Rotating emergency food stocks

[jansman]

I will not budge from my point of view when it comes to food waste,but I suppose if folks have money to waste,that is up to them.I would suggest donating in-code food to a foodbank... However,my food storage is NOT ' emergency ' storage.It is food storage,my hedge against bad times.My grandparents knew bad times,and kept a broad pantry.They never considered it to be ' emergency ' storage though.They knew they would eat it. We know we will eat ours.

Here at Chez Jansman,we use a lot of canned food.We eat a lot of fresh too,after all I cultivate an extensive garden,fowls and rabbits.Canned and dried food is not to everyone's taste that is true.But it isn't crap! Nutritionally it is pretty sound.True,some items may carry a lot of salt or sugar,but there are ' low ' options. Of course this is a current issue with many foods,not just tinned.

http://www.cannedfood.co.uk/canny-facts/

Some years ago I attended a lecture organised by the National Butchers Federation.The speaker was the ( then) owner of Bejam,which became Iceland.That shows how long ago! At that time,people were getting a bit snooty about the nutritional value of frozen foods as opposed to ' fresh'.He highlighted the time it took to harvest and transport to shops,and the drop in food value as a result.Peas were his topic,as a good example.If I remember correctly,harvest,process and freezing was ( is) done in about three hours.Fresh veg can be on the road for days,so not at its best when sold.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... features18

Stricly speaking of course,onions,spuds,root veg,apples,pears are not ' fresh',they are stored until needed. They are refrigerated and gas- flushed,which is rather energy- intensive.But hey,that's a by - product of human existence!Back in the day,those things would have been clamped,or layed on racks in insulated buildings.

Food preservation has happened since the year Dot.It is only recently - very recently - that we have been able to truck produce in out of season,and even that produce often undergoes some form of treatment so it can ' travel'.

[Bosworth]

Thanks Jansman.

To clarify: I was in no way suggesting that all tinned food is crap. It’s just the stuff that I have is - cheapest of cheap stuff!

[jansman]

Thanks Jansman.

To clarify: I was in no way suggesting that all tinned food is crap. It’s just the stuff that I have is - cheapest of cheap stuff!

To be fair,I don't think that because it's cheap,it is as nutritionally worse than a dearer option.A baked bean,is a baked bean.Sure,the sauce may contain more salt or sugar,but the bean is the same,and so too the canning process.We buy supermarket own brand,low salt/ sugar for instance.I find the Heinz brand too sweet,even though it is market leader.

[Arzosah]

Bosworth, can I suggest that if you have enough money to literally throw the food away, throw it away before its out of date, and donate it? Would you have a problem with that?

[Bosworth]

Hi. I wouldn’t be against the idea but most of my food preps are built up over a long time. Refreshing them early enough to be useful to others would need a fairly chunky investment and far more active management than I have time for.

For example, next time I refresh a box it’s likely one of these listed below will go. I always try and find room, but I can’t take over the whole house...

If the world fell apart today I would be perfectly happy eating any of this stuff, if it was not spoiled, hence keeping it for as long as possible.

Apologies for the poor formatting - cut and paste from pretty word documents doesn’t work on the forum...


Mixed Food Box
4x

Qty Weight Type Description Expiry
1x 2,600 g Tin Fruit Cocktail Dec 2015
1x 280 g Dry Smash mash potato (9 servings) Jul 2012
20x 108 g Dry Pasta’n’sauce
- 5x Macaroni Cheese
- 5x Cheese leek and ham
- 5x Chicken & mushroom
- 5x Cheese & broccoli)
Jan 2015
2x 500 g Dry Pasta (shapes) 2015
1x 500 g Dry Pasta (spaghetti) 2015
5x 500 g Dry Risotto rice Mar 2015
10x 80 g Dry Noodles – chicken Oct 2014
2x 454 g Tin Irish Stew Aug 2016
2x 454 g Tin Chicken & Vegetable curry Jun 2016
2x 454 g Tin Sausage Casserole Oct 2015
5x 454 g Tin Meatballs in tomato sauce Jul 2016
2x 454 g Tin Hotdogs (8) Sep 2016
2x 454 g Tin Chunky Chicken in white sauce Sep 2016
2x 200 g Tin Ham Jun 2014
1x 300 g Tin Spam 2016
1x 300 g Tin Pork 2016
1x 300 g Tin Salmon 2016
1x 454 g Tin Peas Jun 2013
1x 454 g Tin Ravioli Jan 2013
1x 51 g Wrapped Chicken stock cubes (6) Sep 2015
1x 375 ml Jar Dark Soy Feb 2015
1x 150 g Dry Vegetable Spelt Mar 2014
2x 40 g Dry Onions Jun 2015
2x 50 g Dry Mixed vegetables Apr 2015
1x 454 g Dry Skimmed Milk Powder (~8 pints) Sep 2014
Other Miscellaneous extra bits for padding
- Pasta’n’sauce etc.
- Extra tins etc.
1x Tin opener
END. October 2013

[jansman]

Watch your tinned fruit. I have had tins of it leak before expiry. Acid ate through the tin!

On the subject of rotation and wastage, I think folks will start getting a bit more canny in general. We have been warned of price increases by industry etc. We have just done our weekly online Tesco shop. Pretty much the same stuff each week. We normally spend £70 and that includes cleaning stuff, toiletries, cat and dog food. It was just over £8 more! The brown sliced bread we eat has gone up from 50p to 59p as an example. That is a huge percentage increase.

[Arzosah]

Bosworth - sorry to hear it's a no-go.

Watch your tinned fruit. I have had tins of it leak before expiry. Acid ate through the tin!

Bleep! Okay, useful to know, thanks jansman most of my fruit is dried, but I do have some tins.

On the subject of rotation and wastage, I think folks will start getting a bit more canny in general. We have been warned of price increases by industry etc. We have just done our weekly online Tesco shop. Pretty much the same stuff each week. We normally spend £70 and that includes cleaning stuff, toiletries, cat and dog food. It was just over £8 more! The brown sliced bread we eat has gone up from 50p to 59p as an example. That is a huge percentage increase.

Individual products can go up by huge amounts for no outward rhyme or reason (that I can ever see, anyway ) but your total increase, in a pretty regular shopping basket, is really important, and really horrendous I still have a few stock things I need to buy - pickled onions, dried tatties, an odd mix - but I'm really glad I've already done the bulk of it.

As far as rotating my own stocks goes, I don't rotate after every shop - more like every six months. Because I only stock what I eat, that doesn't cause me problems (though at the moment, the split peas and lentils I'm using are BBE June 2018, with going away in bits and bobs last year I got a bit disorganised).

[jansman]

Everything seemed to have 5 to 10p extra on it.Cat food particularly.Interesting times ahead methinks.

[itsybitsy]

Everything seemed to have 5 to 10p extra on it.Cat food particularly.Interesting times ahead methinks.

Loo roll in Sainsbury, gone up from £3.50 to £3.85 in the past three weeks.

[Bosworth]

Watch your tinned fruit. I have had tins of it leak before expiry. Acid ate through the tin!

Interesting. I haven’t looked in these boxes for 6 months or so. I did move them and couldn’t see any obvious signs of leakage. I’ll make a note to check at next rotation. Might even open them up and have a taste