Confirmed Food Life - Personal Experience In Long Term Storage

I can confirm that dry popcorn kernels that were stored in heavy plastic bags inside plastic totes in a dry cool basement were just fine after 10 years. No issues with unpopped kernels or stale taste. Not a perfect long storage food but when you forget you had two 50 lb bags in a tote it is kind of nice to see they are still good. [laugh][popcorn]
 
I can confirm that dry popcorn kernels that were stored in heavy plastic bags inside plastic totes in a dry cool basement were just fine after 10 years. No issues with unpopped kernels or stale taste. Not a perfect long storage food but when you forget you had two 50 lb bags in a tote it is kind of nice to see they are still good. [laugh][popcorn]
I have a bunch of that too. I have been popping a 50# bag for the last 5 years. Still great.
Also can be ground into cornmeal.
 
I was looking through my stored food today, to count what I had for the coronavirus, and I discovered I had 2 5-gallon buckets of rice that I had forgotten about. I thought I had eaten the last bucket years ago. I packed these up myself in mylar bags and O2 absorbers back in 2006. I had last opened the other rice buckets when they were just 8 years old, and they were perfect, couldn't tell the difference. I'm wondering how these will be. I'm guessing they will be fine, but I have not eaten 14 year old jasmine rice before.

I won't be opening one yet... still got a bag of rice trying to finish off, and this mostly paleo eating kind of puts a limit to how fast I can go through this stuff.
 
About a week ago I received an email from Emergency Essentials telling me the #10 cans of powdered chicken gravy was on sale, so I clicked the link and I noticed that they changed the advertised shelf life from 25 years to 10 years. Several years ago they did the same thing with their powdered butter, they lowered the shelf life from 25 to 10 years.
For now the beef gravy shelf life remains at 25 years.
 
About a week ago I received an email from Emergency Essentials telling me the #10 cans of powdered chicken gravy was on sale, so I clicked the link and I noticed that they changed the advertised shelf life from 25 years to 10 years. Several years ago they did the same thing with their powdered butter, they lowered the shelf life from 25 to 10 years.
For now the beef gravy shelf life remains at 25 years.


Odd.... I have some of their cans nearing 10 years. I would be surprised if they suddenly went bad at 11.
 
this mostly paleo eating kind of puts a limit to how fast I can go through this stuff.
I'm on the paleo lite plan myself. Started by giving up toast in the morning. Now it's eggs over greens. Then cut grains at lunch. Now it's vegetable and animal protein soup. Working on the dinner menu as of late.
Like the Ents, I don't move very quickly. But I can outrun a glacier.
 
Odd.... I have some of their cans nearing 10 years. I would be surprised if they suddenly went bad at 11.
It is only their powdered chicken gravy and butter that they changed the shelf life on, probably due to their fat content.
 
It is only their powdered chicken gravy and butter that they changed the shelf life on, probably due to their fat content.

Ah ok, that might make sense. I only have stuff from them such as onions, green beans, a few other veggies... those I would expect to last a long time. And, a few cans of freeze dried chicken/beef... I'm not entirely sure how long they last, I should go check. If I knew the apocalypse was going to be so slow to arrive, I would have paid greater attention to details like 10 versus 25 years when I bought all this stuff. [laugh]
 
About a week ago I received an email from Emergency Essentials telling me the #10 cans of powdered chicken gravy was on sale, so I clicked the link and I noticed that they changed the advertised shelf life from 25 years to 10 years. Several years ago they did the same thing with their powdered butter, they lowered the shelf life from 25 to 10 years.
For now the beef gravy shelf life remains at 25 years.

They also changed the dates on some of their bread mixes. I think sourdough was one but not sure.
 
I can confirm that dry popcorn kernels that were stored in heavy plastic bags inside plastic totes in a dry cool basement were just fine after 10 years. No issues with unpopped kernels or stale taste. Not a perfect long storage food but when you forget you had two 50 lb bags in a tote it is kind of nice to see they are still good. [laugh][popcorn]

Popcorn kernels will outlast you.

I recall reading an article years ago that was about kernels being stored in clay pots (somewhere) that were thousands of years old...still popped...still tasted fine.
 
So my new 23yo “”GF” threw out my hormell chilli. Cause it was expired (5years)..WTF...?

when i eat your pets... id like them in A crock pot with chili.

i keep telling her all our animals have an expectation date... i call it dinner..
 
Cracked a pull tab style can of Hormel Chili with a Jan 2016 date on it the other night, tasted fine, no ill effects.
 
I came across a box of Maple and Brown Sugar Quaker instant oatmeal packs from 2010. I'm not awesome at rotating stuff but that got totally overlooked. So having nothing better to do I gave it a shot. The sugar/maple was in a hard clump but came out of the package. It didn't smell bad so I mixed one up. The sugar was fine. The oats were stale. If I was starving to death I don't think it would have made me sick if I ate it. But I decided to pass and mix it up and give it to the chickens. They were happy with it.
 
Wife found some chocolate in the basement that “expired” in 2014. Tasted fine to me.
View attachment 347468
chocolate has a very long shelf life. even if you see it with that white residue, that isn't mold or anything. as chocolate ages, after a while the cocoa fats get pushed out which is what you're seeing. still g2g to eat.
 
About a week ago I received an email from Emergency Essentials telling me the #10 cans of powdered chicken gravy was on sale, so I clicked the link and I noticed that they changed the advertised shelf life from 25 years to 10 years. Several years ago they did the same thing with their powdered butter, they lowered the shelf life from 25 to 10 years.
For now the beef gravy shelf life remains at 25 years.

They're now labeling as "Pandemic food kits"
 
So 2 cans of Delmonte stewed tomatoes that expired in March of 2012 were eaten with breakfast for dinner last night. They were fine.

Green giants beans that expired in '15 also made a green bean casserole with campbells expired in '16 cream of mushroom soup.

Two expired tastes that expired well together.

2 tins of corned beef expired Dec 2018 - tasted no different than new ones.
 
~10 year old (maybe 7) pancake mix. Aunt Jemima BJs box. No internal packaging - just loose mix in cardboard.

Had it in 'old stock' in the cellar pantry, figured I'd give it a whirl....also figured i'd be junk as there was no inner plastic bag.
All looked/smelled fine when mixing. All looked good when cooking - rose nice and fluffy.
The catch - they tasted only slightly like my cellar.

Surprisingly - dry powder mix in nothing but cardboard, in a slightly damp cellar, held up for almost 10 years!
If I had put it in a plastic bag back then, I think it would have been just fine.
 
I believe I described my dried legume experiences in another thread. Chickpeas and black beans from circa 2008. The chickpeas are fine. The black beans... even giving them a good, long soak beforehand, you have to cook them practically forever to get them to soften, and then they're pretty bland. (Admittedly I haven't tried the pressure cooker on the black beans yet - maybe that'd help.)
 
I believe I described my dried legume experiences in another thread. Chickpeas and black beans from circa 2008. The chickpeas are fine. The black beans... even giving them a good, long soak beforehand, you have to cook them practically forever to get them to soften, and then they're pretty bland. (Admittedly I haven't tried the pressure cooker on the black beans yet - maybe that'd help.)

The thing I found interesting is that the article says the vitamins were pretty much gone after 5 years. I am usually pretty good about rotating so most of my food gets rotated through in about two years but every so often you do find something that was not moved up in rotation.
 
Yoder's canned bacon is guaranteed by the manufacturer to last 2 years but may be good for up to 10 years.
This can is at least as old a 2012 and might be as old as 2009.
I heard the vacuum seal release when I opened it.
The bacon looks like it should.
No odd odor and tastes great!

Yoders bacon unrolled.jpg
 
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