how long to keep canned goods

[baymule]

I am fully convinced that the folks who always have a clean house and especially a clean orderly kitchen, just don't use it much. My DH's friend has a spotless house, and they spend a lot of time cleaning, but don't cook, eat out every meal, and have no hobbies or projects. And no kids. Guess that's living for them, but I would rather have some stuff going on in my house!

I know people like that. I am not "one of them" lol. I am "one of us" What kind of house it is that doesn't have signs of life?? Or big dogs sprawled in the floor? Or a basket of potatoes in the kitchen floor? Or that blob of chicken crap that stuck on my flip flop just long enough to fall off inside the door? And on it goes.......

 

[moolie]

This is sort of off-topic, but I have been thinking about ripping out the shower stall in the laundry room/bathroom, and putting shelving for a pantry in there. But it is close to the commode, and I don't know if that is appropriate in any way. There could be a wall left there, coming out as far as the commode sticks out, but it would still be in the same room. We haven't used that shower but about twice in 20 years. (Have two others) I guess if it didn't get used for canned goods, it could still be used for small appliances, canning supplies, cleaning supplies, etc. It is crammed full of stuff now, with the shower door closed! (another bad homemaker disaster) Does anybody see a pattern here?

If you enclose the space, say with closet doors, I wouldn't worry about it

Is it possible to just build shelves inside the actual shower stall? That would be a ready-made pantry closet!

I am fully convinced that the folks who always have a clean house and especially a clean orderly kitchen, just don't use it much. My DH's friend has a spotless house, and they spend a lot of time cleaning, but don't cook, eat out every meal, and have no hobbies or projects. And no kids. Guess that's living for them, but I would rather have some stuff going on in my house!

Our front living room/dining room is always kept clean, mostly because I have clients come to my home business, but also because we need a little oasis of sanity in our life. The rest of the house usually has a bit of clutter due to ongoing projects/books being read etc. and the kitchen is constantly in use (teenagers).

So I wouldn't be too quick to judge people who keep at least the more "public" areas of their home clean and tidy--for me it's a necessity both for my business as well as to just have a tidy place to sit and read.

 

[so lucky]

moolie, I have no doubt that if I came into your house, I would know someone lives there. I'm talking about the people whose homes--closets and all-- look just like the showroom floor. On the other hand, when I worked, I had to go into people's houses as part of my case management. I saw some horrible nasty sights, unfit for the children I had as clients. I guess I am just super sensitive to peoples' homes reflecting certain things about their personalities and values. I agree that a clean oasis in your home is soothing and necessary, and I do appreciate a clean house. Just......you know.......? Moderation is good....

 

[Hinotori]

I am fully convinced that the folks who always have a clean house and especially a clean orderly kitchen, just don't use it much. My DH's friend has a spotless house, and they spend a lot of time cleaning, but don't cook, eat out every meal, and have no hobbies or projects. And no kids. Guess that's living for them, but I would rather have some stuff going on in my house!

I know people like that. I am not "one of them" lol. I am "one of us" What kind of house it is that doesn't have signs of life?? Or big dogs sprawled in the floor? Or a basket of potatoes in the kitchen floor? Or that blob of chicken crap that stuck on my flip flop just long enough to fall off inside the door? And on it goes.......

Have you been sneaking in my house to sleep?! LMAO That is how our place is. Except the chicken poop on the floor. The dogs would have eaten it already and licked the sandals clean.

Mom keeps on me about the dogs living in the house. She goes on and on about how my grandmother and great aunt never had dogs living in the house, and how unsanitary it is. I tell her they keep us healthy. I don't have all the allergy issues she does. Oh and the horror, they get on the bed after hubby gets up! I've woken up to a heavy weight next to me thinking it was hubby and wondering why he wasn't at work, only to find the german shepherd laying next to me.

This is sort of off-topic, but I have been thinking about ripping out the shower stall in the laundry room/bathroom, and putting shelving for a pantry in there. But it is close to the commode, and I don't know if that is appropriate in any way. There could be a wall left there, coming out as far as the commode sticks out, but it would still be in the same room. We haven't used that shower but about twice in 20 years. (Have two others) I guess if it didn't get used for canned goods, it could still be used for small appliances, canning supplies, cleaning supplies, etc. It is crammed full of stuff now, with the shower door closed! (another bad homemaker disaster) Does anybody see a pattern here?

I think I'd rip out the shower and put in a wall. Put shelves inside and a nice wide pocket door so I could open it wide to get to said shelves easily. No worries about the toilet then. It can't splash on anything then. You could just store non food things if it bothers you. I keep all the paper towels and toilet paper in the bathroom in my storage space behind the shower. Nothing can get there, and the paper towels are in plastic that gets removed anyway. We have a small house so I use what space I have.



On the keeping canned food topic. We ate home canned food that was many years old when I was a kid. As long as it hadn't changed color, wasn't leaking, had no rust, and the air rushed in, mom would serve it. Now this was all fruits, juices, and pickles. I remember the gallons and gallons of raisins when mom made way to much one year because of a bumper crop. Those were in plastic bags stored in plastic tubs. 10 years later we were still eating on those things.

Store cans would be kept and used unless they bulged (toss), rusted (toss), or the contents looked odd when opened (toss).

Stuff got lost in the back of mom's cabinets all the time, and we couldn't tell how old it was. So open it up and try it!

I remember dad bringing home C rations and MCI rations in the 80s from the Army depot where he worked. We would eat those as long as they didn't look really weird.

 

[k15n1]

I am fully convinced that the folks who always have a clean house and especially a clean orderly kitchen, just don't use it much. My DH's friend has a spotless house, and they spend a lot of time cleaning, but don't cook, eat out every meal, and have no hobbies or projects. And no kids. Guess that's living for them, but I would rather have some stuff going on in my house!

That's been my observation, too. To some extent, I want my house to be inviting and clean, but it doesn't ever look like a furniture catalog.

 

[k15n1]

No idea on the commercially canned food, we don't buy it. It is recommended that you use up your home-canned food within a year of canning, but when I was growing up my Mom had canned fruit that in some cases was 4-5 years old that was just fine. It's not the edibility that becomes an issue over time, but the loss of nutrients and possibly taste. That said, I've read that home canned food can be good up to 10 years and more

I've heard this from lots of sources and given the same advice, but I do wonder about it. What chemistry goes on in a sterile jar that's kept cool and dark? Do the contents actually become less nutritous or just look gross? I imagine that it depends very much on the item. Does anyone have a source that addresses this? So far, I haven't found anything reliable.

Tin cans, on the other hand, just don't last forever. I've heard that shelf life can be very short, around 1 year, especially for acidic foods, like tomatoes. It also depends on the quality of the surface treatment of the metal before it was made into a can, but there's no way for us to figure that out. The good thing is that you can easily see if a can is rusty inside or out and discard it. At 0.30 $/can (14.5 oz cans?) it's a good deal, about 1/3 price in southern MN. You almost can't go wrong. if 1 in 3 cans go bad, it's still half-price food.

 

[moolie]

Food spoils. Nothing you can do about it

Whether you freeze it or can it or even dry it, there are still enzymes plugging away doing their job of "ripening" the plant, which eventually leads to rot. A plant's only job in life is to reproduce to keep the species going.

Same thing with meat/fur/leather--it rots eventually--and when it comes to food, meat loses nutrients, texture, flavour etc. over time no matter how it is preserved. Nothing stays good and edible forever, at the very least you have a constant, albeit slow, process of degradation.

So yes, the contents first become less nutritious, then eventually become unfit for consumption. Just a natural process that we can try to slow down by various food preservation methods, but never completely halt

 

[k15n1]

You're right that the food degrades but I like knowing how and why.

Enzymes are generally inactivated by heating to modest temperatures, dry conditions, pH, etc. But there's probably other complicated chemistry involved. We all know to store our jars out of the sunlight, in a cood place. This prevents photochemistry from taking place and lower temperatures reduce the rate of all chemical reactions. Most of what I've found on the interwebs is either overly-cautious rhetoric (1 year) or is empirical, from more or less reliable sources. I wish I knew how to find more information... I even looked on PubMed and couldn't find anything. I don't even know what the search terms I should use.

 

[~gd]

Lol, Grandmas huh! I like my story better--you should totally use it!

Right moolie because everyone knows that solders and sailors used to carry large sealed cans of candy to USO dances and elsewhere in hopes that they could find a female with a can opener!

 

[the funny farm6]

Lol, Grandmas huh! I like my story better--you should totally use it!

Right moolie because everyone knows that solders and sailors used to carry large sealed cans of candy to USO dances and elsewhere in hopes that they could find a female with a can opener!