Food Prep, long term storage

[thorborg]

Plants "breath in" co2 during photosynthesis.

But seeds aren't photosynthesizing. On the flip side, roots need oxygen or they will rot. But then, seeds aren't rooting.
According to your link, seeds are about the toughest life form around next to the cockroach.
If sufficiently dried, all of these seeds are effectively dormant to the point that the surrounding gas mix, or lack thereof, is insignificant to storage. Note, too, that we are talking viability, here--the ability for the seed to grow after storage. Seeds do respire at an extremely slow rate, however, which can be measured with a small increase in carbon dioxide gas after many years of storage.
Like I said, life is a wonderment for sure

 

[Alexx1401]

There are all kinds of nice & interesting freeze dried or canned foodstuffs now a days.

Canned butter, handy if you do not want to clarify your own and put some up.

Canned butter powder, handy in all kinds of ways.

Canned cheese ready to eat. Freeze dried canned cheese, cheese powder.

Canned honey powder.

Canned tomato powder.

Freeze dried canned yogurt. Supposed to be really great as treats, haven't tried them yet, it'd be interesting to see if any of the pro-biotics survive the process.

Etc.

Most of above are handy to add to recipes, stretch out meals, combine with others etc.

After I read this I went back and did more looking and I was really shocked. Butter powder? Basically almost everything comes this way. I had no idea. I had eaten powdered eggs decades ago. Thought they were not that bad. This amazed me at what they have now. Might be kind of fun to try some of it for just to see how it works. Stuff would have been great to have when I was into camping. Wife is always wanting to do this again. May grab up some and tell her lets head out and "rough it" for a few days.

 

[ROC]

thorborg - regarding the wonderment of life, here is a video of Dr. Elaine Ingham regarding soil that you might enjoy. It is out of series, and all of videos I've seen are worth watching, but this one seems to have a lot of information for how long it is.

Life in the Soil with Dr. Elaine Ingham Part 2 The Soil Food Web

 

[Camelfilter]

After I read this I went back and did more looking and I was really shocked. Butter powder? Basically almost everything comes this way. I had no idea. I had eaten powdered eggs decades ago. Thought they were not that bad. This amazed me at what they have now. Might be kind of fun to try some of it for just to see how it works. Stuff would have been great to have when I was into camping. Wife is always wanting to do this again. May grab up some and tell her lets head out and "rough it" for a few days.

Yeah, it's allways a good idea to try out whatever you might think on putting up.

The other day we cracked open a few #10 cans, primarily to see how freeze dried Turkey would do. Reconstituted some of it with peas & corn, and added it to some Ramen soup with a few eggs in it. Pretty darned good.

Good enough that we could also use it as is, to make a cubed turkey dinner (stuffing, taters, veggies). Best as a filler/supplement though, to stretch it.

Also wanted to see how well it would store rwpacked (dry canned).

 

[Alexx1401]

Yeah, it's allways a good idea to try out whatever you might think on putting up.

The other day we cracked open a few #10 cans, primarily to see how freeze dried Turkey would do. Reconstituted some of it with peas & corn, and added it to some Ramen soup with a few eggs in it. Pretty darned good.

Good enough that we could also use it as is, to make a cubed turkey dinner (stuffing, taters, veggies). Best as a filler/supplement though, to stretch it.

Also wanted to see how well it would store rwpacked (dry canned).

Good idea. It was why I was glad to see they pack a lot of this is smaller amounts. Be able to try some. The ideal would be it it was usable in everyday stuff. Then lay some in and rotate it every so often if not needed. If it's good enough it would come in handy if we ran out of something and did not want to try to head out to the store. the butter and sour cream come to mind here. Should be fun to try some of this.

 

[Angie]

I pack most of my stuff in Mylar gallon bags with O2 absorbers. No O2 absorbers for sugar, btw. You will be sad. Brown sugar, powdered sugar,regular granulated, flour, bean and rice, crackers, cookies, cereals, oatmeal, cornmeal, bisquick, even marshmallows For my cocoa. Powdered milk, potato flakes, dehydrated fruit and veggies. Some things, like the marshmallows, I put in the quart bags. You can just use an iron to seal them, on high, but it really takes 3 hands. Then I throw them in either a plastic bin or a 5 gallon bucket with a gamma lid. I also have a couple of d-con boxes nearby, but haven't had a problem with that, yet. Knock on wood.

 

[Howard1955]

I put up some rice and some pinto beans two or three years ago.

First, I stuck it all in the freezer for a few days. Then I vacuum sealed it into quart jars. For storage, I used jarboxes.

I opened one of the jars of beans last summer, and tested to see if they were still viable as seeds. They all sprouted.

 

[Camelfilter]

Think I saw something like those jar crates at BiMart when I went in to buy a few quick things. We'll have have to look into them, or the ones in the video, if they're not the same ones, a bit further.

Thanks!

 

[Howard1955]

Think I saw something like those jar crates at BiMart when I went in to buy a few quick things. We'll have have to look into them, or the ones in the video, if they're not the same ones, a bit further.

Thanks!

You're welcome.

Yes, we've gotten some of them from BiMart. They come in a couple of sizes (for pint or quart jars).

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Speaking of Bi-mart, they have 19-24.7 oz mountain house freeze dried tins on sale for $5 off right now and 1lb canned hams @ 2 for $5.

 

[Alexx1401]

Back to this I want to thank the poster who mentioned the Augason farms stuff. I have been buying some from Amazon to try and have been quite impressed. Tried the soup mix first. Love cream of potato soup so that was first. Made with water the stuff was something that if we could not get food would do. So then wanted to see how it would work rotated in. Jazzed up with some meat and made with milk the stuff is great. So now every few years I can just use up old if we don't need. Found powdered sour cream was great. Does not taste like the stuff from the store but used to jazz up soup works great. Setting aside some of this stuff now in case we ever have some disaster that makes it so you can't just go to the store for a while.

 

[Camelfilter]

Back to this I want to thank the poster who mentioned the Augason farms stuff. I have been buying some from Amazon to try and have been quite impressed. Tried the soup mix first. Love cream of potato soup so that was first. Made with water the stuff was something that if we could not get food would do. So then wanted to see how it would work rotated in. Jazzed up with some meat and made with milk the stuff is great. So now every few years I can just use up old if we don't need. Found powdered sour cream was great. Does not taste like the stuff from the store but used to jazz up soup works great. Setting aside some of this stuff now in case we ever have some disaster that makes it so you can't just go to the store for a while.

Yeah that Augason farms brand is pretty decent. If you have a goodly sized Walmart on your shopping route (or close enough), you should check to see if they have a section. 3 of my area Walmarts do, and have a decent selection of individual #10 cans, smaller cans & bags of various. More expensive than sourcing from online by a bit, but gives you a chance to try out smaller quantities.

Once you find stuff that fits & you all like, then buy online in quantity. One of the better places I've sourced for higher quantity is an online company "the ready store". Always running some kind of daily deal/special. Free shipping once you do a membership (pays fir itself first order just about). They don't carry Augason farms (afaik), there house brand is Saratoga farms, but it's just about the same. They also carry mountain house, and a bunch of oddball & harder to source at a fair price (bega brand canned cheese, red feather canned butter etc etc).

If you decide to get into dry packing rice/grains etc, then take a look at the Morman/LDS online home store for consumables (O2 absorbers, moisture absorbers, Mylar bags etc).

 

[Alexx1401]

Yeah that Augason farms brand is pretty decent. If you have a goodly sized Walmart on your shopping route (or close enough), you should check to see if they have a section. 3 of my area Walmarts do, and have a decent selection of individual #10 cans, smaller cans & bags of various. More expensive than sourcing from online by a bit, but gives you a chance to try out smaller quantities.

Once you find stuff that fits & you all like, then buy online in quantity. One of the better places I've sourced for higher quantity is an online company "the ready store". Always running some kind of daily deal/special. Free shipping once you do a membership (pays fir itself first order just about). They don't carry Augason farms (afaik), there house brand is Saratoga farms, but it's just about the same. They also carry mountain house, and a bunch of oddball & harder to source at a fair price (bega brand canned cheese, red feather canned butter etc etc).

If you decide to get into dry packing rice/grains etc, then take a look at the Morman/LDS online home store for consumables (O2 absorbers, moisture absorbers, Mylar bags etc).

The OP who first mentioned this brand lives here and said that's where he buys it. There are a few Wally's here I just avoid them any more. Like the prices on stuff just hate going in the stores any more. Service is so damn bad. Wife checked at the Winco here and said they also sell some of this stuff. Main thing to me was finding out I could use it for every day and like it. Don't intend to store a long term supply. Just want enough that if we could not shop for a week or two we could eat. This stuff is fine and I can use it up if not needed. The sour Cream was made under the Hoosier name. 1# jar. Same place has milk that is whole milk powder. Does not taste like fresh but for cooking works great. So with some of this stuff on hand we can eat and actually enjoy the stuff if we ever need it. Plus I can rotate the stuff in after it sits for a while and use it up. Be great for camping too. Couple of the soups I really like just as much as the canned stuff from the store. More expensive of course but dried it's sure light to carry if needed. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it is.

 

[Motomom34]

First rule is never store brown rice because it will not last. Second, if you can find converted rice that is the best one. It is expensive but has the most nutrients. Uncle Ben's makes a converted rice. I personally store plain white rice from Costco. I measure my rice into 4 cups per bag, put in an O2 packet and vacuum seal. Rice is stored in food grade buckets. I do have buckets filled with rice but then I thought why. With packing the rice away 4 cups at a time, I am able to remove a few packages and reseal the bucket. I always throw a few absorbers in the bucket after I open it. I probably do not need to do this because I live in a dry area but it practices good habits.

** I freeze my rice prior to sealing it. I buy it, throw it in the freezer then store.

 

[Stealth-X]

A recent post in this forum, "Food Prep, long term storage, Pt2: 5 gal buckets" explains how to go about properly storing rice and such in buckets, sealed in mylar bags w/ O2 absorbers. He quoted the cost of a do-it-yourself sealed and prepped-for-long-term-storage bucket of rice to cost about $43 (with some left over mylar bags and O2 absorbers). So if you're doing it yourself, I suggest checking out that post.

Something I just came across and shared today was an Augason Farms 30-day supply of food in a 7 gallon bucket shipped to you for $56.43. ~$1/kcal. For the extra 13 bucks, you don't have to order separately or pickup the food and storage items to do it yourself. You don't have to do the work yourself. And you get a little bit of variety (and flavoring is included). Seemed like a good deal to me so jumped on it and shared the deal in this post, also in this forum.

Regards

 

[Lazyfaire]

There is a place in Salem (OR) called Hawaiian Time at 23rd & Mission SE, inbound just past the airport. They sell used food grade 5 gal buckets with the gamma lids for $1 each. They are washed but you will want to put bleach in them to take the smell out.

 

[Joe13]

Wilco sells (40gal I think) food grade containers with lids with seals for $15-20 last I checked.

Barrel shaped.

 

[Camelfilter]

Wilco sells (40gal I think) food grade containers with lids with seals for $15-20 last I checked.

Barrel shaped.

40g would be great for ranch/homestead, I'd imagine. 5gal is perfect size/weight for most folks to manage without mechanical help.

 

[Joe13]

40g would be great for ranch/homestead, I'd imagine. 5gal is perfect size/weight for most folks to manage without mechanical help.

I was thinking about all the freeze dried foods.

 

[Koda]

I was thinking about all the freeze dried foods.

40 gallons of freeze dried food would be hella expensive...