Another year and another chance to express our thanks for this amazing place we still inhabit.
The crew here is truly an exceptional cross-section of society and skills.
Thanks!
Food storage review
My co-worker Ben, God rest his soul, bought one of those year’s worth of canned and freeze-dried food packages. When he had to sell his house and move into a nursing home, he sold what was left of it to me. The freeze-dried stuff advertises as good for 30 years. Every now and then, I pull a can and make sure it’s still edible, and I’ve added to the pile.
So I have not been paid for this review, but if any of these companies want to send me food, I’m all for it.
Most of the cans are Mountain House, and it has been a good brand with consistent quality. I prefer the canned components (beef crumbles, peas, potato cubes, etc.) over the all-in-one meals, but that’s personal preference. The biggest surprise was Yoder’s canned bacon – holy cow, this is good. This is also kind of a two-fer; oil doesn’t store for very long without going rancid, but I have saved the grease from the canned bacon and cooked with it. (Coconut oil is supposed to store longer than other oils.) Another good product is Ova-Easy whole egg crystals. I have used this to make a breakfast casserole for company, and no one could tell it wasn’t made with fresh eggs. Red Feather canned butter and canned cheese are very good. The canned “processed cheese” is kinda like cheddar, kinda like Velveeta, and makes a good grilled cheese sammich.
Question du jour: does the food in pop-top cans last as long as the more solid cans? Seems like it would be more susceptible to air leaks.
Another winner is Bridgford shelf stable foods. They make sammiches with barbecued beef or chicken, like Hot Pockets but flatter, and also cinnamon buns and “french toast”. Mr. RFH likes these when hiking (not a euphemism). The Bridgford foods are sort of like MREs – heavy plastic packaging, good for 5 years or so. Speaking of which, the current batch of MREs is A-pack Ready Meal, and they are fine except they like Skittles a lot more than I do and these meals are heavy on the carbs.
Side note: the meal warmers with iron where you open the plastic bag and expose it to air? Those have a shorter shelf life than the meal warmers with magnesium where you add the little packet of salt water. Those will burn ya if you’re not careful.
Some of the other brands – Provident Pantry, Saratoga Farms, Augason Farms, Honeyville. Haven’t tried the Provident Pantry yet. Saratoga Farms makes a really good broccoli cheddar soup that I ended using as a sauce for a chicken and broccoli casserole. They also make one of the grossest things ever, the Mountain Man Stew. I blame the “textured vegetable protein” for this weird soup, so I avoid anything with TVP in it now. Augason Farms stopped selling from their website but are supposed to be found in stores like Sam’s and even Home Depot? Honeyville sells flour, oats, corn, etc. and is supposed to be a good deal for almond flour, though a quick glance showed a lot of things out of stock.
I can’t speak for the Wise Foods or Patriot Foods type of food storage. I would think that would fall under all-in-one meals and may be carb-heavy, which can be a good thing if you are burnin’ the calories.
One thing I have had difficulty storing is anything with nuts. Jarred peanut butter does last for a while, but mixed nuts, peanut butter crackers, and cereal with almonds just don’t last much past the expiration date, no matter what I do. The other difficulty is milk. To me, Carnation powdered milk starts off sour. I can bake with it, but I can’t drink it. I bought some Nestle Nido powder but haven’t tried it yet. Also, canned evaporated milk is good but has limited storage time before it starts yellowing.
On a final note, don’t forget the spices, the baking needs, and either stored water or a water source and filter for all the reconstituting.
This post is a uniter, not a divider…..
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The Official Sports Team of The Hostages
Honorary Hostage David Thorne – Epic E-mail Exchange
Get TITS2 & The H2 Stuff
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