Food rotation

[ancona]

Well, it's time to rotate out some more stuff, and I think wwe'll donate it to the half-way house. We have far too much food to simply rotate by eating it, but we want to maintain a certain amount for our storage program, so we rotate it out from time to time. I will go to within a month of the dates on the cans, which I know to be ridiculous, but cannot donate out-of-date food very easily, so we just do it. Each major rotation involves a bunch of cans and whatever flour and dry goods might be near to going "sour". This time around, we gave the dry goods away to neighbors and fellow preppers, and only have the cans. Actually, we only have around sixty five cans, so it will all fit in to two totes.

Either way, they will be glad to get it. We usually like to donate to the food bank, but they are having zoning problems and got busted serving out prepared food, a real no-no, since they do not have a food service permit and health department inspection. Never mind that the food was hot out of the steam line, and never mind that there were three dozen folks who relied on this food to supplement their families diet, they don't have a proper license and haven't paid the obligatory fees.

 

[Jay]

shame on me, but we frequently eat stuff years out of date. So far its always been good (no one sick that is) but I've thrown away some decidedly disgusting cans. Bing sends cases of out of date stuff to the Philippines to her family, I always say don't send that but she doesn't care and says they don't care.

 

[DCFusor]

Funny you should bring it up. I just yesterday cracked into my MRE stash, since that had the most pressing due date, and had a great meal - even used the emergency heater they provided since I was in another building keeping my cat company (she's in an isolation cage, clinging to life after an accident). Boy, I was surprised how good it was, actually, the beef & beans plus mexi rice were great, but that picante sauce they included was so doggone hot only a real mexi could eat it - 5% of it made the whole dish very hot. So I never touched the half oz of ground red pepper they also provided...zowie, that'd charge up a warfighter! I kept the cheese for the crackers later, don't drink coffee, and haven't yet tried the "instant fruit punch".

That's a lotta calories per meal. In an emergency I think you'd use this sort of thing as a sauce over plain old rice/beans/noodles to feed more people from each one. And those keep "forever" if stored right. Mine are in 50 cal ammo cans under argon.

 

[HCA1961]

And those keep "forever" if stored right. Mine are in 50 cal ammo cans under argon.

:rotflmbo:Argon?!?! Too cool! I'd love to see that prep, DC!

 

[rblong2us]

@DCF
we know how important the cat is to you
may the cat make a full recovery

 

[DCFusor]

Thanks RB.

It's not too horribly hard to do that prep if you happen to have a vac system and a welder. I made a special lid with a valve and pipe to sit on the ammo can, with the stuff inside stored in baggies, which BTW, do leak. You slowly pull a vacuum on the system (not a hard one that would boil water at room temp, just get rid of nearly all the air), then let in argon. Repeat a few times, then quickly replace the fake lid with the real one. It's not perfect, but most organisms can't live in 80-90% argon, which is about how pure it winds up being with a little air still there.

A friend who is like-minded is trying CO2, which is a lot easier. You put dry ice in the bottom of the can, then the food. Set the lid on lightly. As the CO2 displaces the lighter air, it leaks out around the lid. When the box stops being super cold, seal the lid. Might make your beans and rice a little tangy, dunno, we're experimenting. We'll crack one in about a year and see. Either way, the obligate aerobes are gone.
Even kills corn-meal bugs.

 

[benjamen]

I have never understood storing more than one or two years worth of food. After that amount, why not focus on food production through gardening, fruit/nut trees, and livestock?
:shrug:

 

[rblong2us]

I have never understood storing more than one or two years worth of food. After that amount, why not focus on food production through gardening, fruit/nut trees, and livestock?
:shrug:

its just another form of stored wealth ..............

 

[benjamen]

its just another form of stored wealth ..............

Interesting idea; A stored wealth that depreciates at a rate of 1/n, with n being the number of years until spoilage. Along the same line of thinking, personal food production is a direct way to increase personal wealth.

 

[DCFusor]

Yup, more than 1-2 years is probably a waste (some food seems to keep a heck of a lot longer than that). Too much just creates a liability and cost for space, and it becomes harder to keep it rotated. Production is a good idea, if you can. If the ground becomes radioactive or otherwise poisoned, I suppose most all bets are off, but I do keep enough plastic sheet to cover my entire garden if I think that's coming.

Not that a garden will do you a ton of good if there are a lot of starving people around. You won't get to eat any of it. This is also true where I live in bad years for the things the local animals eat. They are really good at getting past almost anything when they get hungry enough - even buried chicken wire to prevent burrowing and an electric fence with tight mesh wires and low to the ground - 150 feet worth on a 50 *mile* fence charger - I sometimes hear the deer scream when they find out about that one. But then they jump over the fence.

 

[rblong2us]

Interesting idea; A stored wealth that depreciates at a rate of 1/n, with n being the number of years until spoilage. Along the same line of thinking, personal food production is a direct way to increase personal wealth.

Both are valid forms of stored wealth but one allows you to trade it immediately the other not so much, as you would likely only grow for your family needs, unless you decided to become the community food producer.

Its a rock solid form of savings in the event of things getting out of shape just not sure what i would swap for

and anyway no one has really got several years worth of food, as they would inevitably find mutual benefit from sharing.