I break all the rules and keep a lot of commercially canned food in my damp basement, the theory being that, as I rotate so often, the food will be used and replaced before the cans have time to degrade. The only problem is that we are growing and home preserving so much, I am a lot slower about the rotating than I use to be. I mean who wants canned pineapple when you have delicious home canned peaches and applesauce? So when I went to the basement to defrost the freezer and tidy up the jar storage, I peaked on the shelfs of commercial food and found that a can of pineapple had sprung a small leak. The juice had come out and the fruit inside completely dried out. The can weighed nearly nothing! The can itself was covered with a fine powdered mildew as were some adjoining cans. Now I have my work cut out for me. I’m going to have to make some changes. All of the canned food will have to come upstairs. Where will it go?????
I have an upstairs closet that is quite large. Right now I store the lamps and lamp fuel, the solar oven and the unit that sits on top of a wood stove to make an oven in that space. I guess all of that could go downstairs. Another option is to run the dehumidifyer but I hate to use that much electricity. I have a lot of space in this house. There has to be a solution. I just haven’t thought of it yet.
I have been reading the headline news (I know, I know but I’m an addict). Federal fuel assistance has been cut by 47% and unemployment relief has not gotten an extension. It may be a tough winter for a lot of families. I know that governments can not continue to spend money they don’t have but I’m not one who can hear about old people and little kids being cold and hungry and not be moved by it.
November 19, 2010 at 8:09 am
I’m heading up the garden project for my church and when I started looking into statistics for a presentation, I was shocked. I knew times were bad, but when I found out that 30% of the children in my county seat live at/below poverty level, I was shocked! My church supports an outreach center, food pantries, etc but with the cuts in funding, I’m afraid things are going to get much worse for the most needful in my community.
November 19, 2010 at 8:10 am
By the way, can you put a dehumidifier in your basement to help with the moisture issue?
November 19, 2010 at 8:16 am
I admit that we run the dehumidifyer in the basement. After going without it and finding similar issues you did, we found it worthwhile for now. We don’t have a lot of options here, but I’m going to try and find other options as well.
FYI, there has been a LOT on food storage on cable tv lately, so I took a trip to one of my on line food storage places. I was surprised to see that almost half their grains and dehydrated items were on back order! Hopefully this means that a lot of people are now stocking up!
November 19, 2010 at 9:07 am
How damp is your basement? Most of my food storage is in our basement too, but I’ve never seen a can damaged just by sitting around down there. How long was it down there? We run a dehumidifier in our basement as its floor is basically at the level of the water table. So humidity is pretty steady near 50%, which seems to keep mold in check. I don’t have much commercially canned food down there, but I’d sure like to know what my risk is. Expand, please?
November 19, 2010 at 9:16 am
Our food storage can help others. As we rotate food, things almost to their expiration date can be donated. They will surely be used before the date is reached. Our church has a food pantry, so it is very easy for me.
November 19, 2010 at 9:56 am
It’s pretty damp. I’m afraid I have to run the dehumidifier. I checked the expiration dates and they were at the limit. I’m guessing the cans had been there for 18 months.
November 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm
gosh, I’ve never lost a can to anything, perhaps they’re just not making them like they used to?
November 19, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I think the mystery is solved. I found two more cans, both pineapple and the grapefruit juice cans are rusted too. It must the acidity that’s causing the problem. I’ll just keep those things in the upstairs storage area.
November 19, 2010 at 3:39 pm
That’s interesting about the acidity, Kathy. I have some canned pineapple, I should check it.
I also donate anything getting close to an expiration date to our local food bank. When I started my food storage, I just bought tons of stuff on sale without giving much thought to what we would eat. Live and learn. At least the food pantry benefited.
November 19, 2010 at 5:12 pm
I don’t think its the acidity that’s rusting the cans – must be something else. Can you put cans in a box with some of those little packets to keep things dry?
Storage upstairs: one can deep behind the couch; under the bed in boxes cut to height and with handles;
November 20, 2010 at 7:46 am
It may not be acidity. I inventoried my canned food storage yesterday and the only bad can I found was one of pumpkin. It was not past the expiration date. I will definitely have to check more often.
November 20, 2010 at 7:58 am
But why would just the pineapple go?
November 20, 2010 at 11:18 am
It may be that the can the pineapple was in had a factory defect from the beginning, in which case, it would have probably failed no matter where stored.
Low cost, mass produced items such as metal cans are uniform and consistent – most of the time, but are not perfect. This is part of ther reason for the expiration date.
November 20, 2010 at 11:50 am
Perhaps it was just that “batch” that was weak, perhaps the company had tried a different type of can,perhaps that batch hadn’t been proccessed properly, perhaps in packaging something spilled on the outside of that lot. A lot of things can happen in the food chain. This is one reason why it’s good to get as far away as possible. lol
NOT going to help solve this mystery though.
I ran down to check my pineapple, so far so good!
November 21, 2010 at 11:35 pm
I read a note on a different website about preserving metal canned goods for the absolute maximum time under all conditions and several people recommended either 1) painting each and every seam with melted wax or paraffin or 2) dipping the entire can in the aforementioned wax or paraffin. It would probably work but I don’t have any goods that I would go to that much effort to preserve.
November 30, 2010 at 4:41 am
to; the reverand about the hungry kids in his church… I bet you never missed a meal in your life.