Food Waste

[Pete Grey]

(24 May 2022, 04:32)Mortblanc Wrote: Do you think it would be OK for me to open the two cans of sausage I just found in the truck dated 2/07/11.

I hate waste!

Try some out on your neighbours dog .

[bigpaul]

(24 May 2022, 15:37)Pete Grey Wrote:

(24 May 2022, 04:32)Mortblanc Wrote: Do you think it would be OK for me to open the two cans of sausage I just found in the truck dated 2/07/11.

I hate waste!

Try some out on your neighbours dog .

whats that poor dog done to you? let MB be his own guinea pig, he may learn something from the experience.

[Pete Grey]

(24 May 2022, 16:37)bigpaul Wrote:

(24 May 2022, 15:37)Pete Grey Wrote:

(24 May 2022, 04:32)Mortblanc Wrote: Do you think it would be OK for me to open the two cans of sausage I just found in the truck dated 2/07/11.

I hate waste!

Try some out on your neighbours dog .

whats that poor dog done to you? let MB be his own guinea pig, he may learn something from the experience.

MB tried it before, I think it was a tin of stewing steak. I’de rather read MB’s posts than his obituary.

[LAC]

(24 May 2022, 04:32)Mortblanc Wrote: Do you think it would be OK for me to open the two cans of sausage I just found in the truck dated 2/07/11.

I hate waste!

Rotate and replace MB, are you not a prepper?

[Mortblanc]

Some things I will risk, but this sausage was an "off brand" cheap type from a low level retail chain. 11 years past use by date is a bit more than I was willing to risk.

I have eaten name brand canned foods 5-7 years past their date with no effects. The last I used was a can of spam I think. It was fine, tasted normal and gave me no negative effects.

I have opened cans of good quality soup that were past their dates and found that the plastic liner of the can had decomposed and plastic was floating among the noodles and veggies.

I trashed the cans of sausage. They are in the bin.

When my prep goods near their end life dates I usually take them to my daughter. The four grandchildren scarf them down with no problem. My grand daughter told me that last time I did that their mom did not go to the grocery for a month!

They really enjoy it, all the boxes of mac & cheese, flavored rice, vegetables and ramen noodles.

Rotation sounds logical, but for me it does not work. When you are one person and you keep a 6 month supply you simply can not eat enough to keep up with the expiring dates. When I dump the last round on the family I usually go out and buy a 6 month supply of canned and long term storable foods all at once rather than "build them up each week". I will spend a week shopping and shelving.

Besides that, much of the foods I store are not what I eat.

I know that defies prepper logic also. The old store what you eat rule.

I eat mostly fresh foods and I am diabetic, so I avoid carbs and sugars completely. My stored foods are high in carbs, and I consider them survival rations, not daily foods. Beans, rice, pasta, noodles, make up the bulk of it. I would wind up with an A1C level that would put me in a coma if I ate them daily.

I keep them for survival because they keep long term, and in an emergency high carb food is better than no food. The carbs probably will not kill me before I run out of heart meds and die anyway. I keep a 6 month supply of meds.

[bigpaul]

we dont eat a lot of cans, we eat mostly fresh, but apart from some cans of beef we had to throw out years past their date we dont normally have anything that goes overdated, there are only the two of us and we've got maybe 6 months worth of canned food.

[LAC]

(25 May 2022, 02:58)Mortblanc Wrote: Some things I will risk, but this sausage was an "off brand" cheap type from a low level retail chain. 11 years past use by date is a bit more than I was willing to risk.

I have eaten name brand canned foods 5-7 years past their date with no effects. The last I used was a can of spam I think. It was fine, tasted normal and gave me no negative effects.

I have opened cans of good quality soup that were past their dates and found that the plastic liner of the can had decomposed and plastic was floating among the noodles and veggies.

I trashed the cans of sausage. They are in the bin.

When my prep goods near their end life dates I usually take them to my daughter. The four grandchildren scarf them down with no problem. My grand daughter told me that last time I did that their mom did not go to the grocery for a month!

They really enjoy it, all the boxes of mac & cheese, flavored rice, vegetables and ramen noodles.

Rotation sounds logical, but for me it does not work. When you are one person and you keep a 6 month supply you simply can not eat enough to keep up with the expiring dates. When I dump the last round on the family I usually go out and buy a 6 month supply of canned and long term storable foods all at once rather than "build them up each week". I will spend a week shopping and shelving.

Besides that, much of the foods I store are not what I eat.

I know that defies prepper logic also. The old store what you eat rule.

I eat mostly fresh foods and I am diabetic, so I avoid carbs and sugars completely. My stored foods are high in carbs, and I consider them survival rations, not daily foods. Beans, rice, pasta, noodles, make up the bulk of it. I would wind up with an A1C level that would put me in a coma if I ate them daily.

I keep them for survival because they keep long term, and in an emergency high carb food is better than no food. The carbs probably will not kill me before I run out of heart meds and die anyway. I keep a 6 month supply of meds.

Fair enough MB, we each have our own unique way of prepping. I try to keep a variety of foods from dried for the carbs, rice, pasta, beans etc, and dried vegetables for the vitamins, and tinned and frozen meats for protein.

[Mortblanc]

I don't count on any of my prep foods to supply any vitamin content. You never know what you will wind up eating for the day and how much nutrition it will supply. I keep a supply of high potency multi-vitamins to cover that situation.

I don't do dried veg. I use canned/tinned. Tinned veg can be eaten after a quick warm up, or without a warm up. Since it is wet packed there is no additional water needed.

Neither do I consider any of my frozen foods in my prep supply. If the power shuts off for more than a few days they will be ruined. The way I am set up I can keep the freezer contents usable for about a week. My frozen foods are for my convenience now, not to preserve them for emergency use past a few days.

I have seen power outages of more than a week in my area. If I can loose power for a week in the midst of order and plenty then any real disruption of the socio-economic machine might mean the absence of power for months.

I also do not expect, or plan for, three meals a day. That would be a bit much to expect in reality. With no refrigeration there will be no "big batch" cooking and leftovers will spoil rapidly in my climate. They will not last until the next meal.

A can of veg and a box of mac & cheese, rice, or ramen each day, along with whatever meat I can forage, will come very close to the 2000 calorie need to sustain life, and it can be bought cheap and kept forever.

[Joe]

Totally agree MB, I wouldn't be expecting the same diet during a major event, if you can get enough to eat and not starve to death then that is a major bonus.
The key is long term duration without resupply. Covid was a low level event, one day a high level event will hit and most people will be starving after a few weeks.