Frozen Items

[funkymonkey]

I'm a big fan of frozen items. Are these not a very good idea for food storage?

[Lbybug]

things might get sticky if you lose power...

[Iggy]

things might get sticky if you lose power...

and rather smelly too-

[WANDERER]

I decided to tally it as:

frozen storage (Non-emergency plan: about 3 months of food. It comes under life preparedness: if you break a bone or whatever you aren't going to be utilising your pantry basics. It's great for bouts of influenza and whatever small things life throws at you. I cycle through the pantry basics using OAMC recipe plans for frozen meals. I think of it as a staple part of planning ahead).

In conjunction with

pantry (Emergency storage: ideally one year. I think it makes sense to aim for at least three months of it in the value of : all it takes is a can opener kind of prep/low water and no energy useage for disaster situations).

[lilered]

The issue concerns having supplies during an emergency or time of need. The problem with freezer/refrigerator items is the easy loss of power for several days during earthquake, hurricane, tornadoes, even thunderstorms or fire. If any of the "Acts of God" occur, then these items will have minimal shelf life. On the other hand, canned and dry goods have a much longer shelf life.

[Hemidakota]

Only if your home has adequate emergency power as to wind, solar power, or large diesel backup generator [having your source supply of fuel - biodiesel]...but I am not a fan of frozen foods except ice cream items. LOL

[AngelaBarbara]

Hi Funky Monkey,

I really like frozen veggies, and we do keep a chest freezer to store a variety of other things as well.

We like it for keeping spices, which we order in bulk from Penzey's. We also buy beef by the side that is locally grown and grass-fed. We also freeze butter for storage. We also store yeast cakes for baking bread, nuts, and gallon-size containers of frozen homemade soups. Instant lunch! Our house has a backup generator that runs on natural gas, so as long as we have that, we're fine.

If you are concerned about power outages, you may want to consider a chest freezer rather than an upright. It is said that these keep the cold in longer during a power interruption. People sometimes are critical of chest freezers because they are hard to organize (remember your childhood toybox?) but Frigidaire makes models (GLFC2027F and others) that have really nifty dividers for the bottom of the freezer so you can actually stack things neatly, even irregularly shaped stuff. I love it!

Technically, I guess freezers aren't good for long-term storage of veggies (about 9 months) or meat (about 1 year) or fish (about 6 months), but they are good for long-term storage of yeast, butter, nuts, and spices. I like the convenience of not running out of stuff (hmmm....like the time last month when I was having a large group for dinner, ran out of arborio rice (!) and found out the store was out of it, too! Ack, ack!) and not having to run to the store just because I need some butter and forgot it at the grocery store last week. Plus, you can buy stuff like butter when the stores have it on special.

Edited August 28, 2008 by AngelaBarbara