in the freezer, like extra hamburger we didn't use, it extends the life in the freezer for a number of weeks at least.
 
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I got a vacuum sealer, less than $100 I think, and one of things I have done with it seal dry foods like oatmeal and corn meal. It's pretty cheap and seems like it should extend
the shelf life to many years. It does crush things when it sucks the air out, so things like crackers are not going to work well. Mostly we use it to save stuff in the freezer, like extra hamburger we didn't use, it extends the life in the freezer for a number of weeks at least.


I was thinking that this would be the way to go. Seal up smaller quantities of rice (or whatever), and vacuum the air right out.
 
Adam,

I've heard it several ways -- freeze rice (etc) to kill any potential bugs vs oxygen deprivation either via 02 absorbers or nitrogen/c02 packing. (All these methods presume mylar, sealed and in a food grade bucket with gasket lid.)

Are you still freezing? Do you think the 02 deprivation is an effective equivalent?

I'm hoping the latter so I can save a step -- but I don't want to find out I short changed myself 10 years down the road...

-ed

PS: bags + 02 from Sorbent arrived today. The hot jaw is package 2/2 and due to arrive this weekend -- so you can see the reason for my questions.
 
You have to be careful in self storage techniques. Removing oxygen does not necessarily mean the food is safely stored--botulism does not need oxygen.

If you are storing cans of food, be really careful to inspect them before you use them. I recently found two bulging Hormel Chili cans that had been stored for around 3 years. Any can with the lid slightly bulging should be tossed!
 
Removing oxygen does not necessarily mean the food is safely stored--botulism does not need oxygen.

I forget where I read about this interesting tidbit of history, if true, but the article went on to describe how during the conflict with Mexico, one side or the other would bury (?) food (food land mines?) stores with the purposeful intent of spreading botulism to the enemy.

-ed
 
You have to be careful in self storage techniques. Removing oxygen does not necessarily mean the food is safely stored--botulism does not need oxygen.

If you are storing cans of food, be really careful to inspect them before you use them. I recently found two bulging Hormel Chili cans that had been stored for around 3 years. Any can with the lid slightly bulging should be tossed!

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09305.html

There's some good info on botulism; it actually requires a low oxygen environment.
 
Mtn House

Hi Newbie to NES but not to these topics. I've been thinking of getting MH for LTS so bot a few pacakes to try. Taste ok but lots of sodium in all i tried, not so good for us older folks with high BP and also will make you drink more.

Will look into alternatives.

CS
 
I bought 2 at Wal-mart for the same reason.
Tried the lasagna and it was, surprisingly, really good.

I picked up 5 at KTP a month or so ago, so far I've only tried the Mac'N Cheese. It was good, but so rich i couldn't eat more than 3/4's of the bag after not eating for 24 hours of heavy activity. I'd say one package is perfect for 2 people, though they are not high in calories.
 
Mylar Bags

Hi Everyone,

I am wondering if anyone here knows of a local place (Metro West) to buy Mylar bags for Long Term Food Storage? I am interested in 1 gallon and 5 gallon Mylar bags.

Also does anyone know where I can purchase food grade 5 gallon plastic barrels?

Thanks,
 
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