Stockpile Food Before November: DONT Make This Mistake

hypothetical scenario for you ten years into the post-apocalypse you're trudging through the wastelands with a couple of the other remaining survivors and well you haven't eaten in a few weeks and they're starting to look appetizing what do you do when you stumble across this expired food some of it's 10 years expired is it edible or is it going to make you deathly sick because remember food poisoning can potentially be a killer when your immune system is shot to hell and you haven't eaten in a long long time add the stress of the situation on top of that no doctors available well that's a recipe for disaster today we're going to talk about the most up-to-date research on food exploration and why you don't have to break the bank if you're building a prepper food pantry let's get to it [Music] forty percent of all food in north america is wasted in the sense that it's thrown out well before its best before date it's likely that this behavioral trend would continue well into a disaster situation because let's face it bad habits are hard to break after all nobody would want to get sick eating bad food in a crisis situation when access to medical care might be limited now the truth is and the science supports this that the reason why people throw food away is not because it's going to make you sick or kill you but it's because of the yuck factor we've developed a picky palette here in the modern age but this approach to food management could be a death sentence in an shdf situation so let's talk about it now if we're talking about expiration dates the true expiration date is much longer for most foods than is actually specified on the package we're going to talk about the different types of expiration dates in a minute but first i want to provide you with a historical example that demonstrates the true longevity of food namely canned food now in 1865 there was a steamboat that was packed to the gills with canned food that was destined for some mining camps in montana as it was making its way up the missouri river unfortunately they had too many provisions on there it weighed it down and the thing sank among those provisions were cans of plum tomatoes mixed vegetables peaches oysters and honey now in 1974 to the surprise of many scientists were able to salvage these canned goods and they discovered that they did not diminish in their nutritional value that there was no microbial growth and that they were in fact as safe to eat as they were when they were canned 100 years earlier now this is absolutely amazing considering that most canned foods don't have an expiration date that exceeds five years what this means is that if certain conditions are met as we're going to discuss in this video you can extend the shelf life of your cat foods for a long long long time now it should be known that eating food past its best before date or use by date is not without risk every year there are nearly 80 million food borne illnesses in north america alone this leads to over 300 000 hospitalizations and 5 000 deaths now you might think that in the grand scheme of things that's not that bad but remember that's with a perfectly well functioning health care system if we're talking about long-term grid down possibly societal collapse in those circumstances i would wager that the death toll would likely be a lot higher so please exercise extreme caution and follow all the steps i outlined today if you are assessing whether or not food that is over a certain expiration date is safe to consume now just as a little side note there are also expiration dates on various pharmaceutical products a study done by the us fda as commissioned by the u.s military found that nearly 90 percent of over-the-counter drugs were usable in some cases up to 15 years after their expiration date if you want information on that exact study i'll post a link in the description it's rather interesting and i would encourage you to check it out now i use the blanket term expiration date to encompass all of the following best buy date sell by date use by date prepared on date and manufactured on date let's distinguish between all of these now it should be known that the usda and many other countries do not require expiration dates on any products except baby formula for obvious reasons but this just speaks to the fact that there's not a great concern about the health impacts of eating expired food now when a product says best buy a certain date they're referring to the quality the flavor the freshness the texture the taste the color and maybe the nutritional value it has nothing to do with the safety of consuming the food for example a jar of salsa might not taste as fresh crackers may not be as crispy but that doesn't mean you're necessarily going to get sick if you eat it now a sell by date is something that's provided by manufacturers to retailers basically informing them when that item has to come off the shelf now you could argue there's something to do with planned obsolescence with respect to this meaning that they're trying to ensure they can keep product flowing ensure that you're going to keep buying it and hopefully that 40 of food that gets thrown away well you're gonna have to go and buy 40 more food so the food industry does benefit from having expiration dates that's something to keep in mind at all times is the monetary motive of these dates so the usda does encourage more caution when consuming foods that have use by dates however in most cases you're going to be able to eat it long after the expiration date but certainly not indefinitely there are seven factors which determine a food's ability to be stored long-term hermetic sealing sterilization reducing moisture high salt content the ph level of the food durable packaging and climate control if all of these conditions are optimized your food will last for a long long time now cans like this one here and no this is not an advertisement for corned beef but i tell you if you fry this stuff up it's a lot better than spam if these are not damaged that is if there's no dents in there the size of your finger there's a good chance that this could last for decades if properly stored now there's something called the cold chain in terms of the supply chain of perishable items foods and what that's referring to is a products various temperatures that it might be stored at throughout its journey through the supply chain so when you take it off the truck it goes into a fridge it moves into a fridge into another truck into another fridge onto a shelf you know so it can move from several different climates now the goal is to keep it within a certain temperature range nine times out of ten that temperature is going to be a lower temperature definitely not freezing but a cool temperature nonetheless food will always last longer if refrigerated keeping a low temperature as constant as possible is crucial for the longevity of your food storage now most of you are probably familiar with canning which is actually a process that uses jars probably confusing for somebody who doesn't know the english language yes when we're talking about canning your own foods we're talking about doing it in jars but essentially the idea is exactly the same now canning whether in tin cans or in jars works the exact same way basically what you're trying to do is seal the contents in hermetically sealed container and after it's sealed bring it to a high temperature in some cases partially cooking it in order to kill whatever bacteria remains inside this is going to sterilize that food and make it preserved for years to come this is the exact same method which was used 100 years ago on that canned food that was salvaged from that boat wreck that i was talking about earlier we're not going to get too much into the science of canning but what you need to know is that there's two different types of canning methods there's a hot water bath method and then there's a pressure canning method the hot water bath method is for highly acidic foods these don't require as high of a temperature to prevent the spread of toxic bacteria because low ph or highly acidic foods naturally are more antibacterial whereas for low acidic foods these are going to require actual pressure canning for these low acidic high ph foods temperatures must reach 240 degrees fahrenheit in order to kill bacteria another thing that's going to impact the shelf life of your food is the ph level ph level is basically referring to the acidity of the food the lower the ph level the more acidic the food is this can range on a scale from 1 to 14. the ph scale is a 14 point reference scale from 0 to 14 where 0 is the most acidic and 14 is the most alkaline 7 is considered neutral most microbes prefer a neutral or near neutral environment for example vinegar and lemon juice have an approximate ph level of two tomatoes have a ph level of 4 and most vegetables have a ph level between 6 and 7. this is why vinegar lemon juice tomato paste and even things like salsa are going to last a lot longer than other neutral ph foods now there's also something called retort packaging and that's similar to what you see here in this mre there's several different layers within this material there is some aluminum or mylar there is some polyethylene in most cases and there's in some cases uh some paper to give it a bit of rigidity as well and those three layers provide a lot of durability for the contents and they also make sure it's hermetically sealed and it also allows for sterility of the contents for example the shelf life of an mre has less to do with the date on the package than it does the conditions in which it's stored in so the cooler you can keep your mres and you don't have to worry about the dryness because once again this is a retort package moisture cannot get in here but if you can keep it cooler it's going to last you longer it could mean the difference between an mre only lasting two years and ten years in some cases i would venture to say and as some people have demonstrated on youtube they can last for decades but once again proceed at your own risk now the reason why a lot of freeze-dried foods can put up to 25-year shelf life on their packaging is because there's almost no moisture in there whatsoever typically there's a high sodium content and they're hermetically sealed in retort packages even though some freeze-dried food companies don't indicate a 25-year shelf life and may only indicate a two to five year shelf life the reason for that is simple they haven't invested in the laboratory testing required for them to put that expiration date on their packaging the fact is the food is likely going to last that long if not much longer by virtue of all the conditions of the freeze drying process so don't be discouraged if you see a shorter shelf life on your freeze-dried food chances are it's going to last for a long long time [Music] one thing that will potentially cause you problems if you're storing food for long periods of time and this is something which may impact people who live in northern climates like myself is that if there is a constant uh thawing and freezing of canned foods or any type of food for that matter especially if there's liquid within the package then that could cause contraction of the package and that could lead to stress on the package itself which could cause fissures with tin cans that could lead to some type of corrosion and of course that's when you're going to have some sort of micro organism ingress into the package another thing that's going to impact the shelf life of your food is the salt content now salt is going to have the effect of drawing out moisture from the food in question and this environment is not going to be conducive to the growth of microorganisms in colonial america food preservation required nearly 40 pounds of salt per person per year for some perspective this is why bacon lasts so long so you can see why salt is going to have such a high street value in an shtf situation because it's going to help you to preserve food namely meats this is one of the methods used in preserving things like beef jerky another thing to ensure the shelf life of your food is to prevent pests from getting in there that could be bugs mice or even bigger critters the two things you want to ensure is that you're keeping that space clean and well maintained and that you're making sure that you're using durable packaging this is why five gallon buckets are so great because they just provide an extra barrier for your food from the elements now perhaps the most important part of this talk is that if these expiration dates for lack of better term are so ambiguous how do we decipher what food is good and what is it because obviously you're not gonna know well that's not always true you are gonna know there's gonna be some indicators bacteria are responsible for the spoilage of food when bacteria starts to break down that food it's essentially going to be releasing its own waste into the food and that's what creates that funky smell when food goes bad now in spite of this and this is according to the usda even if your food smells bad that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to make you sick because not all these bacteria are necessarily going to be harmful to you now most foodborne illnesses are caused by improperly prepared food that wasn't properly sterilized and not due to the actual shelf life or expiration dates the vast majority of food recalls are due to contamination prior to food packaging and not expiration now we're not talking about your perishable food products here like eggs milk or meat things which are not aseptically packaged which are not pre-sterilized and which will indeed make you sick if they go bad what's a primary concern when we're talking about food poisoning is foodborne illnesses that could be things like salmonella norovirus or the dreaded botulism botulism is a potentially deadly disease that can attack the nervous system it can cause double vision which probably wouldn't be bad if you had to keep your eye on the target in an shdf situation droopy eyelids trouble swallowing cardiovascular issues and without treatment you can actually suffocate other indicators of spoiled food are dents or bulges in the can the site of mold or bacteria and again spoilage bacteria do not normally cause food poisoning typically the microorganisms that actually cause most of those food-borne illnesses that kill 5000 people a year that i talked about earlier well those are actually odorless flavorless and otherwise undetectable outside the lab but the important thing to remember here is that those need to be introduced into the food prior to the food being packaging the problem with botulism is that you can't see it you can't smell it you can't even taste it but even just taking a small amount of this could be deadly the key takeaway from all this is that it's not the food that sits on the shelf for long periods of time that's going to make you sick it's food that gets contaminated with things like salmonella listeria e coli botulism these types of things that's actually going to make you sick 99.99999999 of food recalls are related to this type of food contamination and nothing to do with shelf life that's really promising for preppers so the key takeaway from all this today is that the likelihood of you getting sick and actually sick and dying from eating food which is expired even well past its expiration date is incredibly low the likelihood of it not being approved by your very delicate modern taste buds is probably pretty high but i imagine that on a long enough timeline you really wouldn't care remember there was a time when all we humans ate was raw meat you know how animals just eat other animals raw well that was us for a good chunk of our history so consider that when you're looking at food now the one saving grace is probably going to be that you're going to be so hungry you're really not going to be caring about the taste that much you're going to want to get those nutrients into your system and things that you might be repulsed by today might seem pretty good after the [ __ ] hits the fan thanks for watching guys i hope you found this video useful today please give the video a thumbs up like share comment all that good stuff thanks for watching canadian preparation the best way to support this channel is to support yourself by gearing up at canadianpreparedness.com your one stop shop for premium high quality brand name products that have been tried and tested by myself and other youtube gear reviewers my subscribers save 10 off by using the coupon code survival prepper all one word in all caps

Channel: Canadian Prepper

Views: 380,488

Rating: 4.9454861 out of 5

Keywords: doomsday preppers, bug out bag, WROL, doomsday, prepper, preppers, SHTF, grid down, economic collapse, end of the world TEOTWAKI, survive zombie apocalypse, zombie apocalypse, survivalism, survivor, post-apocalypse, stockpiling food, food preps, stockpile food, expiration dates, shelflife of food, shelf life food, long lasting foods

Id: d9sqv51Jc2c

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020