Learning from others mistakes

Sometimes you can learn from other peoples mistakes.

 Today I helped a prepper rotate her supplies. She has spent several years building a supply of food. She has not rotated it. She had been adding to it placing new foods in front of old foods. We unpacked the store room all the way to the back wall. Then we went to work checking dates on the cans. I took out a red sharpie and began marking cans that were over a year past date. Cans that were more than 2 years past date were placed outside. Several cases of food were more than 5 years past freshness date. Most were not damaged or bulged. Just way past date. Yes, some cans were bulged and immediately tossed into the trash. We went through the dry goods and some were very old.  A 1 pound bag of lentils had a price of 25 cents marked on it. Some of the dry goods were purchased in the 1980's.

After clearing out the old foods, we organised the store room. All the newest foods were placed at the back of the shelves. Foods of the same kind with earlier expiration dates were placed on the shelves in front.

We then did an inventory. She still had enough food in cans to have a can of food for her and her husband each day for 1 year. There was rice, beans and wheat for a year of meals and other dry goods to last 6 months. To round off the storage there were home canned fruits and jams. She and her husband could have a bottle of jam or quart of fruit 2 times a week for a year.

Here is the sad part. We took out just over 600 pounds of food. Dry goods, cans, bottles and boxes. Any that were were still reasonably usable were distributed to family and friends for immediate use. All that was left was taken to the local food bank or to the dump.

Some of the dry goods that were over 40 years old were added to the chicken scratch.

Now for the lesson to learn from all this:

First, buy only things you will eat.
Second, eat what you buy.
Third, rotate your storage.
Fourth, Replace what you eat.
Fifth, Do not store more than you will be able to use before the expiration date is reached.