Friday (well, Saturday) Food Storage Quickie: A Bit Late

Sharon October 4th, 2008

Hi Everyone - Sorry for the delay in yesterday’s food storage quickie. 

Let’s look over what we’ve added to food storage so far - we’ve added Popcorn (which can be used for grinding or popped), pasta (which nearly everyone will/can eat, since there are varieties made with almost everything), dried fruit, orange vegetables, legumes, salt and spices.  Right now, whether you’ve been using this as a supplement to your usual food storage, or if you’ve just been getting started, you probably have a reasonably balanced diet.  Still, there are some important gaps.  So let’s focus on two of them, flour and fat.

Most people in the US are accustomed to eating bread quite regularly.  Some of us are accustomed to it because we derive from wheat-based staple cultures, such as large chunks of Europe and the middle east, as well as Northern China.  In cultures not far removed from their staple foods, bread is part of most or all meals.  And most of us who derive from other cultures, but have lived any length of time in the US have also become accustomed to enjoying breads, biscuits, buns, noodles, wheat cereals, etc…. quite regularly.  Even those who can’t eat wheat products often find it hard to do without a non-wheat equivalent.

So the question of how you will get your daily bread becomes a non-trivial one. Add to that the importance of other baked goods in celebratory occasions, and most of us will want to have some source of flour.  There are several ways you can do this.

The simplest is to buy long storing, unbleached wheat flour and store as much as you might want.  White flour lasts pretty much forever if protected from insects and moisture.  So you could buy a lot of 10 or 25lb bags of white flour, packaged them securely and store them as long as you want.

The problem, of course is that white flour really isn’t that good for you - it fact, it is pretty rotten.  And since your family may be relying on this for basic nutrition, there are real issues with this.

The next possibility is that you could go and buy whole wheat flour.  The problem is that once whole grains are ground, they begin to oxidize.  After a certain point - a matter of months - they begin to go rancid.  Rancid oils in grain can both make it taste bad and cause stomach problems and also contain free radicals that can cause cancer.  This is not good - and some people can tell whether grains are rancid, while others can’t.  So generally speaking it is probably not wise to keep whole grain wheat flour for more than 6-12 months.  So you could buy a year’s supply of wheat flour, if you were to be very disciplined about using it or giving it away, but this requires more attention and maintenence than you might ideally want.  You have to make sure you rotate it, you have to pay attention to the timing, you must use it up - and if you are eating less bread now than you imagine you might in tougher times, it can be rough to use it.  You could give it away, of course, but not all of us can afford to donate a large chunk of our yearly staples.

So there’s another choice - this is to get a grain grinder (I’ve done reviews of grinders here: http://sharonastyk.com/2008/03/18/tools-part-ii-grain-mills/) and purchase whole wheat.  Whole wheat, properly stored, stores for 30 years or more.  And fresh ground flour is much, much tastier than anything you will get anywhere else.  The down side is that since you will probably want a grinder that works even if there is no power, you do have to spend some time and a bit of effort to get your flour, and it does take some practice to learn to bake well with all whole grains.  So many of us will probably take a middle course - we will store some whole grain flours, some white flour perhaps to lighten up our bread and make an occasional treat, and some whole wheat as well.

Where do you get these?  Well, white and whole wheat flours can be bought almost everywhere that food is sold - and if you are really struggling economically, often these can be bought at a hefty discount from stores, if you are willing to take broken bags.  Because they are shipped in paper containers, they often leak and break.  So talk to your store managers and ask if you can purchase or take any open flour bags (bring a roll of duct tape and some plastic bags to get them home) - or consider dumpster diving for them. 

Prices on both flours and whole wheat are better on larger quantities.  These can usually be ordered through a coop, health food store, or bulk store.  The new crop is just coming in - in some places, you may be able to get something of a discount if you are willing to buy last year’s crop - talk again to the manager of the store about this.

Ok, the next thing this is missing is fat - and while a lot of us worry about too much fat, in a crisis situation, the concern is too little, particularly if you are doing heavy labor.  Also, if you have young children or infants, they will need more fat than most adults.

There is a fairly large range of choices in fat sources, so I’m going to skim over them, and discuss where to get them.  There are also strong cultural connections - different fats make different foods taste different, and people may have different reasons for preferring them.  But here’s a sense of the range.

Animal fats: Schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) and lard (rendered pork fat) are probably the most commonly used animal fats, but goose fat, beef suet, mutton fat and others are also used in many cultures.  A reliable supply of these probably depends on a good relationship with a local butcher (who often will give fat away or sell it very, very cheaply) or on having livestock.  If you have a cool way of keeping rendered animal fats (do some research on this, I’m not going to cover the techniques here today, but will another time), these are very tasty, provide some saturated fat in your diet (which depending on who you believe may or may not be necessary), and can be quite inexpensive.  Although I keep kosher, I can attest to the fabulousness of lard pie crusts (We were visiting Amish friends, and we ate slices of elderberry pie our friend made.  We rhapsodized about the crust, about how beautiful and wonderfully textured and delicious it was to her, and I told her that I was dying to know how she did it, and well….she told me ;-) .  Even though I’m not going to be duplicating her recipe, it was still pretty good ;-) .)  and schmaltz cooked potatoes are nothing sort of spectacular.

Fish oils are something else - they are very important for neurological health and development, but they don’t keep well - months, rather than years, so it doesn’t pay to stock up large quantities of these - but if you can afford to add them to your diet, either in the form of codliver oil or as supplements, they are worth it.  Flax and hempseed oils last a bit longer and have some of the same benefits, but also degrade quite quickly.  Generally these are not cooked with, because heat reduces their benefits, but are bought in small quantities as an accent.  I can’t think of any really cheap way to get them, unfortunately - it is probably easier, if budget is tight, to eat canned fish, and buy whole flax or hemp seeds.

 Nut and other seed oils: Other than peanut, mustard and sesame oil, these are generally incredibly expensive, and usually used in very small quantities as a flavoring.  Peanut oil has the advantage of an extremely high smoke point, and is often used in asian cooking and frying.  It is probably cheapest at the asian grocery store.  Sesame oil comes in two forms - toasted and plain.  Plain is often used in middle eastern cooking, while toasted is added late in cooking or at the end as a flavoring for chinese dishes.  Sesame oil is not a great frying or high-heat cooking oil, but it often available at Indian or middle-eastern grocery stores.  Mustard seed oil is a common ingredient in indian cooking, a healthy oil and quite delicious, and also available through Indian grocers.

Dairy fats: If you’ve got a cow, or goats and a cream separator and the patience to use it, you can make your own butter.  If you don’t, you can drink whole milk and get away with using very little fat for other uses.  But this implies you have dairy animals and want to milk.  Even if you don’t, you can make your own butter, if you can find a reasonably priced source of cream. 

Butter will last some months if salted and kept in a cool place.  But it can also be preserved in the form of ghee more or less indefinitely.  To make ghee (clarified butter), you heat butter and skim off the white foam until all you have left is the clear, yellow, clarified butter, without the milk solids.  This can be put in a crock and put in a cool place and will last forever, more or less.  This is unlikely to be cheap, unless you have a dairy animal.

You can also buy butter powder from emergency food storage manufacturers.  I admit, it isn’t something I go out of my way to eat, so I can’t comment on it one way or another.

Vegetable fats: These vary a lot in quality, cost and taste, and I’m honestly not going to spend the time here to sort out nutritional advice and claims.  IMHO, if you are trying to figure out what fats to use it is useful to read a lot of information - to start you might read Marion Nestle’s wonderful _What to Eat_ and Sally Fallon’s _Nourishing Traditions_ which disagree quite profoundly, and rather usefully on this subject.  They will lead you elsewhere.  Some people may want to do a lot of research, others may simply need to find a cheap option.  Other people may be influenced by the desire for familiar tastes, to support local producers of oils, etc…

The one thing that is true is that if you can afford it, buying organic oils is definitely worth the money.  They are pricey, but because most conventional oils are extracted using chemicals and may even be contaminated with heavy metals, organic oils make a big difference.  This is not feasible for everyone, but if you are trying to reduce the chemical burden on your body or the planet, buying organic makes more of a difference here in personal health than in many fruits and vegetables.

 Most oils wills will last 1-3 years in a cool place, including olive, peanut, coconut, canola, soy, corn and other vegetable oils.  My own strong preference is for olive and coconut oil as primary oil sources, but again, this is such a large and controversial subject that I’m going to forgo the details here.

Then there’s shortening, you know, that horrible Crisco stuff.  This stuff is disgusting, bad for you, doesn’t taste good, and generally is bad stuff.  The only reason I mention it is that it will last until the next apocalypse.  This is, of course, because it is hydrogenated and isn’t really a food.  But if you are storing food you might not touch, and if you believe you are more likely to starve than die of heart disease (not even remotely true at this stage in the Western World), you could store it.  And it does have uses - seasoning cast iron pans, and preserving eggs, for example.  But don’t buy it because I said so.  There are a couple of organic, non-trans-fat versions of this stuff, but none of it tastes as good as coconut oil, and the lifespan of most of it is under 2 years, and it isn’t cheap so probably no reason to prefer it over coconut oil.

Best sources for cheap oils?  Well, ideally, if you can avoid it, don’t buy the cheap oils.  If you can’t, don’t worry about it, and try your asian grocer, Sams Club, etc…

 This week’s non-food item is blankets.  Remember, it is always easier to warm your body than it is to warm a room.  A good bit cheaper, too.  If you are not accustomed to “sleeping cold” you may find that with some practice adapting, you like it.  I strongly prefer it over sleeping in a warm room.  The key to doing so quite comfortably (and my bedroom is often 50 degrees or below) is lots of cozy blankets.  And since these end up in landfills and dumps fairly often, buying used is a great thing to do.  So make sure you have plenty - the best blankets are wool (hard to find but very nice - even if you can’t have wool against your skin, it is a useful layer), down, cotton filled comforters (flannel ones are especially nice) and polarfleece.  But honestly, all blankets are good if you are cold and need layers. 

Those of you in hot places can just ignore this one ;-) .

Cheers,

 Sharon

32 Responses to “Friday (well, Saturday) Food Storage Quickie: A Bit Late”

  1. Hummingbird says:

    There is the problem of weevils in stored ground whole grains. I had forgotten about that because it just doesn’t come up anymore. But last week I bought a box of whole wheat cereal, the kind you cook, and thought it was a good source of whole grain. I opened it, thinking to transfer it to a glass jar for storage and-well the wheat was clumpy and odd and then several moths flew out of it. Surprise!

  2. Marnie says:

    Just a note about blankets. When in need, any type of fibre will do, but as you mentioned Sharon, wool is the best. There is another reason wool is the best: fire. Wool doesn’t burn quickly. The reason I bring this up is please, please, if you can avoid synthetic fibres on your bed, do so. First of all they don’t breathe properly and secondly they MELT when they burn (including polarfleece). It is not likely that many of us (I’m making all kinds of lucky signs as I say this) will ever encounter fire in our beds, but melting fabric + skin makes the plastic surgeon’s job oh-so-much more hard, in a horrible way.

  3. Brad K. says:

    Sharon, While serving in the Navy on the USS Saratoga CVN-60, home ported in Jacksonville, FL, the berthing compartment wasn’t well heated, when we were in port (1976-1977). I recall frost on the floor on one occasion.

    We got one blanket. I discovered that a second sheet, over the blanket, was a tremendous help. A simple cotton sheet, then blanket, then cotton sheet. Of course, that didn’t solve the biggest problem I had with the berthing area. 0600 hours, time to get up.

    Which was when the matches started lighting those first cigarettes of the day, often before anyone got up to turn on the lights. I am still sensitive to that first puff when a smoker lights up. Gag me with a spoon.

  4. irismedia says:

    Blankets can also line the walls to hold in the heat of the room. During the last ice storm, the power was off and on for about 2 days. I moved the family into one room, tacked up heavy quilts on the walls, and lined the bed with several layers.

    We were QUITE comfortable, and fairly comfortable.

    Candles warmed the air, and took the chill off of the room. We let the water drip in the unheated rooms.

    The upside of not heating the whole house, no unusually large heating bill. The downside, trying to cook in a cold kitchen.

    Also, remember, quilts UNDER you, and roll up into a sheet, and then quilts over you, will help keep you warm.

    And books and boardgames help to pass time when there is no TV or computers.

  5. karen says:

    Great post as usual. Could you please at some point talk about the different ways to store eggs w/o refrigeration? I have been wondering about the crisco egg thing and know there are several other methods but have not come across them in any books.
    Thanks!

  6. Fern says:

    Wonderful comforters have been available at garage sales all summer for $5 each. I bought 3, and got a very light wool blanket from Freecycle.

    A friend of mine just inventoried her blankets/comforters/etc, and realized she has 23 of them. I have comforter envy!

  7. Lori says:

    What do you store your wheat berries in??? How do you keep them from getting bugs. Where do you get your storage for them?

    Thanks,
    Lori

  8. Sarah says:

    Do you get your coconut oil as straight oil or as coconut milk? If you get it as oil, where do you find it? I can only find coconut oil in the health food section for exorbitant prices, but high-fat coconut milk is fairly cheap at Latino and Indian markets.

    I saw cold-pressed palm oil at the co-op grocery a while back and was tempted to get it just to see what it was like, and because hey, vitamin A, but it was about $12 for a pint jar, which seemed sort of unreasonable for an experiment.

  9. squrrl says:

    So here’s my biggest problem/concern with the low-heat bedroom: I spend about half the night exposed to my bellybutton nursing a small person (who, naturally, hates the restrictiveness of the blankets and kicks them to shreds :-P ). Currently I have one ratty old silk thermal turtleneck which helps a lot, but I would love to hear about other people’s solutions and/or sources for more quality thermal underwear (it’s a concession for me to wear anything at all, but bulky stuff would be reserved for a true emergency cuz it’d drive me nuts to have it wadded up under me). Our plan for this winter is to use a space heater in the bedroom and let the rest of the house go unheated at night…since we already have electric heat, seems like a win-win to me.

    Thank you for the very sensible suggestion to keep some white flour on hand to blend with the fresh-ground wholemeal. I’m far from an expert baker, and wholemeal does not usually fly by itself without tweaking most recipes, I’m finding.

    And for once I’m ahead of the curve! Bought a fairly large can of quality organic olive oil yesterday, fighting my way through sticker shock to do it. (And, yes, I’ve been reading Nourishing Traditions and Real Food.)

  10. Lisa Z says:

    squrrl-I don’t think the cold bedroom idea usually applies, if it can be helped, to toddlers and babies and nursing moms. I have read that exception many times. Little ones need to be warm but will often kick off covers so that means the room needs to be warmer for them. Sleeping with you will help too, of course.

    Right now we have our 20# of wheat berries in scrounged ice cream buckets. Will they keep okay for a while in those? I know it’s not airtight or the best solution, but I just haven’t gotten to anything else.

    Also, how about a metal garbage can for keeping bags of flour? Both white and whole wheat? I just bought one for $15 for the 100# of chicken feed I’m storing, and I really like that it looks good, is rodent proof and relatively cheap for a lot of storage capacity.

    Lisa in MN

  11. Boysmom says:

    Squrrl-we have a different small person problem. He doesn’t mind snuggling up under blankets to nurse, but then spits up and soaks everything. It’s not so bad at night when we’re all warm in the blankets together, but getting up in the morning he tends to get pretty chilled before I can get him changed. He’s a very little small person so I hope this issue will resolve itself before long.
    Cabela’s sells really nice looking silk long underwear-I’ve never bought any, it’s pricy. I have a cotton nursing nightgown, it’s not very warm because it’s about as thick as a hospital gown, but maybe you could find a thicker version, or make one. It’s got two slits down the front to provide access-looks kind of like those nursing shirts except the panel is behind instead of in front, if that makes any sense. I don’t know where it came from, though, it was a gift. Also, what about another blanket, a throw or something, to go over the back and top of you?

  12. Heather Gray says:

    Instead of heating the whole bedroom, try finding a way to just warm the bed area itself. Our current bedroom’s pretty small but the old one was too large so we hung fabric off our canopy frame, across the top and on the sides, and that worked great. I know someone else who put screweye bolts in the ceiling and ran line around and hung curtains from that. Body heat does the rest of the work.

    Cautions: open the curtains during the day to air out the linens. If more than one person’s in the bed and one of you has a cold, then leave the curtains open and use alternative heat source.

    On the Rioter list someone also mentioned setting up tents indoors, which does the same thing of limiting how much space your body heats.

  13. Andrea says:

    I don’t know if you’d be interested, but we use an electric mattress pad in our master bedroom. It warms the bed instead of the entire room and uses very little electricity. Ours even has seperate controls for each side of the bed so that my side can be toasty, and my husband’s can be cooler.

    Wouldn’t work during a blackout, but for everyday use and keeping the heating bill down, priceless.

  14. Kerr says:

    Karen, take this with a grain of salt, but it’s my experience that uncracked eggs will store for quite awhile at room temperature with no spoilage. We kept ours on a shelf this summer and most of them were fine—we did have some spoil after a couple of weeks on a particularly warm shelf. As soon as you crack them, they need to be cooked, of course, but the shells are very well designed to keep the contents safe from pathogens.

    It helps if they’re organic free range pasture birds, of course, because battery cages harbor pathogens and commercial diets leave chickens malnourished and probably affected by dietary pesticides, so the shells of commercial eggs are often thinner.

    I acquired some space blankets to put around my bed (like bedcurtains on two or three sides) and I’m planning on using a candle heater this winter. I hope that radiant heat from the candle heater will be well captured by the space blankets and the convective heat held by the warm blankets on my bed. So even though the rest of my room is going to be cold—I’m in a refurbished attic that is poorly insulated, and I rent it, so I will do what I can but don’t hold out much hope—at least I’ll have a little warm space for going to bed and getting dressed in the morning.

  15. Kate says:

    For nursing a small baby, I cut holes in a T-shirt, which I wore under a regular shirt. Then I’d just lift up the regular shirt to nurse. I would pull the blankets up to my baby’s neck and then cover up my back and head with another blanket. He was born in Wisconsin in February, but he was plenty warm since he was covered with blankets up to his neck and his head was in my armpit!!!

    As for squirming out of the covers, well, he woke to nurse about every 45 minutes, so I would just move him back under if he had squirmed out. I’m not sure how you’d address that with a child who actually slept significant segments of the night….never had that luxury….

  16. Sharon says:

    Until babies weigh 10lbs, they cannot fully regulate their own body temperature - after 10lbs, they can sleep in the same temperatures that adults do, as long as they are properly dressed for them and receiving adequate nutrition. We have verified this with four infants that slept in our bedroom with us that was heated only ambiently - and averaged 50 or lower all winter long. We dressed the babies in layers (onesie, cotton one-piece outfit under fleece pajamas, with a sack (you know, those legless things - there are a few companies that make quite large ones) over that as blanket. That way, they couldn’t kick things off. And, of course, they were often pressed against our nice warm bodies.

    For safety’s sake we used positioners to keep them from rolling, didn’t use our down comforter or any blankets that didn’t breath, just in case anything got near the baby’s face, and were very careful. My oldest and youngest both hated having anything cover them - I cut holes for my breasts in ratty tshirts and wore them under fleece pajamas so that only the breast was ever exposed. I also found a shawl or small blanket very helpful to pull up around my shoulders and side when I was exposed for nursing.

    Boysmom, if your little person isn’t too big for it, one trick I got good at was stripping my babies, and immediately stuffing each limb (this sounds bad but that’s sort of what it was) into one of those blanket/bag thingies for babies, even after they got kind of big. That is, I’d remove the top, quickly put the top part on them, remove the bottom, stick them part way into it and then diaper them trhough the zipper hole as quickly as I could - this kept them insulated while I was removing wet bits - I then dressed them the same way, in the bag. But once they are too big, they are too big.

    Sharon

  17. Kate in CT says:

    As for fats, we rely on EVOO, butter, ghee, and palm oil (sold as organic shortening by Spectrum) which SF says is almost as good for you as coconut oil and lasts a long time. The ghee does last a long time too, even on the kitchen counter. For a pie crust I use butter and palm oil (the palm oil is measured then frozen before using) and the crust comes out almost if not as wonderful as a lard crust. Right now i stock up on butter in the freezer, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that you can put balls of salted butter in a crock of salt brine in a cool place for months. Does this sound like it would work?
    warm wishes

  18. Boysmom says:

    Thanks, Sharon, that’s a great idea. I don’t have any in his size, but those are easy to make. He’s two months but was born at 10 lbs 2 oz, and he’s wearing 6-9 month size already. He’s the only one I’ve had spit up.

  19. squrrl says:

    Wow, everyone, thanks for all the great ideas. Evelyn’s one now, and a chubby healthy rough and tumble one at that, so I’m not overly worried about HER staying warm, heh, it’s ME that’s the skinny cold-blooded one! Those silk long underwear do look pretty nice, too. And I’ll bet the tent indoors thing would be GREAT with somewhat older kids…in fact, I even know that they make tents to go on top of toddler beds, because my neighbor’s eldest has one.

    Boysmom: Evelyn didn’t spit up much at night, but what she did (still does, just less so) was nurse lazily in her sleep and leak milk all over creation. I didn’t have this figured out at the time, but if/when I have it to do again, I’ll get a nice soft rectangle of wool to put under us, and then a flat/cheap prefold over that, so that at least the wet wool won’t be cold, and the prefold can be chucked out of bed if it gets soaked. Doesn’t help with what goes on the baby’s clothes, but at least you don’t sleep in a wet spot.

  20. Tara says:

    How cool should cooking oil ideally be kept?

    -Tara

  21. Elizabeth says:

    Duofold makes great long underwear, and we often find them at our local Gabe’s (a discount store) for $5.

  22. Carla says:

    Sharon, you are a mind-reader! I was going to ask you just this morning when I got to work (where my Internet access is) about chicken fat. Whole chix on sale for .79/lo last week so I bought 6 & cut them up this weekend. Roasted the backs, necks, rib section & breast & thigh skins for future chx broth. When I drained the oils from this, I had about a pint & was wondering what I could possible do w/it.
    Schmaltz, eh - do I need to do something more with it? I can use it for cooking? Will I be able to freeze it?
    Thanks for mentioning it, Sharon!
    Carla

  23. Carla says:

    OOPS! Sorry, Sharon - just re-read you post a little more carefully - I’ll do my own research on schmaltz on the Internet. But, still, thanks for mentioning it.!
    Carla

  24. madison says:

    Sqrrl,

    I can relate to the nursing problem. My solution was to cut small nursing slits in a long underwear shirt and wear a polar fleece jacket over that to bed. When it was time to nurse, I only had to pull up the fleece jacket - the long underwear shirt tucked into my long johns covered most of the rest of me and kept me reasonably warm, while only the necessary parts were out there - and most was covered by warm baby. When done, I just had to tug down the fleece jacket and I was toasty again, while keeping blankets away from the sleeping baby next to my face.

  25. madison says:

    Oh, and Hanna Andersson makes some wonderful baby caps - my son was completely bald until he was a year old, and he slept in the caps. They are about $10 and I think they are wonderful.

  26. Bill in NC says:

    Lard is readily available in the Mexican food aisle of Wal-Mart or other grocery stores.

    I have to say I am not a big fan of open flames inside living space, preferring LED lights and fluorescent battery powered lanterns.

    If you have to do flames, best to use candles in enclosed holders, preferably wall-mounted sconces so nobody can knock them to the floor.

    Liquid fueled lamps are a distant second choice…if the fuel spills on carpet you’ve got a several foot wide wick.

    For heat, catalytic heaters with low oxygen shutoff sensors are available - the “Buddy” and “Big Buddy” are nice choices (both use small disposable propane bottles, the big model has a fan, can be used with large grill bottles with an adapter hose)

    They work well when you’ve closed off a room (you’ll be much happier with a warmed bathroom as well)

    Loose-fitting nightcaps (think of Scrooge), are a big help in a cold room.

  27. CoconutOilGuy says:

    Yes Sharon, coconut oil is a great choice because it is highly resistant to oxidation. Here in the Philippines, it is fairly common for virgin coconut oil (VCO) to stay fresh as day one for up to 5 years. And every now and then, I encounter VCO produced about 10 years ago, sometimes even longer, mostly without refrigeration, and still be perfectly safe for human consumption.

    The thing is, you really can’t tell which vegetable oil is safe or toxic just by its appearance. But I can tell you that polyunsaturated oils are highly vulnerable to oxidation and free radical formation. Coconut oil is 92% saturated and NOT vulnerable to oxidation and free radical destruction as unsaturated fats are.

    Just my little two cents. Take care.

    Cheers,
    Frederick
    http://www.coconut-oil-central.com
    Your Drugstore in a Bottle

  28. Jane- says:

    I have a friend who was telling me that years ago she had bought 60 dozen of eggs and this container of stuff called “water glass”.
    You have to use one of the old crocks to place them in, you mix up the water glass and add some in the bottom of the crock and then a dozen of eggs and so forth til they are in, I forgot how long she said they had lasted but I know it was along time. However you could not use them for an over easy egg because the yolks break easy but good for everything else.
    I have been trying to find out more about this since I have chickens and we do not use alot of eggs I was wanting to store them.
    Has anyone else heard about this.
    I did find out that cheap (Sams club, large container) of vegetable oil can be vacum sealed in quart jars (using a food saver jar vacum sealer) keep in a cool, dark area and will last for 4+ years.
    Jane

  29. Jean says:

    Thanks for the food storage quickies, Sharon. I think the reason I like this kind of thing and your similar 52 Weeks Down is that it makes doing things we should do more fun!

    Blessings,
    Jean in IL

  30. Jane says:

    With wood heat staying warm in the winter is not so easy, and as a child growing up we had wood heat and no insulation in our home..It seemed everything I tried would find me freezeing before time to get up.
    Then when I was 14 my mom bought me a pair of knee high nylons, when I found out how warm they kept my feet I started wearing them to bed at night with a pair of socks over them…My freezeing days were over.
    Sorry, just had to share that story.

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