Near Out of Date Food Storage.....What To Do

I use mine, have a large family and we have cook outs, social events as it needs used it gets used.

fisherman50 said:

I rarely purchase nor rotate my food storage as I go but rather purchase large quantities near the expiration dates. I give it to the homeless shelter every 2-3 years and start over........what do you do?

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I do the same thing for the pantry canned goods. Except I donate to food drives.
We just don't eat canned food. It's always fresh vegigies and fruit.

I use the food storage method called "store what you eat and eat what you store." Much of my food preps is in the form of the food I normally eat and I rotate it and buy more every month. I find it the most cost efficient way of storing food. There is no waste and no going out of date ever.

Give to the needy is the way to go.

We eat it.

Herbalpagan has the perfect solution and the best one IMHO!

OhioMan said:

Herbalpagan has the perfect solution and the best one IMHO!

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Agreed.


Might as well get used to eating it and be cost effective.

You do know that the date on the can is their only because it is required. Most canned food will last 2 to 4 times longer than the use by dates. I've worked as a cook for 17 years half of them in management, read all the studies and took the food safety tests.
Even bottled water has use by dates on it. What a joke bottled water will go flat and off flavor but will last for years if stored properly.
Fresh food is another matter, meats in particular. I will only go 1 to 5 days over depending on the item. But use by dates are not perfect just tossed a roast that turned green with 2 days left on it.

Most everything gets eaten up around here before it expires. If something is close to the expiration date and I know I won't be using it, then the kids take it.

I recently found some information listing foodstuff and their expiration times,,,most all canned foods will have a shelf life of 8 to 10 years not the 2 years as printed on the cans themselves,,Libbby brand vegetables were highly rated and Hormel canned meats of all kinds were highly rated,,,if you have stocks that are older than this then giving them to a church food pantry would be an excellent way to use the items no longer needed,,,the listing for the expiration times can be found on this site,,,"ThePrepared.Com".....SEMPER FI

http://www.grandpappy.info/hshelff.htm

Following is a brief summary of a very small portion of the above article:

"Among the canned food items retrieved from the Bertrand in 1968 were brandied peaches, oysters, plum tomatoes, honey, and mixed vegetables. In 1974, chemists at the National Food Processors Association (NFPA) analyzed the products for bacterial contamination and nutrient value. Although the food had lost its fresh smell and appearance, the NFPA chemists detected no microbial growth and determined that the foods were as safe to eat as they had been when canned more than 100 years earlier. The nutrient values varied depending upon the product and nutrient. NFPA chemists Janet Dudek and Edgar Elkins report that significant amounts of vitamins C and A were lost. But protein levels remained high, and all calcium values 'were comparable to today's products.'

Expiration dates are worthless. Most canned foods are good for many years past there expiration dates.

I donate most of the canned stuff to our local food bank as it nears expiry as we don't want to eat that much salt (even though we get salt reduced where possible).

We eat and rotate the rest.

Herbalpagan said:

I use the food storage method called "store what you eat and eat what you store." Much of my food preps is in the form of the food I normally eat and I rotate it and buy more every month. I find it the most cost efficient way of storing food. There is no waste and no going out of date ever.

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This is the way to go, and it's what I do with most of my preps... oatmeal, peanuts, raisins, protein powder, etc. For long term big quantity storage, I think you can make exceptions, though.

For my white rice and beans, I plan to do just what the OP said, though: put em in 5gal buckets and store for 10-15yrs, then give them to a soup kitchen when they hit the 10-15yr mark and have been replaced. They are cheap foods with long shelf life, so it doesn't lose much $ to just give them away. It's roughly $30 a bucket (50lbs rice, garbage bag, O2 absorbers... in a free bucket from the bakery). I can deal with that, and it helps out the ppl you donate it to. I don't like them much, but I want a solid 6-12mo food supply for my household fairly cheap... without eating food I don't like or over buying what I do like to the point I'm rotating all the time and eating food that's years old. The rice and beans would suffice if SHTF, I lost income and was hard up for funds, etc.

Whewww! Good thing smokes don't have an expiration date....:

kyle1337 said:

Whewww! Good thing smokes don't have an expiration date....:

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Oh yes they do !!! It's just not printed on the box 'cause it won't kill you, they'll just suck REAL bad !!! :

I was going to ask this exact question in a thread. How long are my cans good for if kept in the right environmental conditions. So I see somewhere between 8 and 100 years. Is there a more accurate answer. Do beans, canned soup, canned meat last different amount of times. Is the canning process more important than what is in the can? Would my cans be good 10 to 15 years down the road

MIL-DOT said:

Oh yes they do !!! It's just not printed on the box 'cause it won't kill you, they'll just suck REAL bad !!! :

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LOL! As long as it's got nicotine when the SHTF I'm A-okay!

I eat things that are out of date on purpose just to see how it taste and to see how much BS goes into the expiration dates. I ate a box of cereal last week, Honey bunches of oats, that was 17 months past date and it was just fine. Now the premium mac n cheese with the cheese packet that is liquid only last about 6 to 8 months past the expiration date before the cheese starts to dry out. It still taste ok but the cheese is much harder to mix in and get liquified again. When I store some items like mac n cheese in my cabinets I face the expire date out so I can see it and I keep track of the dates. I choose dates between 1 month and 1 year after the expire date to eat it to see how it is. I like to push the limits on the date to see just how long I can go past. The canned goods I am not worried about.