Jim,
I apologize if you’ve already covered this in previous archives – I searched several, but not all, of your blog archives. I did see your comment, “Wheat stores for 20+ years…” I have a LOT of wheat purchased in 1979 after reading Howard Ruff’s “How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years.” I have other items – Navy and other types of beans. It is by Neo-Life, “NEST” storage, “Nitro-Guard” protection – it was stored in #10 cans purged with with nitrogen. So it is all 25+ years old. I have been storing this stuff in my basement, which is cool and mostly dry, on 2×4’s up off the floor. I keep the humidity below 40% with a de-humidifier. My question is, have these items lost enough of their nutrition value to where it would be a waste of time trying to use them? My wife wants to throw it all out, and I probably will, unless you someone can point me to a source that would say this stuff is probably still good to use. Surprisingly, “Google” has failed me this time – I spent several hours looking for an answer, to no avail (I have used Google for literally hundreds of searches and it almost always gets the information I need.) What do you think? – Mike from Chicago
JWR Replies: Some items like salt will store for centuries as long as they are not contaminated by the rust or decay of their containers. If stored dry, hard red winter wheat still retains 98% of it nutritive value after 20 years. Ditto for sugar or honey. Most dehydrated foods, (such as rice, beans, TVP, and the ubiquitous Neo-Life Stroganoff) will have lost too much nutritive value to be useful after 27 years, even if they were nitrogen packed. They might still be palatable, but unless you are dieting, what is the use of eating them if they have lost 90% of their nutritive value? My advice: If in doubt, throw it out. Ideally, you should continuously rotate your storage food to avoid such waste. If nothing else, mark the cans/cases of your subsequent batches of storage food, so that you can religiously use the oldest lots first.
One tidbit of trivia for you: Some wheat that was found in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. A small fraction of it still sprouted after 2,600 years. If you have any canned gardening seeds, try them out. The sprouting yields will be low, but there could be some marginal utility there. Just don’t expend too much effort tilling and tending those those rows in your garden! BTW, the same logic applies to canned sprouting seeds.