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Saturday, July 25, 2009

Let him eat cake

Ever wonder how long canned goods really last?

I'm not suggesting that you start eating 36-year-old food, but check out this article from CNN. Made me think about my food storage! Maybe I could get by without rotating regularly?? Umm... yeah, maybe so, but that's not a chance I want to take!

I'm curious.... What is the oldest thing in your food storage? Mine is probably some white flour canned in #10 cans. I believe it's from 1995 or 1996. Not too bad!

8 comments:

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

I bought some shortening powder back in 1979....it remains unopened...kind of like a time capsule.
I also have some Spam from 1997 cause I just don't think the flavor can get worse.

Love this site!

Anonymous said...

sort of reminds me of twinkies--there's no nutritional value in it to begin with. I'm still going to rotate my food storage.

Anonymous said...

Gee, I think the oldest item in my food storage is from about 2003. It's honey, so I'm not concerned about not eating it right away.
I think my MIL has some Twinkies that must be about 7 years old. I think they have a shelf life of about 1000 years...so they should be fine for a long while yet. *wink*

Joyce

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Beth said...

My in-laws gave us wheat that is 30 years old. Wheat doesn't go bad if stored correctly. It is probably more organic (without pesticides) that what we canned up at the church 5 years ago. I have made many loaves of bread from the old stuff and it is fine.

Anonymous said...

Our oldest would have to be Mountain House freeze dried in #10 cans that I bought in 1980. We open the cans on occasion and use them for regular meals. The quality is still excellent. That has made me a serious fan of Mountain House.

We Are A Happy Family said...

Our oldest item is a soup mix that we got from the church cannery about 8 years ago. We hated it and did not want to make soup from it again. we are now slowly using it by grinding it into our wheat flour. it adds a great flavor to our bread.

You might want to try the white flour you have saved. White flour goes rancid after awhile. It makes for nasty cookies.

CheerfulHeart2 said...

My understanding is BYU did some studies on old stuff...and as I recall, the answer came back that the taste will go before it is completely devoid of nutritional value. Even those twinkies provide calories...and if you are starving...calories are good!

I have dried beans from 1991. They cook up nicely, without soaking, in the sun oven with ham soup seasoning.