Eating Your Long Term Stores

I have read a lot lately of the items one should store, because they will last a long time… The myriad gurus all mention the same items pretty much .

How many of them ever really stored any foods for an extended length of time , like ten, or twenty years? I have.

I have been at this for a very long time, so I have a bone to pick here. And, the items I’m going to mention have all been stored the proper way.

Lets take pastas for a start. They do not store well, no matter how careful you are with the preps They get very hard and will not cook into the softness you need to eat them, unless you like a crunchy chewy pasta that is really not edible. A few times over this last 6 months I broke out some pastas that have been stored for ten years. We tried everything to cook them… not happening. So, I turned to some that were prepared by a so called survival foods storage outfit, a well known one that shall remain nameless. Same results… much beyond a few years, they get so hard as to be no good for a meal. Soak them for a few days nope. Cook them for hours, nope.

Another item is beans. Same as pastas. After a few years, they get hard as rocks. Soak them for days nada zip. The only ones that held up were lentils. I don’t know why though..

If you were counting on these items you would be SOL for sure. Another item is milk. About 4 to 5 years is the max. Nothing is worse than bad milk, if you were counting on it.

White flour will not last a long while, maybe a few years at best, Whole wheat flours do not make it much past a year. That’s why you store the grains and grind them your own self as you need them… Grains will last a very long time. I just ground some hard red winter wheat that has been in storage for 12 years and it is fine.

Powdered eggs are also tricky to store over the long haul.

Seems to me that one should be able to know the date of when the items were packed, if buying from a commercial company. Of course if the shtf, where would you turn to for a replacement food item?Answer, no where.

It could be an extremely down side for one to find that what you thought would help save your family, you simply cannot eat.

Spices do not store all that well either, they seem to lose any taste and just are zip.

I found the food stuffs I prepared held up just as well as the commercial brands have, so I have been doing something right.

Also as far as the commercial outfits go, some are most likely way better than others, but I really suspect many of them get a lot of the same foods from the same place already prepared from a company that is the real “maker” and all they do is slap a label on the cans.

Canned food will last a long time as well, some for many years. Always mark the cans by date and it does pay to rotate. Look for sales on the items you like and buy then. You can save a lot of bucks.

Be careful don’t let your storage get hot or freeze, keep it in the dark. Make sure no critter, like rats or mice can compromise what you have. Do not store it all in the same place try and scatter it around your home if possible. Be sure to store some dog food.

Okay this is short and sweet, so good luck on your storage plans. Be aware of the pitfalls.Stock up it always pays.Even if you lost your income you will eat.

This is my own unique experience.. yours may be different

By Dude McLean

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