Homestead Skills: 10 Mistakes In Food Storage
One of the greatest assets to have in an emergency is a healthy and well-rounded food supply. And one of the biggest wastes of money in the preparedness community is a spoiled food supply due to improper storage or management. Food storage isn’t just a survival thing. It’s something that every household should consider. Unexpected hardships, job losses, medical bills or legal troubles can drain your bank account in a hurry. With food stores in place, at least your family can eat. This can allow you the independence to weather your situation for a few weeks, or a month, or more – until you’re back on your feet again. Don’t think of food storage as paranoid food hoarding, instead think of it as a food insurance policy. And if you’re going to stock up on some staples, you’d better do it right. These are ten of the most common mistakes that are made in food storage – and how to prevent the loss of these valuable food commodities.
1. Forgetfulness This is one of the worst crimes in food storage, and one of the easiest to fix. If you forget about some of your shorter-lived food supplies, then it’s very likely they’ll expire. We can all be guilty of this. Just this week, I found some tetra-paks of chicken broth in my food stash that expired about a year ago. With dry goods, I don’t worry about expiration dates very much. But with wet products, especially in “soft” packaging – you can’t afford the risk of using expired food and drink. Use a marker to write a larger expiration date on your containers and packages, and use good rotation practices to actually use the food you buy for storage.
2. Temperature The temperature of your storage area can play a big role in the longevity of the food you’ve set aside. Cooler is better than warmer, and constant temperature is better than a fluctuating temperature. Take your food storage out of the garage, for example, and move it to the basement. The seasonal hot and freezing temperatures of the average garage can drastically shorten your food’s lifespan, but the steady cool of the basement can make it last.
3. Light Sunlight sure is handy for growing food, but after that – the relationship takes a sour turn. If you can’t store your food in containers that are impermeable to light, then store them in a dark place. Those jars of home canned veggies will start tasting pretty weird if your store the clear jars in a sunny area, and they won’t last as long either.
4. Moisture Like sunlight, you need moisture to grow the food, but then you don’t need it anymore. Moisture should be very low in most food storage techniques. A dry place is the best place to store your food, and for dry food staples – the moisture should be low inside the packaging too. Use food grade desiccant packs in the interior of the bucket, jar or bag of food to suck up the spare moisture and make the food last longer.
5. Oxygen Low levels of oxygen can equate to low levels of spoilage. Oxygen absorbing packets can be purchased from food storage specialty suppliers, and used inside your food containers. These are sold in a variety of sizes and measured in CC’s. In a quart jar of dry goods, you could use 50 to 100 CC packets. Use 50 CC’s for rice, flour and mixes. Use 100 CC’s for beans and pasta. In a 5 gallon bucket, you’ll need about 1000 CC’s. Use more than that (around 1500 CC’s) if the bucket is full of beans or pasta. That’s a hell of a lot of pasta, over 35 pounds worth and more than 60,000 calories on average.
6. Air Drawing a vacuum on your food containers is a great way to diminish oxygen and extend the food’s storage life. Numerous home vacuum products exist to suck the air from jars and bags, sealing them from the outside air (and infiltrating moisture and bugs). If you don’t have the coin to spring for a food saver machine, you can perform a different form of atmosphere modification with dry ice. This frozen carbon dioxide block can be chipped into ice cube sized chunks, carefully crushed and placed in the bottom of grain buckets and other food stores. Dump the grain or other food on top of the crushed “ice”, and loosely put the lid in place. 2 or 3 ounces of dry ice is all you need for a 5 gallon bucket of grain or rice. As the CO2 becomes a gas, it fills the air spaces around the grain and pushes out the oxygen. Seal tightly after 30 minutes. Be extra careful with this oddly dangerous material. Wear gloves and goggles when working with it. It can create frostbite with a few seconds of contact with bare skin.
7. Containers Using the wrong containers for your foods can certainly have an impact on their storage. Acidic foods like dried fruit shouldn’t be in contact with the walls of a metal can, as they’ll leach out some metal and take on a metallic flavor. Instead, store your dried fruit in glass jars or Mylar bags, which won’t create any leaching problems.
8. Processes Like using the wrong container, using the wrong process can lead to spoilage – or worse, lead to botulism. No matter how much you wish it was true, butter should not be canned with your home canning equipment. The result is not safe for storage. And cooked meat should never be turned into jerky. Once cooked, the only reliable ways to store cooked meat are canning, freeze-drying and freezing. Make sure you’re using the right process for the foods.
9. Bugs Insects like roaches and pantry moths will try their hardest to sneak into your food supply, though tightly sealed containers will usually halt their quest for food. But unfortunately – there are probably some bugs that beat them to it, pests that naturally live in the grain and other food-stuffs. An easy way to zap weevils and other pests is to place the food in a deep freezer for several days, prior to storage. This kills adult insects and larval bugs. Eggs may survive, and if you’re worried about that, there are several solutions. The dry ice trick for oxygen removal will create a very inhospitable world for the bugs. You could also blend a little food grade diatomaceous earth with grain and other dry foods. Just a few ounces in a 5 gallon bucket of grain will do the trick. This material is edible to humans, but it scratches up insects causing them to die of dehydration.
10. Rodents Plastic totes and buckets are no match for the ravenous appetite and chisel-like teeth of rats, mice and other rodents. If rodents are even a possibility in your food storage location, place as much of your food in jars and cans as possible. Large metal boxes, like jobsite tool boxes, can also be placed in larger storage sites and filled with plastic food buckets, MRE cases and other vulnerable stores.