1 year food supply


kartvines
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You do have to compare prices. Things at the cannery are not always the best price. For instance, my mom recently went to buy peaches. She thought the price per can was a little high, so she looked around town and found a better price for cans of Del Monte brand peaches.

If you have a church farm nearby, however, always look at what they're selling. I can't get better fruit prices anywhere else and we live in orchard country. I recently got apples for 25 cents a pound. Unfortunately they're selling less and less every year, because almost everything has to go to the cannery for welfare, not even to sell.

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Also you want to look at the long term storage shelf life. If purchasing canned peaches..they will have a shorter shelf life than if you were to purchase dehydrated or freeze dried. Sometimes paying a bit more for longer shelf life is worth it.

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Compare the per serving price. Canned peaches do have a LONG shelf life- BUT they are canned in surgery syrup.

I have 1/2 case of canned in light syrup. The light syrup can be used to sweeten Quick Cook Oatmeal. Husband and I prefer oatmeal with out milk. I like mine with fruit - frozen, freeze dried or canned. Also in a bug out situation, the syrup can be a good quick pick me up, or for me a comfort food.

Walmart sells some items in #10 cans. I have yet to try the scrambled eggs, or the whole eggs. What absolutely blows my mind is they have powdered HONEY!! When I have the extra money, I am getting me this, just to try it out. If it isn't good reconstituted, then I will add it when I make bread. Fresh ground whole wheat & honey bread. MMMMmmmm sounds good to me. Or to the oatmeal.

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Compare the per serving price. Canned peaches do have a LONG shelf life- BUT they are canned in surgery syrup.

Long is subjective. My mom gave me a case of peaches for my food storage years ago. Last time I moved, I found out they had eaten through the cans and everything was mold. If you are wanting them for the long haul, I still recommend going dehydrated or freeze dried.

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I only count on my home-canned peaches being okay for 4-5 years at very most. They start getting brown, so at very least not as appealing. We go through them fast enough though that it's not a problem. A big part of food storage is storing what you eat. . . and eating it. You don't buy food storage once. You keep buying and rotate through it.

On that note, we're on our last #10 of Potato Pearls. Sad. :(

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I guess I have another question, being I am now widowed, and all of the cans are the #10, it concerns me, once the can has been opened the self life diminished quickly, so it seem to loose it overall value, doe anyone have any feedback on this matter?

The freezer can be used as a stop gap to prevent some items in cans from going bad before you use them. Or to help leftovers keep until you can get through them. For instance you can freeze the peaches left over from making a small cobbler or fruit salad or what ever it is you are using them for. If it's a dried item, such as dehydrated fruit/beans/potatoes you can either get a vacuum sealer on the remainder or try your best with a zip top bag, a straw, and store that in the freezer.

If the above doesn't work, or doesn't work for all items, it seems like moving to smaller cans may be a good idea for you. Sure the per unit cost is cheaper for larger cans but if you're throwing a lot of it away then you aren't saving anything. A large part depends on your tolerance for similar meals/leftovers. If you can think of meals using hydrated beans or canned corn for a week or more without looking forward to meal time with dread it'll be easier to do if by day three the thought of more corn is making you gag*. One suggestion might be if you can find someone else in your situation of having large cans and small food needs and doing some swapping. If you can swap half a #10 can of corn with #10 of green beans (or potato flakes with refried beans) then that makes things easier.

*I'm a creature of habit, I could have burritos for lunch for a week straight and be fine. However, if you're like my wife the idea of the same meal, or even just a meal based around refried beans for a week may make you quail.

Edited by Dravin
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The freezer can be used as a stop gap to prevent some items in cans from going bad before you use them. <<snip>> If it's a dried item, such as dehydrated fruit/beans/potatoes you can either get a vacuum sealer on the remainder or try your best with a zip top bag, a straw, and store that in the freezer. <<snip>>

You really don't want to put freeze dried/dehydrated in the freezer. There is no need to. Once you open a #10 can- portion out the remainder, and gently vacuum seal it. I did onion flakes, celery dices, green pepper dices, broccoli buds, cauliflower buds - freeze dried ones and vacuumed sealed them to the maxim. It forced them into hard blocks. Now I can only use them as flavorings, because I vacuumed sealed away their shape. Makes really tasty soups, stews, even gravies.

Food that is liquid is better for the freezer. Before I remarried, I would make a meat loaf. I would divide into thirds, vacuum seal two of those thirds and eat the other. I love cold meat loaf sandwich- but not for three or more days running. Also when re-heating cooked meats, doing so in liquid broth barely covering the meat, keeps the meat from drying out. Same for freezing cooked meats- even in a vacuum seal - cover with broth, freeze then re-seal in a vacuum seal bag.

I also would make up corned beef dinners - complete with boiled potatoes, cooked cabbage/onions/carrots. Freeze them in flat containers, covered with the broth it was cooked in, then once frozen transfer them into vacuum seal bags. Nuke till hot, or they can be placed in a pot of boiling water but that takes longer to heat up.

Being a single woman this was the easiest way to feed the missionaries. I also did lasagna, meat roast w/roasted potatoes/carrots, cover with gravy, then freeze in container, transfer to vacuum seal bags.

Dehydrated and freeze dried products can be sealed in lightly vacuumed sealed bags and then stored back into the cans and put on the shelf. Dehydrated carrot dices vacuum seal tight with no miss-shaping. Same for the #10 cans of Brownie mix, muffin mix, beef & chicken broth.

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You really don't want to put freeze dried/dehydrated in the freezer. There is no need to.

Freezers are low moisture environments, lower moisture than most other areas of the house at least. In my experience if you're just using a zip top bag it'll leak with respect to air. Vacuum sealer pouches do a better job of not leaking and I agree there isn't much point to putting them in the freezer if they're dehydrated food items.

Edited by Dravin
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Gnerally the wet-pack items available thru the Church are equal to the higher-end brands at the grocery store.

If you were to open a cann of Church Pork & Beans & a can of the local budget generic store brand, there is a very visible difference (bean size for 1) & if you sample them together a taste difference .... not sure you'd really ever notice the difference without having them side-by-side.

Personally, for us, the price difference is not worth it. We don't mind the generic store brands & they are what we are use to, so it doesn't make sense to buy most the church wet-pack products.

Dry-pack products, some of them have some definate advantages both cost & taste!

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