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Long shelf life foods
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Rockrivr1
NES Member
I have a bucket of freeze dried rice as part of our food kit. It supposedly only good for 5 years. Not sure I buy that. How exactly would it go bad? I can see a decrease in its nutritional value going down over the years, but not so I’d throw it out.
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If that is cooked rice that has been freeze dried, I would think uncooked rice stored in a mylar container with maybe an oxygen absorber, and maybe dessicant would have a longer shelf life.
The food being ok is only part of it. The 5 years is how long the manufacturer is comfortable guarantying the packaging will resist contamination. I've eaten MREs years past their expiration and new ones, and can't tell the difference, but in the field the package will take a beating and at some point fail.
I have white rice (uncooked) stored in Mylar w/O2 in 5gal pails almost 17 years. Still good. If the rice is only in a plastic bucket and not Mylar, it will go bad a lot faster because plastic buckets do not block oxygen. They are permeable and O2 will migrate through the bucket. This is why Mylar is important.
ChevyGuy91
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Anyone do anything with beans? I made red beans and rice this weekend from dried beans and it was not as hard as I thought, and delicious.
How shelf stable are dried beans? Should they be repackaged in mylar, or is the packaging from the store sufficient? A 1lbs bag of beans is a lot more space efficient, especially if I can just fill a 5gal bucket with them.
How shelf stable are dried beans? Should they be repackaged in mylar, or is the packaging from the store sufficient? A 1lbs bag of beans is a lot more space efficient, especially if I can just fill a 5gal bucket with them.
They will last a while in a 5gal bucket no Mylar. Prob 5-7 years.
Just in the store packaging they will absorb the moisture in the air and eventually mold because of this. Maybe 3 years if you kept them in a low humidity spot with temp control.
Mylar without a bucket would be better than a bucket alone. The only real reason to bucket Mylar is to keep rodents out and prevent handling damage.
Just in the store packaging they will absorb the moisture in the air and eventually mold because of this. Maybe 3 years if you kept them in a low humidity spot with temp control.
Mylar without a bucket would be better than a bucket alone. The only real reason to bucket Mylar is to keep rodents out and prevent handling damage.
strangenh
NES Member
Right. Even if they don't develop mold, there's issues with old dry beans. Really old beans become difficult to rehydrate by cooking. A basic soak-and-cook won't work. Generally my experience is that a hot soak, then draining, and then cooking them in a pressure cooker works for even really old beans.
