We are starting to use some of our non-perishable preps, just to keep them in the food rotation. The white rice will keep for a long time, but I've had old dried beans that wouldn't cook up, so I'm focusing on those.
Kathleen
I am successfully cooking up a 14 year old stash of dried red beans one pot at a time right now, with no problems whatsoever. (We are from New Orleans, so we have red beans and rice every Monday, as per tradition.)
No need to pre-soak - I just put them in the crock pot before I go to bed Sunday night, and let them cook all night and the next morning.
You CAN SAFELY cook dry beans in a crock pot - you just have to know HOW to do it.
If you could not,I would be dead now, and so would at least half of New Orleans, as that is the way most restaurants in the city cook them.
To do it SAFELY, you must cook the beans on the HIGH setting for at least 10 hours.
The beans will boil in the later hours, but it is a gentle, well controlled boil. Not a messy, bubbling all over boil.
Some of my older beans, though, I cook on HIGH for 12 or even 14 hours. But I have never had a bean too old to cook and eat, doing this.