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PRUDENT FOOD STORAGE: Questions and Answers.
How do I store the foods that I've chosen?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
O. Charter and Foreword
I. Shelf Lives: Time, Temperature, Moisture and Light.
II. The techniques of food storage
A. Grains and Legumes
1. Selecting and Buying Grains and Legumes
2. Legume Varieties
3. Types of Availability of Grains and Legumes
- Moisture Content
- Cleaning It Yourself
4. Storing Grains and Legumes
- Moisture and desiccants
- Dry Ice
- Compressed CO2 and Nitrogen
- Oxygen Absorption Packets
B. Dry Milk
1. Selecting and Buying Dry Milks
- Types of Dry Milk
- Buying Dry Milk Products
2. Storing of Dry Milks
- Shelf Life of Dry Milk
C. Canned Goods
1. Liquid Milk
- Canned
- Evaporated
- Sweetened Condensed
2. Corrosion Prevention of Canned Goods
- Paraffin Method
- Paste Wax Method
D. Sugar, Honey and Other Sweeteners
1. Buying and Storing Granulated, Powdered, Brown and Raw
Sugars
2. Selecting and Buying Honey
- Storing Honey
- Raw Honey and Botulism
- Honey Outgassing
3. Molasses, Cane, Sorghum and Table Syrups
4. Corn Syrup
5. Maple Syrup
E. Fats and Oils
Y. Cooking Staples
1. Baking Powder
2. Salt
Z. Infant Formula
III. Spoilage
A. Insect Infestations
1. Pests of Stored Dry Grains and Legumes
2. Control of Insect Infestations
B. Molds In Foods
1. Minimizing Molds
2. Molds in Canned Goods
3. Molds in Grains and Legumes
C. Bacterial Spoilage
1. Botulism
2. Other Bacterial Spoilers In Food
D. Enzymatic Action In Food Spoilage
IV. Specific Equipment Questions
A. Storage Containers
1. Plastic Containers
- What Makes A Plastic Container "Food Grade"?
- How Do I Get the Odor Out of Pickle Buckets?
- Where Do I Find Food Grade Containers?
2. Metal Cans
3. Glass Jars
B. CO2 and Nitrogen
C. Oxygen Absorbers
D. Desiccants
E. Diatomaceous Earth
V. Other Sources (besides this FAQ)
A. Books
B. Pamphlets
C. Magazines
D. Phone, voice, non-modem
E. Electronic-online
VI. Appendices
A. Shelf Lives of Some Common Storage Foods
B. Dating Codes Used By Some Canners
C. Sources of Diatomaceous Earth
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I -- SHELF LIVES: TIME, TEMPERATURE, MOISTURE AND LIGHT.
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Since the entire idea of a food storage program is that it should be
available for you and yours in times of need, it is desirable to gain an
understanding of those conditions that can affect the edibles stored in
your pantry.
Your storage program is only as good as the original quality of the
food that went into it. It cannot get any better than what originally
went in, but it can certainly get worse. In the fullness of time, all
stored foods will degrade in nutrient content and palatability until
they reach the inevitable end where even the dog won't eat them. It's
because of this that every article, book, and teacher concerned with
putting food by gives the same advice: Date all food containers and
rotate, Rotate, ROTATE.
Within reason, the key to prolonging the storage life of your
edibles is the average temperature of the area in which they are stored.
The lower the temperature the longer the shelf life. Keep in mind that
the storage life of most foods is cut in half by every increase of 18 F
(10 degrees celsius). If you've stored your food in a garage that has
an average temperature of 90 F then you should expect a shelf life less
than half of what could be obtained at room temperature (70 F) which in
turn is less than half the storage life that you could get if you kept
them in your refrigerator at 40 F. Your storage area should be located
where the temperature can be kept above freezing (32 F) and, if
possible, below 72 F.
Ideally, your storage location should have a humidity level of 15%
or less, but unless you live in the desert it's not terribly likely that
you'll be able to achieve this so you'll have to do the best that you
can. Regardless, moisture is not good for your stored edibles so you
want to minimize it as much as possible. This can be done by several
methods. The first is to keep your storage location air conditioned
during the warm and humid times of the year. The second is to package
the goods in storage containers impervious to moisture and then to deal
with the moisture that it trapped inside. If you can, there's no reason
not to use both. All storage containers should be kept off of the floor
and out of direct contact from exterior walls to reduce the chance of
condensation.
Once you've gotten temperature and humidity under control, it's
necessary to look at light. Light is a form of energy and when it
shines on your stored foods long enough it transfers some of that energy
to it. That energy has the effect of degrading the nutritional content
and appearance of your food. Fat soluble vitamins, such as A and D are
particularly sensitive to light degradation. It's a pretty sight to
look at rows and rows of jars full of delicious food, particularly if
you were the one that put the food in those jars. However, if you want
to keep them at their best, you'll admire them only when you turn the
light on in the pantry to retrieve a jar. If you don't have a room that
can be dedicated to this purpose then store the jars in the cardboard
box that they came in. This will protect them not only from light, but
help to cushion them from shocks that might break the jar or cause it to
lose its seal. For those of you in earthquake country, it's a
particularly good idea. When "terra" is no longer "firma" your jars
just might dance right off onto the floor.
Assuming that it was properly processed in the first place, canned,
dried and frozen (never thawed) foods do not become unsafe when stored
longer than the recommended time, but their nutrient quality fades and
their flavor goes downhill.
It is important to keep in mind when discussing the usefulness of
various foodstuffs that there are *two* shelf lives to be considered.
The first shelf life is that of the nutrient content of the food. This
actually begins to degrade from the moment the food is harvested. There
are three factors that dictate nutritional shelf life: The food's
initial nutritional content, the storage conditions and the processing
steps that the food underwent before it was placed into storage.
Eventually the nutrition will dwindle away to nothing. At some point it
will have to be decided that the remaining nutrition is not worth
keeping the food any longer and it should be rotated out of storage.
This is the reason for the "use by" dates on many foods and shelf lives
in general.
The second shelf life to be considered is that of a food's absolute
useful life or the point at which you just can't gag it down. This will
almost always be far in excess of what the nutritive life will be. We've
all heard of people eating many year old preserved foods such as jams,
jellies, MRE's and the like. If you don't have anything to replace it
with, it's not necessary to throw it out just because it's reached the
end of its nutritive shelf life, but do keep in mind that increasing age
will only further decrease the useful nutrition and increase the
likelihood that something may cause the food to spoil.
I am including an appendix at the end of this FAQ with tables of
shelf lives of some common storage foods. Eventually, I hope to include
instructions for reading the dating codes used by whatever packers and
canners I can find or that readers will send to me. This has always
been a major problem for those of us who stock quantities of canned
goods from the grocery store.
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II -- THE TECHNIQUES OF FOOD STORAGE
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A. GRAINS AND LEGUMES [NEED AN APPENDIX ABOUT GRAIN MILLS]
A.1 GRAIN VARIETIES
One of the most important decisions in planning your long term food
storage is the kind of grains that you are going to store. Too many
people do not give this adequate thought, and just buy however much
wheat they think is necessary to meet their needs and leave it at that.
Others rely upon pre-packaged decisions made for them by the storage food
retailer that put together the food package that they've purchased. For
many, either decision could be a major mistake.
There are any number of food storage plans to be found by those who
take the time to look. Many of them are based on the so called "Mormon
Four" of wheat, milk, honey and salt with whatever additional foods as
the planner found to be desirable. Back in the thirties (I believe
this is when that plan first got its start) that may have been OK, but
we've learned a great deal since then. An unfortunate number of people
in our society have developed allergies to one kind of food or another.
One of the common food allergies is to wheat. Even more unfortunate is
the fact that of those with an allergy to this most common of grains
many of them are not even aware of it. They won't become aware of it
until they try to live off wheat for a large part of their diet. This
is a major reason to store what you eat and eat what you store so that
ugly surprises such as this don't come up when it's too late to easily
avoid them.
A second reason to think about providing a variety of grains in your
food storage is appetite fatigue. There are many people who think that
providing variety in the diet is relatively unimportant and that if and
when the time comes they'll eat what they've got and that will be that.
For healthy, well adjusted adults under ordinary circumstances this
might be possible without too much difficulty. However, the entire
reason for having a *long term* food storage program is for when
circumstances *aren't* ordinary. Times of crisis produce stress,
possibly physical, but always mental. If you are suddenly forced to eat
a diet that is both alien and monotonous, it is going to add just that
much more stress on top of what you are already dealing with. If your
planning includes the elderly, young children and infants they might
just quit eating and become unable to survive.
In his book, Making the Best of Basics, James Stevens mentions a
study by Dr. Norman Wright, of the British Food Ministry, done after the
Second World War in England and Europe found that people were more
likely to reject unfamiliar or distasteful foods during times of stress
than under normal conditions. When it's wheat day in and day out, then
it's going to start becoming distasteful pretty fast. Far better to
have a variety of foods on hand to forestall appetite fatigue and, more
importantly, to use those grains in your everyday diet so that you'll be
accustomed to them.
[If anyone knows where I may find an actual copy of the study by Dr.
Wright, I'd appreciate it if you'd point me to it. Thanks-ed]
Below is a list of some common and uncommon grains presently
available in the marketplace. Because it is by far the most commonly
consumed grain in the United States I've put wheat at the head of the
list.
WHEAT: Wheat comes in a number of different varieties each with
different characteristics that makes a particular one more
suited for a given purpose than another one. The most common
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