Lessons learned from 1998 preps

[prepgirl44]

I was doing my semi annual cleaning out/inventory/ arranging of food storage today and learned a couple of good leasons I thought I might share with you all.

In 1998 I had stored Cal Rose white rice in 5 gallon buckets (six of them to be exact as I had expected a lot of folks for y2k). These 1998 buckets of rice were put up only with bay leaves, oxygen absorbers, and silica powder that I placed in a coffee filter and twist tied closed as a moisture preventative. No gas, no mylar bag lining the bucket...just food grade buckets and the above added.

Well, I have been eating that rice all these years, no problem. In fact, I have been eating a lot of things put up for y2k, and they have all been just fine. Fortunately all there is left from 98 is now one last bucket of rice and 9 buckets of wheat and one bucket of dehydrated potatoes (which will keep forever).

Anyway, maybe what I learned today will help someone else.


Lesson #1: white rice keeps just fine for 13 years when put up with bay leaves, O2 absorbers, and silica powder. (As does wheat and white flour, BTW.... I'm still working on the wheat and I just finished the flour off about 6 months ago.)

The rice does have a very faint flavor of bay leaves (lol), but it has kept perfectly fine and all these years and tastes great to me. One little drawback...I now think plain old white rice is completely tasteless when I eat someone else's because theirs hasn't been stored with bay leaves for 13 years!



Lesson 2: Bay leaves are effective as a natural bug deterent/bug killer.

As I was moving buckets around and cleaning and mopping (my semi annual clean the storage room thing) I noted a few dead bugs on the floor. Not cockroaches or mealy bugs or anything...just the usual mountain critters....I live in the mountains so I have carpenter ants cruising through from time to time and roly polies and this other centipede type critter and of course any number of daddy long legs and other spiders..just goes with the territory when you live in the mountains in an old house. A few dead bodies were there, but nothing was alive. Even the spiders were all dead (and there weren't very many of anything, compared to what I find in the rest of my house on any given weekend while housecleaning! My theory is that they all died because they wandered into an area with bay leaves scattered around. You see, just for extra measure, I have always scattered bay leaves around on the floor between the buckets and on the shelves. I've decided that bay leaves apparently really do work as a natural deterent to bugs!



Lesson # 3: While white rice may last 13 years or more in a bucket, coffee filters desentegrate somewhere after 12.

I was down to the bottom of the second to the last 1998 bucket of rice and so I got into it to empty it of the last of its contents while I was in there dealing with everything. I gently tapped the coffee filter that held the silica powder as I went to scoop the rice, barely bumped it and it simply crumbled.....just plain desentegrated before my very eyes! Silica powder going everywhere falling down into the rice! Obviously I had to throw the rest of the bucket of rice out as silica powder is not to be taken internally!

In the future I will be looking for professional packets to use as a drying agent in my buckets...and in fact, now that I had to dump the rest of that rice due to the poisonious silica powder being mixed in it, I am going to open those 9 remaining buckets of wheat from 1998 and carefully re-package them for long term storage without the coffee filter rigging! Having a coffee filter disentegrate and contaminate an entire bucket of wheat (or anything else) in a SHTF scenario would be a nightmare.

Oh, and one last thing...as I am more than 10 years older now and my back is not as good as it used to be (nor my strength), I have found those 5 gallon buckets are a bit heavy and bulky for this old lady to work with. I can still do it, but certainly not with the ease I could 10 years ago!

Some years ago, my family grew up and out and I found myself living alone and not needing the maginitude of preps I had earlier. That combined with getting older and my back injury worsening over the years, led me to decide to go to 3 gallon buckets as I replenished my food storage. Today as I was moving everything around, I really noticed the difference between the 3 gallon and the 5 gallon buckets and was glad I had made the switch. They use the same gamma seal lids and they stack just as nicely as the 5 gallon, if not nicer since the heavy ones don't tend to get top heavy when stacked high. But mainly, they are just so much easier to handle without breaking my back! I moved that entire room around today and I am not even sore tonight. Wouldn't be able to move at all if all those buckets had been 5 gallons ones! Might just be something for older folks here to consider.

So that's it folks...just a few lessons I learned today as I went through and did my thing in my food storage pantry.... hope what I learned can benefit someone else.

[ainitfunny]

Why couldn't you have just shaken out in a sieve then rinsed the silica powder(diatomacious earth) off the rice?
http://www.diatomitecanada.com/the-s...eous-earth.htm

it has been used for centuries MIXED WITH GRAINS to preserve all grains
http://ublcorp.com/diatomaceousearth.html

Because DE is made of silica, people sometimes mistakenly think that DE causes silicosis As indicated above, however, pesticide quality DE is usually over 97 per cent amorphous silica, which does not cause silicosis, which is associated only with crystalline silica. Indeed, inhalation of road dust and grain dust is likely to be more harmful than DE.

In houses it can be used effectively to prevent the entry of certain insects such as earwigs, ants, and cockroaches, and to control these and others that are present in cupboards containing food, carpets, basements, attics, window ledges, pet areas (for fleas), etc. In all of these examples it is important to place a small amount of the powder in corners, cracks, crevices and other areas where insects might hide.

You Texans ought to try DE(Diatomaceous Earth) on fire ant hills and anyone wanting to get rid of Roaches or bedbugs has a permanent NONTOXIC solution.

[Red Baron]

Great observations prepgirl44, thanks for sharing!

I've been checking our Y2K preps and have noticed a couple of things,

- 50% of the chemical light sticks went dead after 5 years and now all are dead. I won't buy them again but the new miniature LED lights are a huge improvement.

- 12 year old MRE's (stored in a cool basement) taste just fine and the G.I. chemical heaters still work great.

- The rectangular G.I. hexamine fuel bars work just fine. Even the small round ones from post WWII still burn OK.

[prepgirl44]

Why couldn't you have just shaken out in a sieve then rinsed the silica powder(diatomacious earth) off the rice?
http://www.diatomitecanada.com/the-s...eous-earth.htm

it has been used for centuries MIXED WITH GRAINS to preserve all grains
http://ublcorp.com/diatomaceousearth.html


You Texans ought to try DE(Diatomaceous Earth) on fire ant hills and anyone wanting to get rid of Roaches or bedbugs has a permanent NONTOXIC solution.

What I had used was not food grade, it was the stuff for drying flowers and that is toxic.

As for rinsing...well, it was tiny white granules and mixed in the white rice, it was very hard to see...if I tried to rinse it, I wouldn't even know for sure that I had been able to successfully rinse it all off.

Plus, it was the bottom of the bucket of rice...maybe the last 1/4 of the bucket if that, and frankly, since I can buy more (since it isn't TSHTF yet and rice is not all that expensive) it was simply not worth it to me to risk my health or anyone else's for that little bit of rice.

That's why.

[ainitfunny]

Makes sense in that light.
Your tips are very instructive and helpful.

[Dare7]

I think it may have been the silica or something else that killed your coffee filter because I have some 15 yr old Mr Coffee brand boxes of filters that are still just fine. Based on my own experiences, I concur with the rest of your life expectancy findings.

I don't use bay leaves except for cooking. When it comes to storage, I'm a freezer first then oxy absorbers in sealed mylar bags in lidded buckets kind of gal with an occasional handful of DE (for wheat berries only) tossed in ~JIC~ and have never had bugs in the food. I also have an issue with the weight of buckets but as long as I've got big, strong children & grandchildren living within bullhorn/screaming distance, I'll keep using them for economy of space.

Excellent report.

[Hansa44]

Thank you for the great info. I have always loved Calrose Rice and have quite a bit in my preps. I like to make sticky rice (not mushy rice)

Years ago I posted on TB my mom and grandmother had always used bay leaves to keep the bugs away. Many here were surprised to hear about it. But I actually didn't post it till 2004 or 5 I think.

Mom put a few in everything. Flour,sugar, rice, pasta, anything the tiny varmints would get into. I do not remember mom or my gm having any insect issues and we lived in the NW corner of IN that was hot and humid during the summer.

Putting them on the floor is a good idea if you don't have any pets that might try one. I guess they're like miniature razors and that's why bugs stay away. Or one of the reasons. We were always warned never to eat a bay leaf for this reason. Always had one in home made soup or stew etc.

I am thrilled to hear rice will stay good for so long. Thanks.

[Dare7]

Mom put a few in everything. Flour,sugar, rice, pasta, anything the tiny varmints would get into. I do not remember mom or my gm having any insect issues and we lived in the NW corner of IN that was hot and humid during the summer.

NWI is hotter and more humid than ever - "took all the trees, put 'em in a tree museum/And charged the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em" - it's all the extra asphalt & concrete they keep pouring. Sometimes during those months I think I'd sell my soul to get out of here but I certainly wouldn't be heading SOUTH!!!

For all non-canned/bottled foods in my regular pantry, tupperware is my very bestest friend. My kitchen cabinets could be a commercial for them except my canisters & cereal keepers are the gold, avocado & burnt orange colors from the 70's.

[bw]

- 50% of the chemical light sticks went dead after 5 years and now all are dead. I won't buy them again but the new miniature LED lights are a huge improvement.

We no longer recommend the light sticks for emergencies. You can't test them without using them up, and unless you test them you don't know they're still good. And you can't turn them on or off, so once you trigger one, it's going to run until it's done. LED flashlights are a much better tool.

[RCSAR]

Canned cooked beans from 1998 are fine too. They tend to absorb a lot of the water in the can but are just fine even though some brands get a metalic taste.

Buckets of rice and beans are great also. If the beans dry out too much then they are firmer and work better in a pressure cooker. If they are still too hard afer cooking I go after them with a mixer and make them into refried beans.

[Kathy in FL]

RCSAR, another thing to do with beans that aren't rehydrating ... before cooking I mean ... is to grind them dry for bean flour.

[prepgirl44]

We no longer recommend the light sticks for emergencies. You can't test them without using them up, and unless you test them you don't know they're still good. And you can't turn them on or off, so once you trigger one, it's going to run until it's done. LED flashlights are a much better tool.

The new LED flashlights are great, so much brighter and more efficient, but the problem I see with them is that long term one would run out of batteries. And to be honest, even though the packaging with batteries gives an expiration date waaay out in advance (like nearly 10 years), I have found that they too are really done after about 5 years. But maybe there there is some storage technique for regular batteries that I am unaware of???

That said, I have regular batteries, rechargeable batteries (which also go dead and won't hold a charge after a while), lightsticks, candles, propane camp lanterns, AND then my really serious back-up is my lanterns and liquid parafin (which I suspect will really be the thing that sustains if the lights go out long term).

Yeah, lighting and storage/preservation of same is an issue. The lights go out here repeatedly and for extended periods of time every winter...I would be lost without my flashlights and lanterns. It sucks to go to bed at sundown cuz you can't see to do anything.

[prepgirl44]

Canned cooked beans from 1998 are fine too. They tend to absorb a lot of the water in the can but are just fine even though some brands get a metalic taste.

Buckets of rice and beans are great also. If the beans dry out too much then they are firmer and work better in a pressure cooker. If they are still too hard afer cooking I go after them with a mixer and make them into refried beans.

Great idea! Thanks!

[TerryK]

Thanks for a lot of good info prepgirl.
This kind of information gives me a warm fuzzy about my own preps and confidence my long term preps will be good when I need them.

[Turret Buster]

Thanks all for the good onfo.

[RCSAR]

Glad it helped prepgirl.
We just don't post enough prep stuff like we used to.

[TimeTraveler]

I was doing my semi annual cleaning out/inventory/ arranging of food storage today and learned a couple of good leasons I thought I might share with you all.

In 1998 I had stored Cal Rose white rice in 5 gallon buckets (six of them to be exact as I had expected a lot of folks for y2k). These 1998 buckets of rice were put up only with bay leaves, oxygen absorbers, and silica powder that I placed in a coffee filter and twist tied closed as a moisture preventative. No gas, no mylar bag lining the bucket...just food grade buckets and the above added.

Well, I have been eating that rice all these years, no problem. In fact, I have been eating a lot of things put up for y2k, and they have all been just fine. Fortunately all there is left from 98 is now one last bucket of rice and 9 buckets of wheat and one bucket of dehydrated potatoes (which will keep forever).

Anyway, maybe what I learned today will help someone else.


Lesson #1: white rice keeps just fine for 13 years when put up with bay leaves, O2 absorbers, and silica powder. (As does wheat and white flour, BTW.... I'm still working on the wheat and I just finished the flour off about 6 months ago.)

The rice does have a very faint flavor of bay leaves (lol), but it has kept perfectly fine and all these years and tastes great to me. One little drawback...I now think plain old white rice is completely tasteless when I eat someone else's because theirs hasn't been stored with bay leaves for 13 years!



Lesson 2: Bay leaves are effective as a natural bug deterent/bug killer.

As I was moving buckets around and cleaning and mopping (my semi annual clean the storage room thing) I noted a few dead bugs on the floor. Not cockroaches or mealy bugs or anything...just the usual mountain critters....I live in the mountains so I have carpenter ants cruising through from time to time and roly polies and this other centipede type critter and of course any number of daddy long legs and other spiders..just goes with the territory when you live in the mountains in an old house. A few dead bodies were there, but nothing was alive. Even the spiders were all dead (and there weren't very many of anything, compared to what I find in the rest of my house on any given weekend while housecleaning! My theory is that they all died because they wandered into an area with bay leaves scattered around. You see, just for extra measure, I have always scattered bay leaves around on the floor between the buckets and on the shelves. I've decided that bay leaves apparently really do work as a natural deterent to bugs!



Lesson # 3: While white rice may last 13 years or more in a bucket, coffee filters desentegrate somewhere after 12.

I was down to the bottom of the second to the last 1998 bucket of rice and so I got into it to empty it of the last of its contents while I was in there dealing with everything. I gently tapped the coffee filter that held the silica powder as I went to scoop the rice, barely bumped it and it simply crumbled.....just plain desentegrated before my very eyes! Silica powder going everywhere falling down into the rice! Obviously I had to throw the rest of the bucket of rice out as silica powder is not to be taken internally!

In the future I will be looking for professional packets to use as a drying agent in my buckets...and in fact, now that I had to dump the rest of that rice due to the poisonious silica powder being mixed in it, I am going to open those 9 remaining buckets of wheat from 1998 and carefully re-package them for long term storage without the coffee filter rigging! Having a coffee filter disentegrate and contaminate an entire bucket of wheat (or anything else) in a SHTF scenario would be a nightmare.

Oh, and one last thing...as I am more than 10 years older now and my back is not as good as it used to be (nor my strength), I have found those 5 gallon buckets are a bit heavy and bulky for this old lady to work with. I can still do it, but certainly not with the ease I could 10 years ago!

Some years ago, my family grew up and out and I found myself living alone and not needing the maginitude of preps I had earlier. That combined with getting older and my back injury worsening over the years, led me to decide to go to 3 gallon buckets as I replenished my food storage. Today as I was moving everything around, I really noticed the difference between the 3 gallon and the 5 gallon buckets and was glad I had made the switch. They use the same gamma seal lids and they stack just as nicely as the 5 gallon, if not nicer since the heavy ones don't tend to get top heavy when stacked high. But mainly, they are just so much easier to handle without breaking my back! I moved that entire room around today and I am not even sore tonight. Wouldn't be able to move at all if all those buckets had been 5 gallons ones! Might just be something for older folks here to consider.

So that's it folks...just a few lessons I learned today as I went through and did my thing in my food storage pantry.... hope what I learned can benefit someone else.

Thank you for the information. TT

[Michiana MaJo]

I packed my rice, prior to Y2K in tightly sealed containers without anything else....no bay leaves, no O2 absorbers or anything. I figured as tightly sealed as they were, nothing was going to get into them.

I'm in the same boat as you, prepgirl44........getting old and those 5 gallon pails of grains are so heavy! Where do you find food grade 3 gallon pails, tho? I don't expect to pack up many more pails of grains, but just in case?

The tuna I got in '99 is still good as ever......really stocked up on it, back then, worried about Y2K. Glad I did, because I'll never buy anything from the ocean, again, because of the many contaminants from Fukishima, and they'll be around forever. (I went out and bought up a lot of tuna right after Fukishima, while it was still safe, but no more!)

Salmon is raised in fish farms, but not tuna.

Cake mixes do lose their leavening power.....not sure if you can add more baking powder to them, if they're getting old, or how much. Anyone try that?

Canned goods stay quite edible for a long time, tho the acid in tomatoes causes the cans to leak, after a few years. Home canned ones last many years....I use up the oldest jars, first, and they're still good after ten years! (They're kept in the basement, where it's cool and dark.)

Candy with nuts gets nasty, if kept too long.....I didn't date the package, but some M&M's with peanuts were so yukky that I had to spit them out. I think they were only a couple of years old. You could pack them into freezer bags and store them in the frig, where they stay cool. Freezing not necessary. (I store apples in my basement frig, so before using freezer bags to store the candy, it picked up a little of the apple flavor.)

[Josie]

Walmart had those solar powered landscaping lights on clearance a bit ago. I picked a few extra up. I figure that they might come in handy when the power is off for general lighting. Just place them in sunlight and they are usually good for about eight hours fully charged. I have no idea of how long they will last but I figure that for $1.50, what do I have to lose?

[coloradohermit]

I'm in the same boat as you, prepgirl44........getting old and those 5 gallon pails of grains are so heavy! Where do you find food grade 3 gallon pails, tho? I don't expect to pack up many more pails of grains, but just in case?

Same here and I'd like to know where the 3 gallon buckets can be found. I've done 2 things to make the weight manageable for me. Early last year I read a really good thread somewhere about storing dry goods in new/unused empty 1 gallon paint cans, lined with baggies, and I put up a bunch of stuff that way. The wheat I got this spring, I did use 5 gallon buckets, but divided the wheat into gallon baggies(holds 12 cups) with O2 absorbers in the baggies inside the buckets. Got to be thinking about keeping life manageable as we age.

[TECH32]

Same here and I'd like to know where the 3 gallon buckets can be found.

Home Depot sells 3 gal buckets right next to the 5's.

[coloradohermit]

Thanks!

[prepgirl44]

I have gotten my food grade 3 gallon buckets at True Value Hardware, Home Depot, and Walmart.

Home Depot is slightly cheaper than True Value IIRC, but True Value had the gamma seal lids I wanted for cheaper than I could get them on the internet (with shipping) and I have a True Value in my home town, where I have to travel to go to Home Depot or Walmart.

The ones I got at Walmart I purchased a few years ago before their big remodel/change the store around/make wide aisles and carry less routine so don't really know if they still carry them.

[thompson]

Canned cooked beans from 1998 are fine too. They tend to absorb a lot of the water in the can but are just fine even though some brands get a metalic taste.

Made a big pot of chili today with beans from 1999 and it is very tasty. No appreciable change in the taste or texture of the beans. These are some that got hidden behind something else and were forgotten. Aldi brand!

[Double_A]

Nuts & Seeds that have a high oil content will not keep well as the oils & fats go rancid.

Shelled, roasted & salted Sunflower seeds that I stored when bad after 6 months.. All the chocolate I bought to store is just chocolate, no nuts or almonds

[antlers]

Thanks all - for info -- good to hear about the rice and MREs.

[Garryowen]

My experience has been the same. Almost all the stuff we stored has remained usable and fairly tasty far beyond its "date." There are a couple of products that didn't store as well as expected. Peanut butter has gotten somewhat rancid after a few years. Not every brand has degraded, but I noticed some do not smell quite normal. I usually toss those. So I lose a couple bucks. It was cheap insurance.

We also bought some "multi-grain" soda crackers, which had a rancid flavor. The regular saltines seem to hold up okay of the package is intact, so I'd avoid the multi-grain ones for storage.

Even the popcorn, which we simply divided up into freezer bags and tried to squeeze out as much air as possible, and packed into three gallon tins and sealed with tape, has turned out just fine after twelve years. My advice to anyone starting out is to go ahead and buy "outdated" cans on sale, just don't take damaged ones.

regards,

Garryowen

[Deena in GA]

Love these kind of threads! We can learn so much from each other.

Someone asked about old cake mixes. We have those regularly and usually simply adding an extra egg is all that is needed. I did find that when it's three years or more out of date, it wouldn't rise though.

I opened a box of brown sugar today that we bought in Dec. '07 and it was fine. That was interesting to me because back in '98 I bought a 50 lb bag of brown sugar and repackaged it in zip lock gallon bags. That worked for about three years, iirc, but then the brown sugar started stinking. And I do mean stinking! So I'm wondering if it was the zip lock bags that did it or something with the brown sugar itself. It got to where I could not stand to have it anymore, just because of the smell.

Nuts will keep in the freezer. We are eating pecans that were shelled and packaged in '97.

[Dex]

I've found that beans will become pretty hard after a few years. They have to soak for a very long time before cooking but my storage methods weren't as thorough. I'm not sure how anyone can say that tuna is still good. After about 2 years a can of tuna is going to taste VERY metallic, at least thats been my experience. It doesn't even take that long really. Maybe some brands are better than others, maybe tuna in oil is better than water...I don't know but I do know that just the tuna I keep in my regular pantry doesn't take long to get metalliic and fishy tasting.

Jerky packs, if it doesn't get moldy will get very tough but still edible usually. I think I've used up or had to throw out most of my y2k preps. I had some packs of pink salmon that were edible but produced pretty bad indigestion, I'm going to try another one just to make sure and might have to throw those out, maybe I'll try cooking some and see how that goes.

I pretty much have to take stock again because my wife said she noticed some weevils flying around in the basement so I have to figure out where they are coming from. I always freeze my flour before storage but I suppose that might be the culprit still.

I've eaten MRE's that were over 20 years old so I'm not worried about those preps but it's definitely a good idea to inspect our stock every few months at the very least.

[biere]

Batteries are something I am working on. If stored in a refrigerator, you can google storage life temp for batteries, they will last longer. With today's bulk battery packs I pack em down into smaller groups, say 4 to 6 per group, so if one leaks it takes out just a few other batteries rather than ruin a big bulk pack.

For the most part I am done with alkaline. I buy some on serious discount now and then for giving to others or for when a group is coming to visit and I expect to need fresh batteries for toys and the batteries will probably go home with the people coming out.

I buy lithium batteries and they have a very honest and solid 10 year shelf life. I have a lot of the aa energizer lithium batteries and when sams or someone gets the aaa in bulk packs at a reasonable price I will buy some of those as well.

Most of my stuff is heading towards rechargable though. As mentioned the little solar lights are an option for charging but you need to make sure that is the type battery the light uses. A lot of the lights have a "cell" that is just two aa batteries wrapped together. But make sure before buying them.

My understanding on diatomaceous earth, and I have some food grade around the perimeter of my living room right now, is that it works on anything with a hard shell. It cuts up the shell and dehydrates the animal. My neighbot gave me some and I have used it around the house once I got tired of trying the ant baits that are borax/water/sugar in a mix. The ants never stopped showing up. They might stop for a bit but came back. To some extent I had multiple nests in the yard so I may have killed a nest but another one showed up. With the DE I have not had issues, nothing crosses it and makes it far.

I appreciate the post. I have been eating some old stuff stored in a soso manner but lately I have been storing my stuff for longer term. I have a lot of canning jars I wanted to keep around but I don't have a garden this year so I just filled em with rice or beans or other stuff and vacumn sealed them shut. Bought the attachment for a foodsaver vacumn packing machine to suck down the normal canning lid, no ring needed.

I am getting ready to fill some 55 gallon drums up, metal drums, and will be using 3 or 5 gallon size bags most likely and while I won't have 55 gallons of food in the drum I plan to use mylar and oxygen absorbers and the metal will keep everything out of it.

This winter I kind of expect mice to go nuts and I want stuff in metal or glass.

We have barn cats, neighbor does but they patrol my yard as well.

With food getting scarce for some folks the vermin will be running.

[blueridge]

The 24 packs of 'AA' cells still work - in fact they're much HIGHER amps than ones bought recently.
These were the least expensive packs found at Kmart, etc. They were kept in an non-temp. controlled storage unit in TUCSON for more than 3 years. Unbelievable.

12 yr. old whole wheat berries in sealed #10 cans are still tasty and usually sprout...same for the TVP stuff.

Everything else was used up long ago.

[Ben Sunday]

Great observations prepgirl44, thanks for sharing!

I've been checking our Y2K preps and have noticed a couple of things,

- 50% of the chemical light sticks went dead after 5 years and now all are dead. I won't buy them again but the new miniature LED lights are a huge improvement.

- 12 year old MRE's (stored in a cool basement) taste just fine and the G.I. chemical heaters still work great.

- The rectangular G.I. hexamine fuel bars work just fine. Even the small round ones from post WWII still burn OK.

This goes along with my experiences as well. Always a good idea to inspect the stash periodically. Don't be afraid to make changes if necessary.

Thanks for posting Red Baron.

[Great Northwet]

Love these kind of threads! We can learn so much from each other.

Someone asked about old cake mixes. We have those regularly and usually simply adding an extra egg is all that is needed. I did find that when it's three years or more out of date, it wouldn't rise though.

I opened a box of brown sugar today that we bought in Dec. '07 and it was fine. That was interesting to me because back in '98 I bought a 50 lb bag of brown sugar and repackaged it in zip lock gallon bags. That worked for about three years, iirc, but then the brown sugar started stinking. And I do mean stinking! So I'm wondering if it was the zip lock bags that did it or something with the brown sugar itself. It got to where I could not stand to have it anymore, just because of the smell.

Nuts will keep in the freezer. We are eating pecans that were shelled and packaged in '97.

I like these threads too! And thanks to the OP for starting it.

I also do a semi-annual check and restock, which I am in the process of right now. I just dumped all condensed milk(canned) because of seapage. Next to go were the mushrooms, and green chilies(also canned). I have a 20lb. box of Basmati rice which I bought in '08 that I just sealed in clear packing tape, that I need to check tomorrow.
Also making Minestrone soup tomorrow-all from preps-and all at least 3 yrs. past exp. dates, I'll post if something is wrong with any of it.

I find it interesting that we all use stuff beyond a scheduled shelf life and don't think anything of it, yet if I took the same things to a local foodbank, they would just throw them out. It must be a liability issue.

[Michiana MaJo]

Thanks for the info on where to get 3 gallon pails! One source I use for things that don't need gamma lids is the used plastic ice cream containers from Kilwin's ice cream store, if you have one in your area. They will either give or sell them for only cents. (I usually buy a treat, so I don't feel guilty about getting such nice containers for free.) They are perfect for storing my rice, white sugar, flour, bird seed, dog food, etc. I sometimes set bags of beans and pasta in them, too.

Cheese crackers do not keep for a long time.....I've left some boxes in the basement for years, and when I checked them, last year, they were awful. Graham crackers seem to hold up very well, tho....even the ones dated prior to Y2K are fine!

My old cans of tuna were mostly packed in oil...I think oil packed tuna holds up, better. But, I never noticed any off taste in either kind...water based or oil.

Do any of you find oxygen absorbers in local stores, or do they always have to be ordered online?

I agree...threads like this are so educational!

[Deena in GA]

We regularly eat tuna that is from 2 to 4 years old and have never noticed an odd taste or smell. It is all packed in water. Pre-y2k I called Star-Kist and asked about the shelf life of tuna and they told me it's 7 years.

I've never found oxygen absorbers in a local store, but buy mine from friends who are Mormon and who go to their storehouse to buy them. They are now $10 for 100.

[Mother Love]

Goodness, I am learning so much!

[prepgirl44]

As for tuna, I was able to keep canned tuna (packed in water, not oil due to fear of rancidity) for about 8 years before it became mushy. It was not spoiled after 8 years, it was just that the meat lost its firmness after that long. It also didn't taste "fresh" like tuna just purchased at the store and then brought home and opened.

As for oxygen absorbers, when looking for bags for my 55 gallon water drums, I discovered that the Mormon bookstore in the town near me sells oxygen absorbers, but I also discovered they are not as cheap there as I can get them online.

[RCSAR]

If you have cooking oil go rancid on you do not toss it.
Works fine in oil lamps.

[Topusaret]

I have gotten all of my oxygen absorber and mylar supplies here:

http://www.sorbentsystems.com/order_O2.html

I highly recommend them.

[Sasquatch]

Same here and I'd like to know where the 3 gallon buckets can be found. I've done 2 things to make the weight manageable for me. Early last year I read a really good thread somewhere about storing dry goods in new/unused empty 1 gallon paint cans, lined with baggies, and I put up a bunch of stuff that way. The wheat I got this spring, I did use 5 gallon buckets, but divided the wheat into gallon baggies(holds 12 cups) with O2 absorbers in the baggies inside the buckets. Got to be thinking about keeping life manageable as we age.

I've been getting food grade buckets from Wal Mart for years, free for the asking. I go to the bakery and ask if they have any that are empty. Sometimes they are clean, but most still have frosting that needs to be cleaned. Make sure the rubber o-ring is still in them if using for food storage, the ones that are missing I use to haul feed to the animals, or hold water.

Some WM have started charging for the buckets ($1), others still give them away. The rice and beans were still good after 4 years with no absorbers, just D-Earth.