What do you do when your prepping supplies get old

[Guest dmarcin]

What do you do with 8 months of prepping supplies, rice, beans, pasta, etc when they get to be 1-2 years old. I know FIFO . But how do you eat 100lbs of rice, beans or pasta on a schedule of meals when you Don't normally eat 2-3 lbs a month. Sure. We can replace them as we use them. But we bought everything in 25-50 lb. containers and to replace them At this amount it will be difficult to FIFO them. Sure we could replace them at 2-3 lb. amounts but it would be a problem? We stored for 6 people and there are 3 of us. The only thing I can figure is to change our method of storage to incorporate much smaller containers in the future. Any other ideas?

[UncleJak]

Learn to love it! 

And next time, buy items that you regularly eat.  Then you never have to worry about them getting old.  Rice and such is good, but buy other things that are more along the lines of what you can prepare with your meals.

[wewoapsiak]

Beans and rice last for 20 yrs stored correctly, so take the time to store them in mylar with oxygen absorbers.  But with the stuff you have now?  Eat up!

[Poor_Dog]

We threw some 10 year old white beans in the pot tonight... stored in a vaccuum sealed bag all this time, still good. Lots of dried foods will keep much longer than you would think. Wet pack foods start to lose vitamin content but most don't spoil unless the can is damaged.

 

Store what you eat is a good rule, but I typically don't eat out of a can so it's hard to rotate 50 cans of Ravioli . I switched to over 60% of my food storage to dry foods. Just buy quality names, keep it acclimated, in the dark and sealed.

[Guest USMC 2013]

I store 5 gallon buckets and date them.  For wheat flour I have three buckets.  We make our own bread so I use one bucket, when it gets empty I buy a new 50lb sack of flour, and that puts me at about 3 1/2 buckets.  Rotate.

 

If you don't use it fast enough try going down to 2 1/2g buckets.  The three staples you mentioned will store for 10+ years if in a properly sealed bucket, with oxygen removed.  I also add a couple of bay leaves to keep any bugs out, or kill any that snuck in when packing.  HTH,

 

Joe

[Caster]

When I store rice I use quart ziplock bags. I fill the bag but do NOT seal the ziplock. I put the ziplock into a foods aver bag and vacuum seal it. Now it will keep longer AND when I do actually open it, I have a way to close it back while I consume the contents. By dating each vacuum sealed bag I can rotate inventory. If you've got 50 lbs in one container, that sucks because how you gonna eat that much and keep it sealed up. Hard to rotate large amounts.

[swim615]

Store what you eat.

 

Eat what you store.

 

Keep rotating your stock by eating the older and replacing with new.

[Guest dmarcin]

Thanks for the information. We do pack in hugh quality gallon freezer bags, placed in a mylar 5 gallon bags and placed in either a 5 gallon sealable bucket or a tote container. All with oxygen eaters. if I have 6-10 years to get through the dry foods in storage I think I can do that. we do have other foods stored that we use every day and they are not a problem to FIFO . Salt and sugar tend to get hard but still work, most things we buy for every day use have a shelf life of at least a year so they are not a problem. Watching the expiration date has become a habit. If any of you other preppers want some sealable 5 gallon buckets I can give you a lead on some just email me. They are well below $5 a bucket and are located near Nashville.

[ArmyBrat61]

Dmarcin...you have a PM inbound.

[Viracnis]

With a lot of the canned and dry goods, if store bought and not home canned, you can donate it to different places if the expiration hasn't passed.

 

There's a charity closet in Columbia that my wife takes our canned goods to when they start to near the expiration.  Obviously the perfect solution would be to eat it all before it expires, but there's two of us and we pack for 4-6 plus the dog. They're happy to have it all as long as it isn't expired.  I think the donation might be tax deductible too.  The wife handles the details, so I'm not sure where it is or anything.

 

- Bob

[jlautiger]

For canned goods, look at http://canorganizer.com/can-organizers/ For bulk goods, you can do caster's food saver sealing and put into buckets with gamma lids. Gamma lids are must haves. Some items are long-term, don't eat until SHTF.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yep if you can't think of anything better to do with it, donate to a local food bank or salvation army or catholic charities. You need to donate before the expiration date is passed. You can take it off on your taxes if you itemize deductions.

[Guest Youngnluvnit]

I prep in discrete quantities in five gallon buckets. 5-10lb beans, 10lb sugar, 2lb oatmeal,..com you can get the picture. It's like an MRE bucket. I figure that way when it does have to be used I can open one bucket and have maybe a variety of food for a week. I also include some toilet paper (without the cardboard center) and hygiene products. Everything is vacuum sealed with O2 absorbers and all of it is vacuum sealed in a 5 gallon Mylar bag inside the bucket with oring lid. This way I can rotate my stores without eating 50lb of beans.

[Mike.357]

i prefer canned goods for preps.   Rice lasts near forever,  dunno about beans.   I am not losing sleep over any of it.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

The other day, wife cooked up a big pot of pinto beans out of a big grocery original packaging she claims we bought and put on the shelf more than 10 years ago. They had been sitting in the pantry with the bag opened sometime long ago, with a clothespin sealing the bag, though the pantry is well climate controlled. Just saying, those 10 year old pintos, not stored with any care at all inside the house, tasted GREAT. Maybe my nose was working better that day, but they smelled GREAT as soon as the pot started boiling. Almost makes me wonder if age can improve certain things. :)

[tvcannon]

The other day, wife cooked up a big pot of pinto beans out of a big grocery original packaging she claims we bought and put on the shelf more than 10 years ago. They had been sitting in the pantry with the bag opened sometime long ago, with a clothespin sealing the bag, though the pantry is well climate controlled. Just saying, those 10 year old pintos, not stored with any care at all inside the house, tasted GREAT. Maybe my nose was working better that day, but they smelled GREAT as soon as the pot started boiling. Almost makes me wonder if age can improve certain things. :)

Age certainly helps red wine (as well as whites and blushes within reason). Back on topic, though. Stock what you eat; eat what you stock.

 

TC

[Wingshooter]

I just discovered some bags of enriched rice (about 70#), pinto beans (60#), great northern beans (30#) and flour (50#) that I had in the back of my food storage closet. These bags were never properly sealed and still in their original grocery store bags. Most of them have a use by date in 2011 and 2012. Did I waste all this food, or is it still edible just maybe not as flavorful? Should I Mylar bag and bucket it or....

Lester, your post gives me hope. Do beans go bad?? Edited March 1, 2013 by Batman