Food in your pantry
This is the starting point for your food storage. Depending on your family size, having enough food to last you at least two weeks in your pantry is one of the most cost effective ways to have food stored. I came from a large family, so we had a large room where we stored many weeks worth of food. It worked great for the family because my mom rarely had to run to the grocery store in a hurry. She would use our storage room as her grocery store and then restock that when she went shopping. I strongly recommend having a well stocked pantry with food that you are eating and will eat.
Here are a couple things to keep in mind:
- Make sure you buy food that you’ll eat – I see people make the mistake of buying canned food at a case lot sale, but it is food they never want to eat. So even though the food was a great price, the food just sat in their pantry.
- Shelf life – This brings me to my next point of the shelf life of wet packed canned from you local grocery. The best rule of thumb is that your canned food will last at least 2 years. A lot of canned food will last much longer than that, maybe even up to 5 years. Foods that are high in acid content such as tomatoes and fruits will be closer to the 2 year range. If the canned food is past the expiration date, you should carefully inspect the food (the sniff test) and then make your best determination whether it is still safe to eat.
Once your pantry is stocked and you feel comfortable there, you need to consider more long term food storage products. These fall into three main categories:
1. Dry bulk food items
2. Dehydrated foods
Dry bulk food items
The items in this category include wheat, beans, rice, rolled oats, sugar and other staples. They are typically bulk packed in either cans or buckets. These items can be good to have around, but here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Preparation - It is difficult to turn these dry bulk food items items into something edible. If you are going to store food in this way, then you have to go all the way. You will need wheat grinders, lots of fuel (to cook these items into something edible) and additional ingredients to make the food usable. Just the fuel alone will be difficult to store and in the quantities you will need. So just remember, you have to go all in with this approach or you won’t be able to use it when you need it.
- Shelf life – Most of these items will store for a very long time. If stored properly, the wheat, beans, rice and oats will store for many, many years and probably many decades.
- Taste and Nutrition – These dry bulk storage foods typically will give you excellent nutrition. As for taste, that depends on what you can make out them. A pot of beans, doesn’t taste that great without some other ingredients added to it.
Dehydrated Food
This type of shelf stable food is processed using high heat. The high temperatures remove the moisture from the food which gives allows for the extended shelf life. The two things that really affect shelf life are moisture and oxygen. Here are few things to consider with dehydrated food:
- Shelf life – because of how the food is processed, the shelf life for most dehydrated items is 5-10 years. A few items might be a couple years longer and a few items might be a couple years shorter (such as dairy). So all that being said, dehydrated food is on the shorter end of the spectrum for long term shelf life.
- Taste and nutrition – again, because of how the food is processed using high heat, it actually damages the food and removes nutritional value as well as flavor. You will find with dehydrated food that it just won’t taste quite as good (sometimes it will taste awful!) and the food will look a little off.
- Preparation – most dehydrated food requires that you add and cook it. This requires fuel and a stove to be able to do so. It is easy to prepare, but it does take time. For example, dehydrated soup mixes will require cooking for up to 30 minutes. Over time that will use a lot of fuel.
Freeze-dried food
Freeze-dried food uses a unique process to make the food shelf stable. Rather than using high heat, it uses low heat in a vacuum chamber to slowly remove the moisture from the food. Because of how it is processed, the food retains nearly 100% of the natural nutrients, enzymes and taste. Freeze-dried food is my choice for long term food storage because it is the best in all three categories. Here are a few things to consider with freeze-dried food:
- Shelf life – freeze-dried food will give you the longest shelf life. You will get at least 25 years and more than likely much longer. I have heard of 40 year old freeze-dried food being tested and it has lost very little taste or nutritional value.
- Taste and Nutrition – This is another outstanding quality of freeze-dried food. It tastes like fresh food. The entrees, fruits and vegetables taste fresh and not processed. The flavor isn’t muted or dull. It will also retain the same texture, color and look of the fresh food. Because it is processed in low heat, the food retains 99% of all the fresh vitamins, nutrients and enzymes of the fresh food. This food tastes so good that I eat it regularly for my lunches and I know many other people that do the same.
- Preparation – again, another exceptional quality of freeze-dried food is how easy the preparation is. This food is designed for just add water simplicity. All you have to do is add hot water, stir and wait about 5 minutes and you have a meal. Because of that, your fuel costs are very low and you don’t have to spend valuable time in the preparation.
Remember with food storage that the most important thing is to start. But, I want to make sure you are spending your hard earned money on a product that you will use and will last.
No comments:
Post a Comment