Newbie Prepper Food Storage Questions Answered

do you have questions about how to package your food for long-term storage [Music] hi i'm kyleen and i'm the provident prepper recently a newbie prepper janice reached out to us through the contact us page on our website theprovidentprepper.org and asked several questions regarding how to package dry goods for long-term food storage in this video i'm going to answer all of janice's questions and i thought you might want to come along now let's talk a little bit about the difference between short-term and long-term food storage both are very valuable for your food storage your short-term food storage is the foods that you eat every day things like canned foods and boxed foods and just the things that you normally go to the market and you stock your pantry shelf with long-term food storage are foods that are specially packaged and that will last 25 to 30 years not everything is a candidate for long-term food storage basically those are your dry goods things like wheat and dry beans white rice rolled oats those kinds of foods you can package correctly to last for a very very long time but it really makes sense to have a short-term supply and a long-term supply of food let's talk just a little bit about the expected shelf life of dry goods there is no exact date that they go bad and many of them will not actually go bad unless they are contaminated anything that has fats will eventually go rancid and will not store for a long period of time they need to be stored in a cool dry dark location the cooler the storage room without freezing the longer the food is going to last and they need to be correctly packaged in an airtight container in a reduced oxygen environment warning signs that mean that you should not use the food would be things like a change in appearance if you look at this can of rice this was white rice that was packaged and obviously it's not white anymore it had a little bit of an off odor the can was rusted and rust on the exterior doesn't really mean that it's gone bad but this rice is definitely not something that i felt comfortable feeding to my family also that you could find a change in texture anything that has mold on it or an off odor or an off taste that's out you just need to get rid of it and when it comes to your food storage plan to rotate it don't just buy it and stash it away now if that's the only way you can do it that's fine it's better that you have sun than that you don't have any but if you want to really make good on this investment rotate through your food storage build that three-month supply of everyday foods or however long you want it to last a year is a good amount of time if you're really using it then you have like your own little grocery store in your pantry and you never run out of the things that you need but really we're talking about a well-stocked pantry stock the foods that you like don't stock anything that you're not going to want to eat because then you won't rotate through it and eventually it's going to go bad and it's a waste make sure that your food storage is accessible and well organized and if you do this it will be the best blessing in your life for me and my family having food storage means that we save an incredible amount of money at the store you do not need to repackage everything when you repackage foods it is an expense of both time and money and you may not be adding any more value so really carefully look at a food and decide whether or not it should be repackaged i would say that the majority of food that i purchase does not get repackaged that it's part of my short-term supply that we rotate through it and i just leave it in its original packaging there are some foods that make a lot of sense to repackage so that it will last the 25 to 30 years and that's what we're going to talk about right now oxygen absorbers are for dry goods only to be a good candidate to use an oxygen absorber it should be 10 moisture or less and low in oil be careful use wisdom for instance raisins should not have an oxygen absorber in them they are not less than 10 moisture however white flour white rice dried beans wheat those kinds of items they are ideal for use with an oxygen absorber if you create a low oxygen environment and you store a moist food in it you run the risk of developing botulism which is incredibly dangerous and we just don't even want to go there so be careful oxygen absorbers are my favorite way to preserve my long-term dry goods because it creates a low oxygen environment and insect control and it's just perfect the environment that it creates is just ideal now the next best is vacuum sealing it reduces the oxygen it does not eliminate it it also provides for insect control now if you want to vacuum seal for short term you can do it in the plastic vacuum seal bags however if you want it to last long term you really need to use a something like mylar because that creates a true oxygen barrier where oxygen cannot go through its walls like it can the plastic over time not just any mylar bag will vacuum seal there's a brand called steel pack and it's created similar to the vacuum sealed bags where those it has like little ridges and that enables it to vacuum seal and mason jars are a fantastic way to store dry goods long term with a vacuum seal attachment one thing that's very important to understand is that mylar bags are not rodent proof this bag was actually taken from a woman's closet she had taken some mylar bags of food storage and just stashed them in a bedroom closet had no idea she had a problem with rodents until she went and opened this box and the rodents had just had a heyday protect mylar bags from rodents by putting them either inside of a plastic tote or inside of a sealed bucket first off it needs to be stored in an airtight container to protect it from both moisture and the outside air white rice works really well with an oxygen absorber it vacuum seals well or if you're unable to use either of those methods you can take the container that's sealed put it in the freezer for two to three days thawed out for 24 hours put it back in the freezer for two to three days and that will kill the insects it doesn't remove any of the oxygen that's in the container but it will prevent an insect infestation from occurring and that's really important if you're storing something long-term and a little side note on the rice white rice is great for long-term storage however brown rice is not it should be only stored short-term because it's high in oils and fat and it will go rancid in storage and it all depends on the heat the hotter the storage environment the quicker it will go rancid i recognize that it's so much healthier for you but for your food storage this is a short-term item not a long-term item now let's talk about how to store spices she had wondered if she should take the spices out of the container and vacuum seal them or put them in a container with a an oxygen absorber now the manufacturer wants these to last as long as possible on the shelf so most of the time they will do something like a nitrogen flush which eliminates the oxygen in the container so that it will sit on the shelf for the longest period of time for the most part i would not recommend switching these containers a lot of spices are going to lose potency over the times so you're really not gaining anything but you're adding a lot of expense my personal opinion she also asked how to store bullion there are different varieties of bullion the kind we're looking at right now is mostly salt and msg and will have a longer shelf life because it's very low in fat it's also very low in nutrition but it does make foods taste good those that are high in fat like better than bullion they are fantastic and they are something you should have in your short-term shelf life if that's what you like but they will go rancid and so they are not a good candidate for a long term personally i would just keep this in its original container and rotate through it with my regular supplies how to store dry beans dry beans are an excellent long-term storage item and can easily store for 25 to 30 years recently there was some controversy about how dry beans won't soften up for after five years and we did an experiment and put out a video and absolutely yes dry beans will soften up if you do it correctly and store them correctly we had some that were 29 years old that softened up made a whole bunch of really good meals out of it no problem at all like the white rice you want to store it in a reduced oxygen environment that means that you can vacuum seal or you can use oxygen absorbers make sure your container is airtight and in a cool dry dark environment in this photo we are showing how to store dry goods in plastic bottles if you are trying to do food storage on a budget this might be a great idea for you because we're just cleaning up used plastic peat bottles and storing food in them it works really well i have some as old as 2006 that we've opened and haven't had any issues at all with them so if you're on a budget think about this there is a video and a post at the providentprepper.org on exactly how to do this a question that comes up a lot is how to store white flour the very best way to store white flour is inside of a mylar bag in a plastic bucket with an oxygen absorber whole wheat flour will not store very long it will go rancid and it is just not worth it so if you're going to store flour store white flour if you if you want whole wheat flour you just need to store wheat and have a way to grind it now you don't always have to do it perfectly right you can store flour in glass jars in plastic bottles with either an oxygen absorber i really wouldn't vacuum seal it it tends to it's a fine powder and it tends to get into your machine the other method that you can use if you do not want to use an oxygen absorber is the freeze thaw freeze method oxygen absorber is going to do a better job but if you want to freeze it for two to three days let it thaw for 24 hours and then freeze it for two to three more days that will take care of any insects problems that you might have the reason you need to do the freeze thaw freeze the first freeze kills the adult insects that when you let it thaw it tells the eggs that might be in there to wake up and then the final freeze actually kills any eggs that have hatched white flour is a short term storage item you can store it for about five years and you'll have good quality at 10 years it is pretty much borderline and you're really going to think i'm not sure i should use this but this bag here is 20 years old and when we opened it and it had been stored in a cool dry place it was not edible it the taste was off the texture it just was not a good thing so make sure that you're only storing white flour for short term now a lot of times you will open up your container and that white flour will smell funny because it will absorb the smells of the container even the mylar bag it'll make it smell just a little bit metallic if you remove the flower from that container and let it air out for a day or two usually that smell will dissipate but seriously i wouldn't store white flour longer than about five years if you want to maintain a good quality now how to store pasta long term same thing as you would the white rice and the dry beans you want it in an airtight container with an oxygen absorber or vacuum seal but we're talking about dry pasta nothing like potato gnocchi or anything that's moist actually egg pastas don't tend to store as well long term but definitely macaroni and spaghetti they're fantastic for long-term storage if you don't want to go to all that work what i do for my short-term storage is i take the bags and i just put them inside of a plastic bucket without treating them now you could take that bag and put it in the freezer for two to three days let it thaw for 24 hours and then re-freeze for two to three days and then before you put in this plastic bucket you're gonna allow it to return to room temperature so we don't have any problems with the condensation but then you're just gonna put these in a bucket and seal up the bucket the reason why i would do that is because it protects it from any rodents that might be around it protects it from the moisture in the air and while it doesn't create any type of a low oxygen environment it just keeps that pasta a little bit more protected we use this pasta not very long ago and it had been stored for about 10 years it's still good but the noodles aren't holding shape like they would have originally so really i'm thinking you know five to seven years is about where you should call this good and then how to store ramen you know what ramen is great for emergencies because it takes very little fuel to cook them right and you could just eat them right out of the package but they are high fat and so they will go rancid in storage and pretty much nothing you can do is going to change that you're going to go to a lot of expense if you decide to vacuum seal them in jars or something like that and it's just not going to extend that shelf life so just think of it as a short-term item and rotate through this janice did ask a question about how to store coffee and i am so sorry but i am not a coffee drinker so i don't have any experience storing coffee so i'm not a good one to enlighten you on that however i do store honey and honey will store indefinitely it will outlast your storage container what i usually do with the honey is i leave it in its original container and i just rotate through it if i am storing it for my own bees or from long-term storage i would put it in glass jars we did have some honey that had been stored for well over 30 years in a metal square metal can and it was fine when we took it out but then my daughter had one stored in a similar condition and when they went to use their honey that was really old pieces of the metal were flaking out into the honey so just be really careful about your container again i would rotate through it but if you want to do it long term glass is going to be your best option for maintaining quality um it could be dangerous in an earthquake but you know we have to there's no perfect solution everything has a downside and you just have to choose what's going to work best for you white sugar also has an indefinite shelf life you would never use an oxygen absorber with it because it turns it hard um we have stored it in plastic buckets and it does go lumpy and a little bit hard it's still very much usable but that is one of the consequences of the plastic is that it will allow some moisture to penetrate it the glass jar pretty much will last forever the mylar bags we had some that was stored maybe 17 years if i remember right and it was lumpy but we poured it into our buckets that we have upstairs to use and we just have to break up the lumps a little bit but it's still good stuff now my favorite i'd like to say i'm an expert on storing chocolate chips but the truth is i've never been able to store them very long because i am an expert at rotating through chocolate chips they are a short-term food because chocolate chips have quite a bit of fat in them part of what makes them absolutely delicious i would not put them in a container with an oxygen absorber but i would vacuum seal them if it's worth it to you to try to extend that life that far because they will store very easily for five years in a bucket without a problem so i'm not sure that it's worth it to me to add that much because i'm never going to have five years worth of chocolate chips i'll be lucky if i have six months worth of chocolate chips in my storage so what i do is i store them in the original packaging inside of a plastic bucket that has a gamma seal on it and that way i just open it and take out the bags it that works really really well for us but it is in a cool place if it's any place warm that chocolate's not gonna fare as well now let's talk about how to store cocoa powder it will store almost indefinitely but it loses potency over time and so really the fresher the cocoa powder the better it's going to be i usually store it in the original package and i just rotate through it because it seems to work out better for me you absolutely could repackage this in an airtight container and use an oxygen absorber it's probably too fine to vacuum seal well but for me as long as it's a decent container i just store in the original container it'll last you know five years or so in that container without any type of a problem and the newest way that we have found to store chocolate is to freeze dry now plain chocolate doesn't freeze dry well you know chocolate chips it's it's not gonna work for you but this was a chocolate cream pie that we had leftover from the holidays and we decided that we would just cut it up and put it on the trays and see what happened in the freeze dryer and quite frankly this was absolutely amazing when you store freeze-dried foods you want to make sure that you always put an oxygen absorber in them and seal them into a mylar bag or a glass jar because once it's freeze dried if it's left out in the air it will very quickly absorb moisture from the air and it's not as good but let me tell you this is one of my new favorite ways to store chocolate all right so one of the other things that's really important is to know how much food do you really need and it's going to be different for everyone and you've just really got to think about this and pray about it and decide you know for your individual circumstances what is important basically we would encourage you to have at least a three-month supply of foods that you eat every day those are things that when you go to the grocery store you fill up your cart and there are things you can just put on your shelf and they stay good on your shelf remember we talked a little bit about the expiration date just because that jar of peanut butter says that it expired last month doesn't mean that it's not still good the thing with peanut butter if you open it up and you smell it if it's bad it's rancid and you will smell that and other than that you should be okay unless you see anything off or you you um smell anything off or see mold but for the most part in a cool storage room our peanut butter lasts a good five years and then you need a year's supply of survival dry goods those are your wheat your rice your oats things that will provide the basic calories for your diet if you had nothing else to eat and the best guide there is 300 pounds of grain i think 400 pounds of grain really might be a little bit more realistic but it depends on okay if you already have a year supply of everyday foods then you could get away with 300 pounds of grain your supply of that right because you have a lot more of these other shelf stable foods but if you're just looking at your dry goods you probably want more like 400 pounds of grains and 60 pounds of legumes which are beans ripe beans and lentils and foods like that which are super important in a survival diet and then your garden produce you really have to figure out a way to be able to replenish the supply without going to the store we've got a really cool new video series about my indoor garden where we're growing food indoors under lights just in a room in our house and it's it's a fantastic way even if you only live in a small apartment as long as you can get a full spectrum light bulb you could grow something right or you have a south-facing sunny window you could grow something if you have any space in your yard you have the ability to produce something it doesn't have to be a lot anything that you can produce and contribute to the overall food is going to make a big difference or this is a very personal subject and you need to really thoughtfully search and decide what you think your food storage goals are but really three months supply of foods that you eat every day and a year supply of dry goods and some garden produce that is a fantastic start and it will give you time to be able to figure something else out our website the providentprepper.org has so many fantastic articles on it that can help teach you what you need to do and how you need to go about it so that you and your family can be just a little bit more self-reliant one of the posts that i would like you to read is packaging dry goods and glass jars for long-term storage this is one where we teach you about using the glass jars and putting the dry goods in it but it's got some really good directions that you might not have thought about for instance um oven canning where you take your jars and you put them in a hot oven is dangerous and yet most people don't understand that it could be dangerous so be careful right um but there's some good stuff in that one there's a video um short or long-term food storage where we really discuss okay what's the difference between short and long-term food storage and why you need to have both and creating your three-month food supply can really feel overwhelming but in this video we go through several different plans that some of my friends had about ways that they have built their three-month food supply and some of them are really creative and everybody is different and so it's fun to get the unique perspective so check them out hopefully i answered all of your questions janice there were some really good questions and i appreciate you asking and now for the question of the day what questions do you have about long-term food storage comment below and thanks for being part of the solution you

Channel: The Provident Prepper

Views: 12,692

Rating: 4.9678717 out of 5

Keywords: How to Food Storage, Long Term Food Storage, Short Term Food Storage, Emergency Food Supplies, Questions and Answers, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

Id: 0geZG0epLT8

Length: 23min 28sec (1408 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021