food stocks

[seadog]

I recently went through my food stocks to find that a stack of Heinz tomato soup concentrate had decided to explode.
The tins were stamped april 2013. Ok I know we are meant to rotate our food stock, and store what we use in daily life, but this was a big supply of food that was surplus to work, and as a Prepper, I thought it may be useful.
I check my food spreadsheet of dates, and the state of the tins, (looking for distorted ends etc), I even sampled the soup a few months ago.

My question is this, what tinned foods should we either avoid, or be aware that the date on that tin really matters?

[seadog]

Also, what tinned foods are recommended by the group to store, (sorry should've asked that too)

[yorkshirewolf]

Have you discovered why it exploded? was it in a tin or a packet?

I thought tinned food was boiled just before being sealed, so they were good for years? i wouldn't have thought the contents were responsible?

Only thing i could think that would make a tin explode would be heat, either high for a short period or low over a long period.

In fact, there was a mythbusters episode where they showed a tin can, can explode in a car on a hot day...

[itsybitsy]

I had a couple of tins of Tesco beans that 'blew'; date stamped 2012. It may have just been a bad batch, I guess. However, I tried one with that date on which hadn't been compromised - I have to say - the taste was almost non-existant. So while food may technically be edible years after the BB4 date, that's no guarantee that it will actually *taste* edible.

[preppingsu]

The phase is best before. After that the food will start to deteriate so the flavour may go. But at the end of the day food is food, ,you could just add some herbs/spices to pick up the flavour.

There may have been even damage to the tin for it to 'explode'.

Try to avoid ring pull cans for long term storage.

Food wise: buy only what you will eat and make sure you rotate. Even if you don't normally eat tinned food every now and again you'll need to have a week for two incorporating them into your diet.

[Deeps]

The phase is best before. After that the food will start to deteriate so the flavour may go. But at the end of the day food is food, ,you could just add some herbs/spices to pick up the flavour.

There may have been even damage to the tin for it to 'explode'.

Try to avoid ring pull cans for long term storage.

Food wise: buy only what you will eat and make sure you rotate. Even if you don't normally eat tinned food every now and again you'll need to have a week for two incorporating them into your diet.

I've kind of started eating more tinned stuff so I can justify storing them, a bit arse about face really but we didn't really eat much tinned stuff apart from baked beans and tuna. Even soups were usually home made. I now eat what I store more but a lot of it is fairly cheap stuff so not really a huge issue, I do try and keep an eye on the amount of salt in things though, there's a fair amount in some stuff.

[featherstick]

The phase is best before. After that the food will start to deteriate so the flavour may go. But at the end of the day food is food, ,you could just add some herbs/spices to pick up the flavour.

There may have been even damage to the tin for it to 'explode'.

Try to avoid ring pull cans for long term storage.

Food wise: buy only what you will eat and make sure you rotate. Even if you don't normally eat tinned food every now and again you'll need to have a week for two incorporating them into your diet.

I've kind of started eating more tinned stuff so I can justify storing them, a bit arse about face really but we didn't really eat much tinned stuff apart from baked beans and tuna. Even soups were usually home made. I now eat what I store more but a lot of it is fairly cheap stuff so not really a huge issue, I do try and keep an eye on the amount of salt in things though, there's a fair amount in some stuff.

This is our problem too - I find myself eating food we'd never normally eat, simply because it is in tins in the stock and I haven't found a way to rotate/store effectively.

I recently opened a couple of cans of Asda hotpot which were 2013 and pretty rank-smelling - there was a large void in the can, suggesting the contents had shrunk, and although not off as such, the contents smelt sour. However as I never normally eat tinned hot-pot I have no way of knowing whether this is normal!

I am going to concentrate on tins of tomatoes and spam, and bags of lentils, I think : )

[hobo]

Hmmm, better do a taste test on some soups dated 2010.......

[Deeps]

The phase is best before. After that the food will start to deteriate so the flavour may go. But at the end of the day food is food, ,you could just add some herbs/spices to pick up the flavour.

There may have been even damage to the tin for it to 'explode'.

Try to avoid ring pull cans for long term storage.

Food wise: buy only what you will eat and make sure you rotate. Even if you don't normally eat tinned food every now and again you'll need to have a week for two incorporating them into your diet.

I've kind of started eating more tinned stuff so I can justify storing them, a bit arse about face really but we didn't really eat much tinned stuff apart from baked beans and tuna. Even soups were usually home made. I now eat what I store more but a lot of it is fairly cheap stuff so not really a huge issue, I do try and keep an eye on the amount of salt in things though, there's a fair amount in some stuff.

This is our problem too - I find myself eating food we'd never normally eat, simply because it is in tins in the stock and I haven't found a way to rotate/store effectively.

I recently opened a couple of cans of Asda hotpot which were 2013 and pretty rank-smelling - there was a large void in the can, suggesting the contents had shrunk, and although not off as such, the contents smelt sour. However as I never normally eat tinned hot-pot I have no way of knowing whether this is normal!

I am going to concentrate on tins of tomatoes and spam, and bags of lentils, I think : )

We've got loads of pulses, rice, pasta and other 'good' stuff like cartons of pasata. Its the tins of ravioli, chicken curry etc that I now have for lunch instead, I tend to 'sex them up' with extra veg if its in a runny sauce (a lot of the cheaper ones seem to have more sauce funny old thing) then I put dehydrated veg in to help thicken it. Its been a learning experience and I've had fun trying different cans of 'stuff'. I've also rekindled my love from boyhood for Fray Bentos pies.

[sfcfinchrs]

We do not stock much tinned food at all.

Mainly due to space and weight constraints.

We also do not stock the Mountain House type stuff.

We have a small amount of MRE type packages for certain needs.

What we do stock is things that have huge amounts of shelf-life. Almost everything we stock is dried. We do not store ground wheat flour.

Pulses
Soya chunks and mince
Freeze Dried Veg
Corn Flour
Potato Flour
Quinoa
Cous Cous
Pemmican
Powdered Egg
And so much more

We package half of what we have in individual recipe portions (Vacuum Sealed) and the rest broken down into one month consumption lots.


Yes to cook up a meal you need water for our method, yet we have the ability to filter water at the individual and group level.

Just my 2 pence worth.