Newbie to long-term food storage. So, why not store flour instead of raw wheat? Is flour available un-bleached / modified? With wheat, you have to buy / use a wheat mill.
thanks
Even stored appropriately, flour loses it's nutritional value within about 5 years. For long term food storage, you want to store wheat because, if stored appropriately, it will last 30 years or so, with very little loss of nutritional value. You can also sprout wheat to add more nutrition and variety to the diet.
The rule of thumb with food storage is the smaller the pieces the faster it loses its nutritional value and sometimes the strength of a food's flavor.
I think there are a number of reasons why people keep wheatberries as opposed to just flour. First and probably most obvious is they like to cook with or eat the berries themselves (you can google 100 ways to cook them up) I personally feel the berries themselves are cleaner and overall less work when preparing them for long term storage. In addition my research says that buying the berries is more cost effective as you are going to save on the cost of the labor to turn them into flour, and finally of course you get to be in charge of what happens to them from the start of the processing you're not going to added bleaches or anti-clumping agents or preservatives.
Besides losing nutritional value, the oil in flour can go rancid fairly rapidly. For some reason in wheat berry form, this does not happen anywhere near as quickly. I believe it is because the bran has to be crushed before the germ is exposed to air for oxidation. Oxygen absorbers will help prevent rancidity, but once you open your container it can start.
Besides losing nutritional value, the oil in flour can go rancid fairly rapidly. For some reason in wheat berry form, this does not happen anywhere near as quickly. ...
The Mormons say that flour, properly stored, will last ten years. I store several hundred pounds of both flour and wheat because the wheat will last much longer. Also, if it turns out to be a long term situation, there is no way I'm doing an instant switch to wheat. It can be hard on the stomach if you aren't used to it. I figured I would gradually start switching over by using increasingly larger wheat to flour ratios in recipes.
I have some organic wheat berries that are 10+ years old. Just last week I did a test sprouting of them and got close to 100% germination. The wheat is in a plastic bag in a food grade plastic bucket with no other protection and stored in a spare room here. I doubt that flour stored the same way would still be usable.
I also have some commercial non-organic wheat about the same age and stored the same way that only sprouted about 25%. I have no idea if being organic or not made the difference.
Another thing -- I've used year-old flour from my pantry shelf (not stored "properly" for long term storage) and I can always tell that it's old. The finished product tastes stale and almost dusty.
We are paleo so rarely use flour. Really only for cookies a few times a year, and sometimes rolls at Thanksgiving. I've learned I have to buy fresh flour especially for the holidays, because the taste of old flour is really that much different.
White flour also has very little nutritional value right off the bat. Fresh ground wheat is much better nutrition-wise.
We now store a small amount of wheat, but the bulk of our grains are low-no gluten. Greater variety and less chance of a reaction.
Don't let the naysayers sway you. Nothing wrong with storing flour. As mentioned it will last for years. Years beyond the time it would take for an event to pass. I have 10 year old flour here now. If you went beyond that you have a lot more to worry about.
I need to increase both my wheat storage and my flour stoage. Since we are always baking here, flour is one of those things that we go through a great deal of. I cannot begin to even wrap my head around how much room we would need to store 5 years of flour at the rate we use it.
I store some flour, but mostly wheat berries. Flour gets stale after a while. And wheat berries are more versatile and nutritious as well as longer lasting.
Grinding is a chore, but the flour tastes so much better and is much healthier. The extra nutrition may be critical in a serious SHTF situation. Grinders don't have to be terribly costly and some of them can be used to grind corn and beans also, which increases their versatility. A grinder is an important prep item in my opinion.
Most importantly, it can be sprouted for even more nutrition. Same with beans, which greatly increases their levels of vitamin C, which they don't even have without sprouting.
I have 90 buckets of wheat berries, then I just started storing it in the 50 lb bags they shipped it in, no problems at all with this, we're pretty dry here, maybe that's why.
btw, if your thinking about hooking up your DeWalt 18v drill to your back to basics wheat grinder- Don't Do It!
It keeps for about 3 years that way. I've been buying 200lbs a year like that. I figured at $30 for 35lbs in a bucket vs 8 for 50 at the feed store I was coming out ahead of the game.
You can store white flour, it's got about the same nutritional value as white rice or sugar. Whole wheat flour like brown rice will get rancid pretty quickly in storage.
Corn meal is supposed to loose it's flavor after just a few weeks too. We went by historic water powered grain mills on a trip, and I stopped and toured every one. The signs at one made that point. The farmers would bring their corn to the mill once a week rather than all at once.
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