Food storage list

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I just pretty much have a small storage area with maybe 10 pounds of dry beans and 20 cans of beans/chili/tomatoes. I plan on getting out of town so I try not to have too much.

I was reading in a food storage book that dried beans/rice is only good for 25 years and if ground 1 year.

I don't worry about nutrition but if grains are kept dry are they absolutley safe to eat after 25 years?

Everything else y'all talked about is what the book said as far as shelf life but want to see about the 25 year rule.
 
The way I started out when I decided to build up a serious food stockpile was to just start buying extra of everything with a shelf life of at least a year during my normal shopping trips.

This allowed us to slowly build up a idea of what we actually eat, and how much. When we ran out of something, we would make a note to get twice as much of that the nest time we went shopping.

It took about a year to fill up the storehouse but its filled up with stuff we actually eat, in more or less balanced quantities.

Balance is important if you want variety. Ideally you run out the stuff to make spaghetti, at the same time you run out of noodles. You run out of mayonaise at the same time you run out of tuna fish....you get the idea.

The thing you want to avoid is ending up being left with 500 servings of spaghetti noodles with nothing to put on them.

BadgerLandHunter said:
I just pretty much have a small storage area with maybe 10 pounds of dry beans and 20 cans of beans/chili/tomatoes. I plan on getting out of town so I try not to have too much.

I was reading in a food storage book that dried beans/rice is only good for 25 years and if ground 1 year.

I don't worry about nutrition but if grains are kept dry are they absolutley safe to eat after 25 years?

Everything else y'all talked about is what the book said as far as shelf life but want to see about the 25 year rule.
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Unless spoiled, they stay safe forever. The shelf life estimates are based on how long they stay GOOD to eat. You can eat canned food safely after 100 years if the can hasn't rusted, but it will have lost most of its nutritional value.

Probably packed old grain will be perfectly safe, but it will be little more than starch with little to no vitamins in it and the texture and flavor will be degraded.
 
Amish Heart said:
You won't know unless you store them for 25 years and try them. Most important in shelf life is how things are stored. Things can go bad in a year if stored improperly.
I hope you have more food stored where you are going, Badgerlandhunter. That's not much at all.
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Yeah......not too much.

The friend who I plan on going is more about location and resources than a great prepare. The friends wife doesn't believe it it much so in turn my friend doesn't have a lot of excess and me storing extra there would cause his wife to complain. She wears the pants more or less. The friend sort of believes in the possibility so is OK will me being over there when it happens but not enough to spend precious money on extra supplies.

I hope it never happens and somewhat think it won't but still try to prepare as I go. (Half a** is better than no a**)

Deep down though I believe it's a real threat but being in my crappy housing situation can't do a whole lot.

Long story long. They have some extra I have a bare minimum in survival case but one day when I get my crap together and get a home will do much much more.

My family thinks I'm paranoid or crazy if I try to talk about it or just smile and agree so not much help from them. So having a friend who will let me crash there and sorta is ready is better than nothing. My one family member is totally in denial about most things on this forum and will probably be in Heaven much faster than I by not wanting to see the evil ahead.
 
Aerindel said:
The way I started out when I decided to build up a serious food stockpile was to just start buying extra of everything with a shelf life of at least a year during my normal shopping trips.

This allowed us to slowly build up a idea of what we actually eat, and how much. When we ran out of something, we would make a note to get twice as much of that the nest time we went shopping.

It took about a year to fill up the storehouse but its filled up with stuff we actually eat, in more or less balanced quantities.

Balance is important if you want variety. Ideally you run out the stuff to make spaghetti, at the same time you run out of noodles. You run out of mayonaise at the same time you run out of tuna fish....you get the idea.

The thing you want to avoid is ending up being left with 500 servings of spaghetti noodles with nothing to put on them.



Unless spoiled, they stay safe forever. The shelf life estimates are based on how long they stay GOOD to eat. You can eat canned food safely after 100 years if the can hasn't rusted, but it will have lost most of its nutritional value.

Probably packed old grain will be perfectly safe, but it will be little more than starch with little to no vitamins in it and the texture and flavor will be degraded.
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See and that's just it. If there is no mold or spoilage I consider it food. As long as it's just nutrition loss its acceptable if nothing else is around to eat. At least you feel full. Obviously not ideal but better than an empty stomach!

Exactly I love canned food since as long as it's not rusty with holes it's good to go. Weight is an issue for bugging out but for staying in I like it.
 
I'm not very organized about my food storage. If it's on sale and something we eat, I stock up as much I can. That's it. I've looked at the lists giving suggestions on how much of what you should keep on hand for X number of people but those are just suggestions. I don't like flat beans, not lima or kidney or butter because they just taste bland and starchy to me. So I don't waste time going by the list and buy pintos, white beans and black eyed peas because that's what we eat.

Since the Big Mess started, I have become more aggressive about shopping the meat sales and building up an even bigger supply of canned goods. With every grocery order I buy the maximum allowed of bottled water and tp. I keep an eye on my used by dates and almost everything I get has a date that's at least a year away. I follow the old "first in, first out" rule so consider it all to be short term - everything is just waiting it's place in line. 😊 The only real LTS I have are some #10 cans of basics that I bought years ago that have a 30 year shelf life. I've always liked the thought of having those cans put back in case things ever got really bad.

I need to do a complete inventory because that's where I'm lazy not organized. I found this page that has some basic forms - I don't do fancy computer work and Excel is not my friend - so in the next week I'm going to force myself to get it done.

Food Storage Inventory Spreadsheets You Can Download For Free - Prepared Housewives (prepared-housewives.com)
 
I don't keep a paper inventory, but can see the inventory. I shelf like a grocery store. One shelf would be canned corn. If it's not full then I need more. One shelf is canned ham. Same thing. Dry products are stored differently. Pasta is in bins. Flour is in bins. Baking mixes in half gallon glass jars, same with pancake mixes. I count the bins. Count the jars. I'm more of a visual person. I do need to organize my dehydrated food better by what it is. It's stored in #10 cans with lids in a gallon zip inside, labeled on the outside, but just put on shelves. I should put all my cans of mushrooms together, sliced tomatoes together, etc. I don't kick myself over it too much, I don't let anything get out of date before using it, and I know it won't kill us if it was out of date. We store what I cook with.
 
The can organizers are for soda, but fit most cans and they take care of rotating. I don't know where my wife got the small racks but they are great for small items or tortillas.
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Amish Heart said:
I don't keep a paper inventory, but can see the inventory. I shelf like a grocery store. One shelf would be canned corn. If it's not full then I need more. One shelf is canned ham. Same thing. Dry products are stored differently. Pasta is in bins. Flour is in bins. Baking mixes in half gallon glass jars, same with pancake mixes. I count the bins. Count the jars. I'm more of a visual person. I do need to organize my dehydrated food better by what it is. It's stored in #10 cans with lids in a gallon zip inside, labeled on the outside, but just put on shelves. I should put all my cans of mushrooms together, sliced tomatoes together, etc. I don't kick myself over it too much, I don't let anything get out of date before using it, and I know it won't kill us if it was out of date. We store what I cook with.
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We are exactly the same. We call our store house "The Store" and we organize it the same way, like a tiny grocery store with different departments.
 
Cascadian said:
The can organizers are for soda, but fit most cans and they take care of rotating. I don't know where my wife got the small racks but they are great for small items or tortillas.View attachment 56202View attachment 56203View attachment 56204
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This is how I’ve done our pantry also. Works very well. Ours have things like seasoning/sauce packets, jello and things that are smaller and light as they do seem to sag with any sort of weight in them. The ones I have aren’t as strong as those. Couldn’t find ones that sturdy when we redid the pantry.
 
Our food storage is divided into 3 groups:

The "working pantry", this storage in the kitchen that has 1 or two of everything we eat on a regular basis,

The "store" is downstaairs and it has about a year's supply of everything that in in the pantry plus, water storage and the freezers with frozen meats and vegetables

The "long term storage" a layer of 5 gallon buckets and ice chests under the store shelves with seal-a-mealed grains and beans all the 5 gallon buckets have Mylar liners.

Everything entering the house is dated with a sharpie and a running inventory is kept on a spreadsheet that I maintain. The wife is mobility impaired and cannot go to the "store", so she makes a list of what the pantry needs + anything special that will be used for the week's menu, I carry what she needs up and she puts it in the Pantry. This way she knows what she has to work with. It also give me a list to use when I am grocery shopping.

I make a monthly printout of the inventory spreadsheet that has what is in the food storage system, the dates that things went into the system, and the location of the item.

My storage shelf locations are labeled A-J with shelves labeled 1-5, 1 being on the floor, the freezer contents are identified by location (e.g. West Wall, bottom, right center bottom basket).

The inventory is sorted alphabetically, so if I have more than 1 thing the wife can see which is the oldest and she tells me which one she wants. This also allows her to cook the old cow before it shows its age.

Sorry, you needed a short answer and I gave you a book...
 
I'll have another 600 sq ft to work with in another month or two and am thinking about what that will be. Maybe moving the LTS to free up more room in the regular store, maybe moving bins. I am wanting to set up permanently the dehydrators and a work table, also the foodsaver and mylar supplies so I don't have to keep taking those things out and putting them away. They do look odd in a normal kitchen. It would be a good area to also shelf and organize the #10 cans of home dehydrated food. Still no lists. I'm just giving up on making a list because I know I won't get to it. Visual is easier.
 
30+ years ago when I was in college we had a small climate controlled storage unit, that was our long term storage, our store was kept in a couple of free standing wardrobe closets...

Things just grew as we aged....
 
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