Category: Food Storage & Cooking

My thanks to R.E.M. for his hard-earned experience on rotating food stocks. Perhaps I can ease his frustration a bit about not reading the packing date of USGI MREs – there is indeed a numbered code packing date on every MRE case, the outside of the newer USGI MRE retort packages and best of all, every individual item in each MRE package. You can go to the www.mreinfo.com web site for the whole story, but to condense the code for you, say you have a four-digit or longer number on the outside of the package – take the first number …

DAK hams were mentioned in a recent article as a good canned meat to store. I agree with this 110%….I’ve actually called and talked to the supervisor of DAK hams in the USA. His name is Ole he is very nice and wonderful to talk too I recommend it… Ole has told me repeatedly that DAK hams will store for at least 5 years at normal room temperatures. Ole also told me how to read the date code on the can. its format is XXXX H or generally that way the first 2 digits are the DAY of the year …

Well, I guess it is safe to say that we have successfully dodged the Y2K bullet (still not completely sure though), which means that a lot of us that implemented food storage programs in its anticipation in 1998 and 1999 are now looking at rotating stock. This, coupled with current events, has me refocused on restocking. I have some tips to share that may be of value to readers that find themselves in a similar position. First, when evaluating how to go about restocking food supplies, consult the Excel spreadsheet that you created when you first started to get serious …

Dear James, My wife and I work long hours and hardly ever cook. We would like to store food but don’t want to rely on anything that has to be cooked. Any suggestions? Thank you, – M.P., Fort Lauderdale, Florida JWR Replies: Although their per ounce/per calorie cost is higher, there are a couple of approaches that I can suggest for your situation: retort packaged cooked entrees (including U.S. military”Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) entrees, and freeze dried Mountain House entrees. Neither require cooking. The retort packaged entrees are “heat and eat.”, while the freeze dried entrees are “just add …

Hello Mr. Rawles : I must say I love your blog and writings as they provide an invaluable service for like minded folks on preparedness!This email is in regards to the absence of dry corn or any corn other than popping corn in your excellent “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, I am wondering if corn is a viable storage food and if not, why? would it be because of short storage life or unsuitable packing methods to retain nutritive value? Or any other reason that I can’t imagine? While looking at the Provident Living site of the LDS they …

Jim: [Regarding A.P.’s letter posted on August 26th] I’m one of those guys who drinks coffee from dawn to dusk, so I was most interested in the thread on coffee storage. I keep 36 large cans of Maxwell House in my cool-storage pantry (60 degrees in the summer, 40 degrees in the winter). I cycle through the supply on a regular basis, taking about a year to go thru entire stock. In a worst-case scenario, I’d cut back to a can a month and would thus have a 3-year stash. Yeah, I know… the Starbucks sippers turn their nose up …

Jim: For years, "Abigail" and I have been canning vegetables from the garden along with beef, fish, venison and bear. Friends or ours were wanting to learn how to can themselves. Last week Kathy and Jeff came over and we processed a bushel of Roma tomatoes into spaghetti sauce. The next evening we canned up the sauce. Since then Kathy on her own has canned up 10 lbs (dry weight) of navy beans and is getting ready to do some hamburger noodle soup. She told me that she had no idea how easy it is to use a pressure cooker …

Mr. Rawles: The way to store coffee long-term is by purchasing green beans and roasting them yourself as you need them. Green beans (whole beans) stay “fresh” for up to a year in a normal container, like a tin or glass jar or foil lined bag. If you completely seal them off from light and oxygen and maybe even nitrogen purge them then they should stay “fresh” indefinitely, well for several years anyway. See the Terroir site below for how they store their green beans. The thing about roasting coffee beans is that they go stale within two weeks after …

Hi Jim I have gone through the “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course twice now and find it to be very good data and will be using it extensively in my preps. Since I am a coffee drinker, I started thinking about how I could store coffee and where I could purchase whole beans in cans. I then thought of a friend of mine that owns a espresso cafe that I go to daily and it turns out that for her espresso and espresso drinks, she uses Illy coffee from Italy. Illy is about as good as it gets and …

Jim: I just came from a Costco in Coeur d’Alene Idaho. I spotted an interesting item on the end cap near the bread isle, 275 servings of individual food packs in a white plastic bucket. 20 year shelf life. Just boil in water for 20 minute. It has the same packaging that you’d expect from a vendor like Ready Made Resources. This from a food packaging company out of Orem, Utah. The price for 275 servings is $109.99. It is labeled ‘Survival Food’, item #104893 so you may want to inquire at your Costco. In each bucket there are 55 …

Jim, Great work on your “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course! For folks wanting to keep beer in their long-term storage supply, the “blue” variety of Chimay (a dark ale made by Trappist monks in Belgium) will store nicely for upwards of 15 years. Even better, my local Costco (in Texas) sells the 750 ml bottles with corks. Regards, – MP