When to use your food stash

[izzy_mack]

Most of it's been said. I've used my stash on a few occasions when life has thrown me a hiccup for various reasons. I've always been sooo glad I had my stores, they've helped make a bad time a little easier and less scary. just knowing you can feed your family makes coping a little easier. I have always done my best to replace the stores when life gets easier and it helps to know it's there should I need it. Never be worried about using your stuff, it's what it's for. To make rotation easier, I mark all my tins with a permanent marker with it's bbdate. it makes it easy to see which one is the nearest date.

[Jerseyspud]

My teenager likes to raid the stash when she's hungry.

Need to lock the cupboard really

[grenfell]

After saying that we use and replace from what we store there are always , shall we say , hiccups. We'd sort of overlooked some tins which are now past their BB date , talking about five years here. Positive side it does give us the chance to see just how well things last. Not of the tins show any damage , rust or bulging. There were several tins of fish , some in brine and some in oil. Both are perfectly edible , well i've not died or been taken ill , but i would say the fish in oil certainly has the edge on taste. The ones in brine seem more salty than they should be almost as if they have drawn all the salt out of the brine.

[jansman]

After saying that we use and replace from what we store there are always , shall we say , hiccups. We'd sort of overlooked some tins which are now past their BB date , talking about five years here. Positive side it does give us the chance to see just how well things last. Not of the tins show any damage , rust or bulging. There were several tins of fish , some in brine and some in oil. Both are perfectly edible , well i've not died or been taken ill , but i would say the fish in oil certainly has the edge on taste. The ones in brine seem more salty than they should be almost as if they have drawn all the salt out of the brine.

There will always be oversight. Yesterday we checked the shelves of the pantry, and realised we had fallen out of love with olives. We had half a dozen jars that had expired. I drained the brine from them,put the contents on the compost heap and recycled the jars.

[Arzosah]

I have an oversight to confess, and a safety enquiry that goes with it. I have an old fashioned single burner camping stove (I have a modern one too, and ... all sorts besides). Anyway, I took it outside to the garden, it must have been one day last summer, and screwed in a new cartridge, i.e. about 15 years old, to see if everything worked as it should. Perfick. But I forgot to bring it back in, so it's been out there all winter - a winter which included several -5 degrees, lots of rain, lots of frost, and a few doses of snow. I only found it now because I'm cleaning up the patio ready for other people to use, maybe/perhaps/blue moon.

Is that cartridge safe? Will the joints have gone? I can't believe it's safe enough to use. Even the pan supports are seized up with rust now but I'd like to rescue the stove itself, as I have 4 other cartridges I could use, and just because, sentimental attachment etc. Could I just unscrew it in the garden and go inside while it did its thing and outgassed? Is that even legal? Help! This is the state of it:

[Jerseyspud]

I probably wouldn't use it. If we had something like that in the lab we would be disposing of it without testing it as it looks very rusty

[izzy_mack]

Is that cartridge safe? Will the joints have gone? I

Er I think I would forgo that one -- and I'm as mean as hell!

[Arzosah]

For sure, I won't be using the cartridge! I refuse to put myself in line for a Darwin Award but I'd like to salvage the body of the stove, to use with other cartridges. And I can't throw away a cartridge like that, it's almost entirely full this is totally a rod for my own back that I've made

[jansman]

Is that cartridge safe? Will the joints have gone? I

Er I think I would forgo that one -- and I'm as mean as hell!

Personally, I would be wary of using it.Especially check if the seal around the piercing point is sound if you go ahead.

[Arzosah]

But I *won't* be using it (sobs quietly). My question about the cartridge is specifically how to dispose of it safely? Is it okay to let it degass in the middle of the garden, for instance? Or do I wait to take it to a local authority tip?