What canned food do you find has the longest shelf life?

[khaski]

Trying to get a better stockpile going for emergency situations, wondering what types of canned products last the longest...and how closely do you watch the exp. dates? We don't use a lot of canned goods from day to day, and having super picky eaters it can be hard to intergrate them into our regular meals, so I need ot know what canned goods seem to 'keep' l;onger than others so we can be prepared without wasting too much $ over the years.

[Debbie-cat]

I watch the expiration dates. I find that most cans, if you bought them today, will last until at least 2011. I find some, like corn, that have an expiration date of 2012.

[fixer]

I must confess I don't even look at expiration dates on canned goods. I need to start. I just make sure they are not blown up or dented.

[savvy_sniper]

You should concentrate on stockpiling things that your family will eat. It does you no good to have a bunch of items that noone wants to eat.

You should focus on broadening your families taste buds!

[Grainlady]

I'm another use-by-date watcher, but the longest storage times don't normally come from canned goods from the grocery store, but the kinds you can find at places like Emergency Essentials (www.beprepared.com).

I have 3-layers of food storage:

1. 72-hour Emergency Food (no heating or refrigeration necessary - http://lds.about.com/od/preparedness...72hour_kit.htm

2. Pantry Foods for general day-to-day food preparation.

3. Long-term Emergency Food (Many of these same foods are also found in the pantry foods. All foods eventually find their way to the pantry so they can be rotated out of storage.)

In my 3rd layer of storage food (Emergency Food), I keep a quantity of Freeze-Dried and Powdered foods which normally come in #10 size cans (what coffee used to come in - holds 13-cups).

Freeze-dried: fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese, meat

Powdered: Whey-based milk substitute, powdered butter, powdered peanut butter, powdered whole eggs/whites/yolks, tomato powder.

These have a storage time (depending on storage conditions and temperature) of 5-10-years or longer.

I store wheat because it has a shelf-life of decades, while flour has a shelf-life of 6-12 months.

Another food I purchase in a #10 can for storage is Morning Moo's (whey-based milk substitute - www.moosmilk.com). The shelf-life is about 10-years. A box of fortified non-fat dried milk has a relatively short shelf-life - 1-year UNopened and 3-months if opened.

Storing canned goods in hot temperatures will shorten the shelf-life, no matter WHAT the use-by-date, and cause a change in the texture of the foods as well as the nutrition; while cool temperatures will lengthen storage times.

You might find some useful information at this link:

Cooking With Food Storage Ingredients

http://extension.usu.edu/cache/files...nts%206-07.pdf

and even MORE information -

Prudent Food Storage Q & A
http://survivalacres.com/information...storagefaq.pdf

ALL food needs to be regularly rotated, so the idea is to use them, not hoard them. Because I have a well-stocked pantry, I don't purchase anything with an '09 use-by-date. I have 9 jars of peanut butter in storage. We normally use one jar per month. I can quickly figure any peanut butter added will have to be dated somewhere beyond April 2010.

[Savannah]

Tuna, hands down, has the longest shelf life of all the canned goods I keep on hand. It's a good, cheap protein source, too.

I do keep track of expiration dates by always rotating my storage and keeping the oldest canned goods in the back and newest in the front.