Food Storage vs. Food Rotation
December 1st, 2009 by Lee Bradshaw
This last week was very busy and heartbreaking. My family has been helping a older couple clean out their food storage room. It is huge, 21′X 16′, with cement floor, walls and ceiling. It is amazing the time and effort these folks have gone through to be prepared in a time of emergency. It was wall to wall food.
Now here is the heartbreaking part: As we started cleaning out this room we found that over 75% of it had to be thrown away. There was food that was bottled in 1960. There were 5 gallon metal buckets of honey that had rusted through the bottoms and leaked all over the floor. Can goods that were bulging and ready to burst.
As an organization that prides our selves as saving food and not letting it go to waste, it was a sad week. But as I told my wife, this stuff in these bottles ceased being food long ago. Yes, they have found food stored by the Egyptians that is still edible, but this wasn’t. Bottled food is best if used within three years. Fpur years should be the max. I don’t see this as a problem because we should be eating the food that we are storing. Many experts have said that storing whole wheat for the future is a grave mistake unless we start using whole wheat today to make our bread.
Now why does that make sense? I’ll tell you why: we need to change our diet slowly starting today so that when we have to rely solely on our food storage, our bodies are used to processing it. Otherwise, we are going to bloat up and have serious health issues when we try to force our bodies to process only whole grains. We have conditioned ourselves to use processed garbage foods for fuel. It’s foolishness to think we will be able to instantly convert to a higher food source without serious injury, when our systems are not acclimatized! These whole grains are great for our bodies but it will shock our systems if we don’t change over time.
It would be my suggestion that people store what they eat and then rotate what they have stored. And of course learn to eat good whole foods.
- 1 Comment »
- Posted in Harvest Journal, Tips
I agree completely Lee. I see this a great deal of the time with older people–my grandfather for example. He still has wheat barrel from the 70’s and when i tried to help him move them from the garage, several broke open across the floor.
To test the wheat (mainly to prove it had no food value) I offered to ’sprout’ some of the wheat as proof. None of it would sprout, even after weeks of attempts. It was dead food and if I understand correctly, it would not sustain me or my family should we try to partake of it.
My wife Kathi grinds her wheat and all my girls (I have seven daughters) make fresh bread for our family. I appreciate the article.