Preparedness Week 2

Now that we have been going through all of our food storage and writing down the dates of each item, we need to know how long this particular food storage item is good for.  When does it become of no use to us and we need to dispose of it?  I have found a list for shelf life of numerous food storage items on a web site http://www.survivalacres.com/ .  They also sell food storage items on this site.  They have several different packages thay are pre-put together.  I do not know how the prices from this site compare to other sites nor, am I promoting their business, I just wanted to give them the proper credit for posting this list for Food Storage Shelf Life.  The Stake will be hosting a canning activity in August.  This activity will give us an opportunity to get our food storage at cost.  However; I, in no way saying that we should wait until August to start gathering up our food storage.  With that in mind; our project for this week is to check out the Shelf Life table below and weed through your food storage accordingly.   To help build up our food storage when we go to the grocery store we can buy $5-$10 worth of canned gooods to add to our food supply.  Examples could be:  canned fruit, canned vegetables, canned tomatos (soup or tomato sauce), tuna fish, honey, peanut butter, or mccaroni and cheese. Another thing you might want to do is not spend any of your change this week.  Keep all nickels, dimes and quarters to add to your 72 hour kits. 

Average Shelf Life

Below is a chart to help you determine the shelf life of food stored in air tight containers at constant temperature of 70 degrees. ** All of the following products will store proportionally longer at cooler temperatures if kept at lower storage temperatures. Shelf life of 30+ years is perfectly feasible for many products!
	Years		Years		Years
Apples	30
Adzuki Beans	8 - 10	Gluten	5	Powder Eggs	15
Alfalfa Seeds	8	Granola	5	Powder Milk	20
All Purpose Flour	15	Great Northern	15	Quinoa	8
Bakers Flour	15	Groats	8	Refried Beans	5
Barley	10	Hard Red Wheat	25 - 30	Ribbons	8 - 15
Black Turtle Beans	15 - 20	Hard White Wheat	25 - 30	Rolled Oats	30
Blackeye Beans	15 -20	Honey, Salt and Sugar	Indefinitely	Rye	8
Broccoli	8 - 10	Hulled Oats	30	Small Red Beans	8 - 10
Brown Rice	6	Kamut	8 - 12	Soft wheat	25
Buckwheat	15	Kidney Beans	20	Soy Beans	8 - 10
Butter/margarine Powder	15	Lentils	20	Spaghetti	15 -20
Cabbage	8 - 10	Lima Beans	20	Special bakery wheat	25
Carrots	8 - 10	Macaroni	15 - 20	Spelt	12
Celery	8 - 10	Millet	8 - 12	Sprouting Seeds	4-5
Cheese Powder	15	Mixes	3 - 10	Triticale	8 - 12
Cocoa Powder	15	Morning Moo	10	TVP	15 - 20
Corn	8 - 12	Mung Beans	8 - 10	Unbleached Flour	5
Cornmeal	5	Noodles	8 - 10	Wheat flakes	15
Cracked wheat	25	Onions	8 - 12	Whey Powder	15
Durham Wheat	8 - 12	Peanut Butter Powder	4 - 5	White Flour	5
Flax	8 - 12	Pearled Oats	10	White Rice	8 - 10
Fruit	5	Peppers	8 - 12	Whole Wheat Flour	5
Garbanzo Beans	15 - 20	Pink Beans	20 - 30	Yeast	2
Garden Seeds	4	Pinto Beans	20 - 30
Germade	5	Potatoes (flakes, slices, dices)	20 - 30

Predicting actual shelf life of dehydrated foods is not an exact science, however there have been many studies done.  In addition to the above average shelf life of food stored at a constant 70 degrees, you can dramatically increase your life expectancy by lowering the constant temperature.  It is possible to double, triple or even quadriple the shelf life by lowering the temperature proportionally.  Some products, such as seeds, can even be frozen for dramatically increased shelf life.  The basic rule of thumb is to store you food storage in as low of temperature as possible to increase its shelf life and to retain nutritional value. Products that contain yeast (leaven) should be considered as having a shorter shelf life then products that do not contain this ingredient. There are active enzymes in leaven, which create carbon dioxide gas, the same gas used in food storage (dry ice method). The gas is harmless to food. Leaven by itself has a 2 year shelf life (see Yeast above).