The problem with canned goods

Discussion in 'Food Storage - Canning/Freezing/Butchering/Prep' started by OursIsTheFury, Jun 8, 2016.

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  1. poltiregist

    poltiregist Legendary Survivalist
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    Stored food in any form frozen , dried , metal cans , glass jars it will last only until it spoils or runs out . This will work for a short term prepper . But a long long term prepper needs to think beyond stored food . Sadly when prepping to the long term or might could be classified as " extreme prepping " I find most people simply look at their neighbors resources as being their fallback plan . Why they would think the neighbor with the abundant resources would suddenly be gone and their stuff will be free for the taking is beyond me . At that point the person depending on stored food will likely either die or become a looter . The extreme prepper will likely not be a looter but will be on the other side of the barrier shooting looters . --- Think you will grab those seeds , shovel and hoe and grow enough food to feed a family for a year . Not likely unless you are sitting on some delta like dirt . I can say this because I have already been down that path and I had the advantage of living with a " real survivalist " and we had a horse to pull our plow . We canned a lot but our main resource was potatoes . We could store potatoes for months . But farming alone especially without a horse and plow would be bleak . The real key is livestock .
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2020
  2. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
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    prepping starts with storing cans, "eat what you store, store what you eat" has always been my motto, don't store something you don't normally eat just because it is on offer or cheap, chances are it will never get eaten and will sit at the back of the shelf gathering dust.
     
  3. Skanderbeu

    Skanderbeu Member
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    Best post I've seen so far. Thank you for giving me the confidence to secure a solid plan for me and my family.
    I do have another question. As far as packaging is concerned. Can you share the methods, storage supplies that you use?
     
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  4. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
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    We eat a lot of beans and rice. Yes, I can easily envision eating them every day but not 3 times a day because I don't eat three times a day. The reason to store beans and rice is simple. There is nothing else that I know of that offers you anything close to the cost per calorie and calorie per cubic foot of space with the kind of shelf life that beans and rice have.

    Try and understand, this food is for SURVIVAL. People throughout most of history didn't have three banquet style meals a day every day. Many survived for years on things like mush, gruel, and pot luck soup made from whatever they could find. People in China use rice as a primary meal source. You take a pot of rice throw in one egg and a few vegetables and a piece of meat the size of a golf ball that you dice finely and can feed a half dozen people.

    Most of the regular food that you cook now require a full kitchen. How much good are your microwave meals when the power is off? How do you cook a pizza over a campfire? Most simple meals are cooked in one of two ways. You put in a pot with water and boil it or you grill it on an open fire. What having rice and beans does for you is gives you a high caloric and high protean base on which you can add things and use as a basic meal plan. How would you divide up an egg with 5 people? A squirrel is not a meal for three if that is all you have but it can go into a soup or be used to make dirty rice a much better meal.

    If you go into prepping trying to prepare yourself to be able to live with little reduction in the lifestyle that you are used to you will fail unless you have a LOT of money and can build an entire self-sustained and powered redoubt. As far as food to survive with you want lots of it, it needs to have a long shelf life and it heeds to be something that you can cook on a wood fire. If you have the money you can buy the packaged dehydrated meals but a year's supply for a family of four is going to be a massive investment and require a lot of storage space. On a low average, a commercial years supply of ready-made just add water survival dehydrated food supply for 4 people for one year will cost over 20 thousand dollars and will weigh around 1 ton. That is based on buying in bulk ina single purchase. Double or triple that price if you buy it in smaller grouping like the three days kits.

    I can do the same thing for a thousand dollars with beans, rice canned meats and spices. Most people can afford a thousand dollars but not 20 thousand. Sometimes survival means doing what is best and not what is the most fun.
     
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  5. Caribou

    Caribou Master Survivalist
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    Let me start by saying that your question has several correct, and good, answers, each of which could fill a book. By necessity an answer in a post needs to be short. Let me make one minor correction to the above post. When you put oxygen (O2) absorbers in a container you are left with the inert gas nitrogen. Room air is 78% nitrogen, 21% O2, 1% other.

    Dry Canning-

    Is suitable for items like rice, dry bean, pasta, etc. The goal is to protect your food from rot, bugs, and rodents. All your dry food has bug eggs when you buy it. To kill any bugs and prevent eggs from hatching freezing for several days works. Decreasing O2 to 3%, this is how O2 absorbers work. Also you can increase CO2 to 3%. I'll discuss the last and leave other methods to others.

    You will need a 5 gallon pail (or other size), a lid with a gasket, mylar bag of appropriate size, and dry ice or CO2 cylinder for the following.

    Open and place you mylar bag inside you plastic bucket, pour 3" to 4" of product in the bag, place in a small chunk of dry ice, fill bag with product, seal most of the mylar bag leaving a hole at top for the gasses to escape. Don't overfill your bag, remember that you need to fold the bag down and close the lid. The next day, or several hours later, when the dry ice has totally sublimated, fold the bag flat and finish sealing.

    The mylar protects the food and the bucket is there to protect the bag. Mylar is easily punctured if moved around and is no barrier to rodents. If you don't leave an escape hole as the dry ice sublimates it will form a balloon and eventually pop. CO2 is heavier than air. The room air will be lifted out the top leaving almost pure CO2 in your bag with the product.

    Your plastic buckets are porous and will allow O2 to pass through slowly. The mylar is a barrier to O2 and other gasses. Combined with your cool, dry, dark place you're creating a system.

    Some people want food grade plastic buckets. That's a good idea but I am less concerned when combining with mylar as it is an adequate barrier to protect the food. Other systems will do well with glass or #10 cans. I have tried multiple systems. My current preference tends to be determined by whatever is available and my mood. As I said, there are several good answers.
     
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  6. Caribou

    Caribou Master Survivalist
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    Let me expand on TexDanM's excellent post. Nobody is suggesting that you only buy beans and rice just that, that is a good place to start. Eating beans and any grain, like rice, in the same meal, provides a complete protein. A bowl of beans and some corn(bread) for example. A soup with beans and barley, or corn, or dumplings made from wheat flour.

    Start with your beans and rice and then expand to create the meals that you want. I suggest a balanced prepping style. In other words don't just buy a years worth of any one item then buy a years worth of another. Work up from your one month supply then a three month supply, then six and a year. During that time you will stumble on sales that may make it worthwhile to buy a years worth of something so just let this be a guide.
     
  7. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
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    Another dirt cheap survival food is 50-pound bags of dry field corn. Buy a grain mill and you can grind it and do all sorts of things with that. If you make some lye with oak ashes you can boil the corn in a pot and the husk will come off. Rince it two or three times and it will swell up and you have hominy. You can eat it as is or dry it grind it and have hominy grits. Where I live in the fall they sell 50-pound sacks of corn at convenience stores. Another cheap and nutritious thing that is also cheap is sweet feed for horses. It is basically oats, ground grains, and some molasses. Cook it with water and whatever else you have and it is basically a high-calorie mush.

    I have done all of the above and it is all good if you cook it right. When I was a kid we made and canned hominy every year. I've had horses off and on for most of my life and sweet feed really is sweet and the good stuff is 13% to 16% protein.

    Another hi-calorie fairly inexpensive thing that most people don't think of is canned lard. It lasts well (2 or 3 years.) and offers you the fat that is so hard to find in nature.

    I am easy to feed. I will and have eaten almost anything. I have nearly 300 pounds of hi-protean dry dog food right now. We have a bunch of dogs but if times get hard it tastes fine and I will have no problem with eating it. Those that SURVIVE will be the ones that eat what is offered to them. One of my daughters is a VERY picky eater she will either change or die. Her idea of survival food is frozen cheap pizzas. All she will eat is cheese and pepperoni so she bought about 20 or 25 of them when this crap first happened. ????
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
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  8. Dalewick

    Dalewick Legendary Survivalist
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    I like the corn & grinder option. With a little fat and grind the corn to masa, we are talking tortillas. OHHHHHH YESSSSSS!!!!! I've also been checking on a type of wheat that is a heritage variety that produces way better than normal wheat as it has multiple stems and produces grain on all of them. Having trouble finding seed in the USA. Also have 200 lbs of white rice put back.

    Dale
     
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    1. TMT Tactical
      Please keep us updated on your wheat search, it sound interesting.
       
      TMT Tactical, Jul 2, 2020
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  9. Pragmatist

    Pragmatist Master Survivalist
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    Good morning TexDanm,

    I like molasses as a separate inventory item. It's a good "change of pace".

    Place me in daughter's camp. Frozen cheap pizza - no processed meats - is a basic around here.

    The mentioned dog food reminds me of a favorite song of mine: "I believe in love - Alpho - without your love ......"

    ......

    and get some transportable/portable small containers for small quantities for the grits, etc in preparation for a GOOD evacuation - just in case. Nothing will be wasted.
     
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  10. poltiregist

    poltiregist Legendary Survivalist
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    TexDanm and I are on the same page with the grain grinder . Mine is hooked up to my kitchen table right now , cleaned oiled and ready to go in case S.H.T.F. " 50 lb. bags of dried field corn stacked up in my hallway awaiting the apocalypse . As I posted on another thread this is cheap insurance - A fifty pound bag of corn at the feed store costs about 7 dollars and when boiled will swell up about 5 times its original size " estimated " So factoring in the swelling and buying 4 fifty pound bags of corn you have about one thousand pounds of food to sit on the table for around 30 dollars . A manual operated grinder is likely all you will need unless you plan to feed over fifty people . Grinders sell on Amazon for around $40.00 . Don't buy one that has to be shipped in from a foreign country because it may never arrive with the fractured supply chain . --- I like butter and salt for seasoning on my ground corn . For me I can make butter from my goat milk and have a good supply of salt . --- Try buying one thousand pounds of canned goods at the store and see what it will cost you .
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2020
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  11. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
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    I bought salt from a pool place in 50-pound sacks. It is just mineral rock salt and while coarse it can be crushed and made into a fine-grained salt. I like to have several hundred pounds of it because it can also be used for salt curing and storing meats.
     
    1. Dalewick
      I think I paid $6.00 for 50 pound sacks at Rural King for white salt back in the animal feed section. I've used it for hides and some fish. Works as well as Mortens. I also get sacks of mineral salts that I put out now through the fall for deer and bear.
       
      Dalewick, Jul 3, 2020
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  12. Old Geezer

    Old Geezer Legendary Survivalist
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    One problem with storage foods and liquids is that we often have them in glass containers. Plastic alters the taste of foods over time. I've got lots of food in glass jars. If you store high-proof liquor as an antiseptic, for imbibing, for barter, or for whatever, you don't want those bottles breaking -- high proof is also a fire hazard if its container breaks.

    So I was thinking about this and looked-up packaging info. I'm gonna pass-on a couple of links I found. Wadding up paper doesn't cut it. Stuffing clean but worn-out rags can work.

    One thing not to forget is to also impact-proof the bottom of container crates and also the tops.

    Single Face Corrugated Cardboard Rolls

    https://www.packagingprice.com/6-x-..._source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=**LP - Shop - Cushioning > Paper %26 Void Fill&utm_term=4581733680617081&utm_content=CRCSF06 | 6" x 250' Single Face Corrugated Cardboard Roll | %246.12

    Bubble wrap

    https://www.homedepot.com/b/Storage-Organization-Moving-Supplies-Packing-Supplies-Bubble-Wrap/N-5yc1vZchnd?NCNI-5&searchRedirect=bubble%20wrap&semanticToken=d00r20r01122000000_202109052055154480513005099_us-east4-vzwq d00r20r01122000000 > rid:{756ec90ab3164432eef1545b0a2df16d}:rid st:{bubble wrap}:st ct:{bubble wrap}:ct tgr:{No stage info} qu:{bubble wrap}:qu


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    =============================

    Shelf life of cooking oils; note that extra virgin olive oil lasts the longest (IF you keep it in dark jars/bottles and out of direct light):

    https://www.eatbydate.com/other/condiments/how-long-does-oil-last/

    upload_2021-9-5_17-4-24.png

     
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  13. Max rigger

    Max rigger Master Survivalist
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    Post collapse fats like pork lard would take over from oil I'd guess. I've noticed in Spain that you can still easily find olive/EVOO in gallon tins, 3 or 4 litre cans, perhaps they last a bit longer unopened.
     
  14. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
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    beef dripping-lovely on a slice of toast!
    I'm sure canned olive oil is available in places that have Asian Shops for instance.
     
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  15. Max rigger

    Max rigger Master Survivalist
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    Dripping, salt, pepper, toast :)

    Ghee is easy to get in cans, the butter based and vegetable ghee and that lasts years.
     
  16. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
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    shouldnt be a problem in certain parts of the country.
     
  17. Max rigger

    Max rigger Master Survivalist
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    I got some tins of butter ghee when I was into Bushcraft and opened a can last year which was IIRC three years past its UBD and it was fine, not sure about the vegetable ghee though don't have old stock to open up. The last few months I've opened up some foods years past UBD I had left over in a Wannigan box, the evaporated milk, tinned potatoes and an open box of tea bags were bad, sweetened condensed milk was fine, as was corned beef, tuna in oil, 'Mug Shot' pasta, Mac cheese, marmalade, hot dogs, spam and other stuff I can't remember now but there was more. I've got a rat pack pack of 'Biscuits Fruit' dated 2002 so I'll give them a try soon.
     
  18. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
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    watch out for anything packed in oil as the oil can go rancid.
     
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  19. Max rigger

    Max rigger Master Survivalist
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    One of the members off BushcraftUK preserved garlic in olive oil and got very sick, turns out unless you do it right you can end up with botulism!!!
     
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  20. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
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    many of the web sites actually state that Garlic in oil is one of the things to be wary of when it comes to botulism.
     
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  21. Max rigger

    Max rigger Master Survivalist
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    I love garlic and will be planting around mid October to crop next year.
     
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