FOOD Stock up advice

Bridey Rose

Veteran Member
Brown rice does not last long. White a good 20 yrs. I never stock brown rice. Might last 3 yrs max.
Learned my lesson when I had to toss about 8 boxes of instant brown rice I had stored in a closet. Was surprised how fast it went rancid. Now I buy only white rice for long-term storage.

Ghee (pronouned "hee") lasts a long time unrefrigerated without going rancid -- much longer than refrigerated stick butter. It's just "clarified" butter, or butter with the solids taken out, but it holds up pretty well.
 
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Tundra Gypsy

Veteran Member
I'd get those frozen veggies out of the freezer to provide more room for meat products. I dehydrate all my frozen veggies now, in a dehydrator; 14 hours at 125 degrees. Then, I vacuum seal them in one cup amounts and put in a plastic tub. I've been freezing carrots and peas packages to mix into rice. I've also been buying packets of fried rice seasonings for the rice as well; otherwise it will be boring.

If you don't have canned tomato sauce; you can always buy the packets of spaghetti seasonings. They will be disappearing in a hurry. I am vacuum sealing elbow macaroni in 2-cup amounts and including one of the spaghetti seasoning packets along with it. All I need is a can of tomato paste. The newest thing on Youtube is 'powdering' your dehydrated tomatoes. With a little water, you can make it thick like paste, or add more water and have a sauce.. I think it is a great way to use up all the excess tomatoes.

I just pressure canned some butter, that will last up to 5 years too!!!
 

Cyclonemom

Veteran Member
Can you tell me a little more about black garlic?



Welcome to a whole new world of flavor.
Introducing a simple food with a wonderfully complex flavor. Black garlic is sweet meets savory, a perfect mix of molasses-like richness and tangy garlic undertones. It has a tender, almost jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency similar to a soft dried fruit. Hard to believe, but true. It’s as delicious as it is unique.
Black Garlic

vs. Raw Garlic
Imagine garlic without all of the annoying stuff. Bad breath? Nope. Pungent odor? Nope. Acrid bite? No sir. You know how a great wine gets better with age? That’s what we’re dealing with here.
It’s Healthy
In Taoism mythology, black garlic was rumored to grant immortality. We can’t promise you that, but there’s no doubt that black garlic is great for your health—it’s loaded with nearly twice as many antioxidants as raw garlic. It also contains S-Allycysteine, which is fancy talk for a natural compound that has been proven to be a factor in cancer prevention.
 

fish hook

Deceased
And yet... I bought pop top cans of fruit (peaches, pears and fruit cocktail) at Aldi in 2014... we used the last cans in 2020... never had a failure.

I do suspect they wouldn't tolerate much rough handling or drops without compromising the seal. But I was surprisingly happy with them.

Summerthyme
I have had pineapple in pop top cans blow the lid completely off in the floor, just a couple of years old.
 

fish hook

Deceased
Consider oils, pbutter, Mayo, ghee, tallow, bacon grease, even crisco…Fats are hard to store but you do need them.

I don’t have hot weather issues so your storage may need a different plan than mine. I have space in the house but I also have a 40’ conex…..and other places. If you have a pressure canner, you could can up some meats, veg, meals. Or learn to dehydrate some of those frozen veg (in a dehydrator or in your oven) to store ahead.
I agree about the oils. Just a fyi solid Crisco will keep for a very long time. I talked to the company many years ago and they said it had an indefinite shelf life. Yeah i know it is not the healthiest stuff, but it fry's well . Oil is very important in your diet.
 

anna43

Veteran Member
If a pop top can is dropped, dented or otherwise knocked around it can break the seal My problem with them is my arthritic hands have a very difficult time opening them.

Part of any preps should be a wide variety of herbs and spices. The packaged mixes are okay but the individual bottles of spices and herbs seem to keep longer and better. There are recipes on the internet for making your own mixes. I have one box with pickling spices, canning salt, citric acid for tomatoes, citric acid for fruits and sure jell. One with cooking and another for baking. Then there are the flavorings vanilla, lemon, almond, coconut, butter and maple. You can make a good syrup from brown sugar, butter flavoring and maple flavoring. Save a commercial syrup bottle to store it in and fool your family. Liquid smoke, hot sauce, Worchester sauce, soy sauce and any others you use to enhance your beans and rice.

Food fatigue is very real so having a variety of meals is really necessary especially if the crisis is long term. Also, treats really help. Popcorn stores practically forever and can be made interesting with different flavorings or made into popcorn balls. Jello can also be used to make interesting desserts and treats. Puddings both instant and cooked from scratch are a good treat. Puddings can be made with flour, cornstarch or tapioca. I've used vanilla pudding and added various fruits to stretch the fruit. Cocoa from a mix or from scratch. When my kids were home we always had popcorn and apples or oranges on Sunday evenings along with soda. That was the only time we had soda. Koolaid in your storage could be substituted for soda.
 

Bps1691

Veteran Member
Bear in mind that you should stock canned products that would cover for being unable to get fresh food. What do you eat that’s fresh? Then stock up on those things in cans. Don’t count on frozen either. Three days without electricity and you want have any fresh/frozen food.
You can dehydrate frozen veggies. We do it several times a year when they go on sale. Dehydration then packed in the food sealer

having a freezer full of food in a real shtf is like Dennis said good for 3 days or less if you keep opening the door. Not a particularly good survival plan
 

Macgyver

Has No Life - Lives on TB
You can dehydrate frozen veggies. We do it several times a year when they go on sale. Dehydration then packed in the food sealer

having a freezer full of food in a real shtf is like Dennis said good for 3 days or less if you keep opening the door. Not a particularly good survival plan
Got power for much longer than that. I also have the resources to can the contents of the freezer if necessary.
 

jward

passin' thru
I would second the advise tundra gypsy gave you. The freezers' wasted with easily dehydrated items imo.
As far as canned goods, proteins are important, and though most any thing does well long after expiration date, the pineapple and tomato products are two exceptions.

As was discussed on many other threads, one of the easiest and quickest ways to be sure your storage will last as long as you wish, and has all the elements to eat as your house prefers, is to make an actual list of the 30 -/+ meals you all often eat, break them down to ingredients, and multiple the items x however many months you're aiming to have storage for
 

school marm

Senior Member
Powdered milk has a place in my cupboard.
There's so, so much you can do with powdered milk, besides making milk, of course.

Substitutes for evaporated, sweetened condensed, and buttermilk.
Magic Mix, which is then used for making puddings, cream of ______ soups, and Hamburger Helper type dishes.
SOS Mix, which is then used for all kinds of sauces and soups.
Yogurt
Peanut butter play dough
Survival bars

And a whole lot more. Oh, and you can even use coconut oil in place of the butter in Magic Mix to make it entirely shelf stable.
 

bassaholic

Veteran Member
I just put in a large order with Eden Foods. IMO, they have the best quality canned beans and bean/rice combos. Prices have went UP though. Luckily some crypto plays have made me some extra food money.

If times ever got tough, and there was no power for the frozen meats, or ran out of them, I can easily live off of and enjoy beans and rice spiced up. Sardines with rice is awesome too. Stocking up on canned sardines is my new thing. I think it's pretty healthy too.

My new fave for sardines is "King Oscar Wild Caught Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Hot Jalapeno Peppers". No BS ingredients. Walmart has them as does Amazon.
 

Txkstew

Veteran Member
Black pepper in bulk. Marco Polo trecked thousands of miles across mountains and desert to find a route to the Spice Islands. The spice he sought,was black pepper. Mid evil food was often nasty, and pepper made it taste not as nasty.
 

Marthanoir

TB Fanatic
During the Depression, a worker went to the homes of people who applied for aid. The family had to stand outside while the worker looked over, under, and through every possession, every room, and every outbuilding to make sure they didn't have so much as a can of peas.

The worker told me it was the most shameful job ever, but they had kids to feed too.

Same concept, you get it?

During the famine you had to convert from Catholic and anglicise your name, as you ate your thin soup you would receive Anglican sermons and diatribes against the Catholic faith and Irish nationalism.

The Quakers were the only ones to offer unrestricted relief and are still held in high regard.
 

etdeb

Veteran Member
So many things have converted from cans to pouches. I wonder what the shelf life of pouches would be? I guess since MRE's last it might be worth about the same.
 

Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
What do you non been eaters like to store?
Commercially canned chicken and fish - ham that doesn't require refrigeration, really hard to find. Pork and turkey I can. Beef? Too expensive. In our house it's a treat.

Kathy in fla turned me on to Nido (powdered milk) also condensed and evaporated canned milk.

Jello, powdered pudding and pie filling; quick instant desert. Flavored Jello I plan to use instead of Gatorade as a rehydration solution.

I am definingly into stodges: rice, potato flakes, pasta, oatmeal, corn meal, quinoa. stodges help fill in the empty places when there's not much else and right now they're mostly cheap.

Used to get the real Smithfield hams. The ones that come in a canvas sack and have a half inch a mold on them? Look like something that escaped from the Egyptian section of a museum? Don't have any now. In PA Shady Maple used to carry them. They stopped but might be able to order them?

A variety of spices. Whole spices will last longer than ground.

Brandied fruit: to start one cup brandy, one cup fruit, one cup sugar.
After that add one cup of sugar to one cup of fruit, no more brandy. If there is enough syrup to cover the fruit added then just add fruit.

What do you have against legumes? Dried peas or beans and a small canned ham and that's some good eating. Beans cooked slow in barbeque sauce and then add chopped up par cooked bacon? Traditional Navy bean soup on a cold day with some warm out of the oven crusty bread is hard to beat.

I make sure to add a bay leaf when cooking beans to help make them a little more digestible. Some Asian cultures use Kombu (kelp) the same way and for the same reason.

Fats: ghee - I make my own. Olive and coconut oil in largest containers at big box store. I don't mess with Crisco.

Tea, coffee and chocolate. Don't mess with the mare before coffee.
 
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db cooper

Resident Secret Squirrel
Store the flour in the freezer or it could turn.
I believe vacu-sealing is also an option which basically keeps out moisture and bugs.

An alternate source for electricity to keep the freezers going IMO is a must. I do not like gasoline powered generators, but it is the least expensive way to go provided you can store several gallons, maybe up to a hundred. That's why we went with a propane whole house. Wind or solar would also be better than nothing.
 

Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
Whole grains sound great in theory but don't last - they go rancid pretty fast unless you refrigerate or freeze them.
I just tossed a bag of brown rice I got at the beginning of the pandemic (while expecting exactly what we are facing now - supply chain disruption) . It smelled really ungood lol.
Dried pasta and white rice may outlast a lot of marriages. Yes I know its has all the nutrition of shredded cardboard. Its stodge. It fills the empty places. I've been staying away from the blocks of ramen soup because they've been going rancid before we can eat them.

People who feel full are less quarrelsome.
 
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psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I’m not a huge fan of beans but I do stock some canned black beans and chick peas, along with regular chili beans etc.

But what I DO love are lentils! They’re cheap, fast, easy to cook with, and inexpensive. I put the bags into large cookie tins (which are airtight )to store in our basement.

Along the same lines as lentils are bags of split peas for soup. Cheap, easy, and fast cooking. Both are very nutritious too. I use onions, bacon or bacon grease to season, chicken brith.
Ham is delicious too, of course.

My split pea soup is a requested dish from a co worker and her dad....He said it’s better than what HIS mother made -that’s very high praise!
 

night driver

ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
Black pepper in bulk. Marco Polo trecked thousands of miles across mountains and desert to find a route to the Spice Islands. The spice he sought,was black pepper. Mid evil food was often nasty, and pepper made it taste not as nasty.

Black pepper as pepper CORNS stores indefinitely. GROUND, not so much.
You can find a Black/white/red pepper mix of corns in some grinders as well as some bottles to refill grinders.
 

DennisD

Veteran Member
There's so, so much you can do with powdered milk, besides making milk, of course.
I don't drink milk usually. Primary uses are in baking bread and making gravy. Wife uses it as a coffee creamer.
Surprising how much we go through even with just those applications
 

Faroe

Un-spun
Lentils cook relatively quickly. I'll also second Helen, on canned soups. None of this stuff is particularly nutritious, but it will make all the other starches at least taste better.

No one ever mentions canned sardines. They are high in the good Omega fats (Omega 3?) and also have Vit D and calcium. Esp. important if you are feeding kids. I eat a can every morning with eggs. It is the only food that I both store and eat. Most of our stored food is unfortunately, the usual starches.

I have been going through our go-bag bins, and pulled out the dangerous (bomb-in-the-making) canned tomatoes. Also found canned peas, some cans of tuna, a can of salmon, and a can of hominy. All of this stuff was from 2009. The peas were bulging. I fed the tuna and salmon to the dogs. The contents of the tuna and salmon cans looked and smelled perfect. Was a little envious dishing out salmon for the pups. I ate the hominy myself - was still in excellent shape. The glass jar of peanut butter looked perfect, but I didn't open it.

I had a bunch of various home (Excaliber) dehydrated foods in that bin from 2009 that were gross. Don't know if there was too much moisture, or just too much time in storage. They were in glass jars. The other stuff I tossed were all the commercial mylar energy bars, breakfast bars, etc. The oils in them had obviously broken down. All of that was nasty.

Take-away: Make room in the budget for canned fish.
 

Txkstew

Veteran Member
Black pepper as pepper CORNS stores indefinitely. GROUND, not so much.
You can find a Black/white/red pepper mix of corns in some grinders as well as some bottles to refill grinders.

Bulkfoods.com has whole pepper corn in black, pink, green and white. I usually buy the black restaurant grind and store in quart Mason jars with an O2 absorber. I have a bunch from 2008 that is just fine. I also have whole pepper corns. 5 lbs of ground pepper is $30. I probably have a total of 30 lbs put up. All the dried bulk spices and veggies I have put up in Mason jars, most are over 10 years old now, and have good color, and taste. I use them most everyday. My spice rack is about 20 quart Mason jars.
Whole Black Pepper - Spices | Bulkfoods.com
 

Zahra

Veteran Member
Definitely going to add ghee and more crisco to the stock pile.

Macgyver you might already know this, but in case anyone reading the thread doesn't, it's very easy and quick to make ghee, and far more economical than buying it in the store. Every now & then butter is on sale for $1.99 a lb around here, so when it is I buy the limit and toss it in the freezer till I use it or make ghee with it - so you see, ghee can be made cheaply whereas it sells for around $9 and up in the stores.

I prefer unsalted butter because the salted variety gives a grainy texture to ghee but unsalted is nice & smooth. I watched several videos on YouTube before doing it the first time, and in my opinion this lady's was the best:

View: https://youtu.be/asLxQ0q2Z3w
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Bought a couple of medium-sized cans of Dinty Moore beef stew with the pop top lids at Walmart. Stacked one on top of the other to conserve conveyor belt space only to find that the lid came off a can when the checker was checking me out. What a mess! Plus I noticed she charged me for both cans when I got home and checked the receipt!!
The question you need to answer is, was the pop-top tab disturbed? If so, that would explain the lid opening.
 
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