[Jon12312]

Hey guys, i hope you all had a good holiday! I need some help on what caned food to store and how to store it? Any input?

[c3shooter]

store whatever it is you like to eat- because you WILL be eating it- foodstocks need to be rotated from time to time for best flavor and nutrition- so if you don't like beets, do not buy a case of canned dehydrated beets.

Store cool and dry, like ammo. Beyond that, depends on what you want your food supply to do. If you are looking for a week or two of food for hurricane/ snowstorm events, then the usual soups, stews, oatmeal and a few tins of cookies and some condensed milk on the shelf will get you thru a lot.

If you are looking at feeding a family for a year after Armageddon, then you need to be looking at dry nitrogen packed wheat, pasta, etc- along with meats and veggies and fats. Packaged flour products have a limited shelf life in ordinary grocery store packaging- bugs, you know. If you go that route, don't forget a grinder to make flour out of the wheat. And a few bottles of vitamins would be a good idea.

Do not limit yourself to dozens of cases of MREs- contrary to rumor, they DO have a shelf life, you do NOT want to live on those exclusively, and they are pricey as hell. I am retired Army, can buy them thru the Commissary, and they are still $$$. Keep a case or two around to intimidate the grandkids (Whine about MY cooking, will you? HAH! Yer having the Chicken Ala King!)

[bkt]

Store-bought canned food has an expiration date but the food is actually still edible well past the date. Nutritional value degrades over time, so you do need to rotate store-bought canned goods. The need to rotate out canned food limits how much you can keep on hand particularly if you want to have a year's or more supply of food.

Check and see if there is an LDS (Mormon) Cannery near you. You can get all sorts of dry goods in large cans with O2 absorbers, many of which have a shelf life of 30 years. Pasta, wheat, flour, beans, rice, sugar, veggies, fruit, etc. are available. The dry stuff lasts a lot longer and it's a lot more versatile. But, it's not as handy and quick as canned stuff. For quick meals, consider Mountain House (or similar) freeze-dried stuff. It's tasty and keeps for several years.

Like c3 said, store what you eat. Unless you enjoy eating MREs, don't waste your time, space or money storing them.

[Jon12312]

Thanks guys. I want to get an idea of what im doing and want to do it right so money doesnt go to waste and I have a good supply for my family. I will look into those ideas then let you guys know what Im going to do.

[dragunovsks]

You should get into growing your own food too, eventually the store bought stuff will run out out. We have been putting out a garden every year and next spring im gonna hit it hard, and ill start canning alot too.

If the shtf scenario lasts longer than you thought it would, gardening could mean the difference between living and starving to death.

[c3shooter]

Dragunov has a good point- one we have talked over here before. Look for plant varieties that are "heirloom" or "non-hybrid". You can save seed from those plants, and replant them the following year. But if you save seed from, let's say Kandi Corn Super Sweet corn, what comes up will look like a variety of grass, not corn.

[Jon12312]

How long can i store seeds for?

[c3shooter]

You can store them forever.

However, to use them as seeds- each year will decrease the percentage that will germinate- sprout. The actual time varies from one seed type to another. Consider an estimate- the first year, 90% of properly stored seed will germinate. Keep it another year- 50%. Another year- maybe 25%. Another year-5%.

But if you plant an heirloom plant, and save some of the seeds from your harvest, and plant THOSE the next year, it is 90%- fresh seeds. Keep some seed from THAT crop, and plant the next- 90%- ad infinitum.

[bkt]

Originally Posted by Jon12312

How long can i store seeds for?

Well, indefinitely, really. But the longer they're stored the less germination rate you will probably see. If you store season-to-season, you'll be fine. If you store once and expect to get a great yield in 10 years, you might be a little disappointed.

+1 to dragunov - gardening is a must. It isn't that much work and the amount of food can be enormous. I've had really good luck with four 4x8 raised beds with deer netting around the beds. No critter problems at all. Beans, peas, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, cilantro, basil, tomatoes, broccoli...more than my family can eat! The cost was basically just the time it took to put the beds together and the materials. We only hit the local farm markets for fresh corn this past summer but that's it.

Canning isn't hard, either, and you can preserve all kinds of stuff that will easily last well into the next growing season. Pickling is easy, and so is canning stuff like homemade tomato sauce.

Here's the best part: even if the S never HTF, you will acquire skills to grow and eat exactly what you want, you can regulate what gets sprayed on your food, and you save a lot of money. If you fish and hunt, so much the better.

[downsouth]

All good advice.

I have a question. C3 brought it to my mind.
When I was a kid, say 1967 or so my mother would ALWAYS sift the flour. I remember the flour having weavels in it.
Now sifting flour is done to get air into it.

What happened to the weavels?
Is our flour so poor in nutrition that the bug can't make a living in a whole bag of it?
Or
Is there poison in with the flour?
Or
Am I getting more protein in my biscuit than I know?
Have wondered where the weavels went to for years.