In our previous installment on Why Some Food Storage Products Won’t Last we looked into the role that 02 absorbers play in keeping your stored food not only safe but nutritious and tasty for the long haul. Today we are going to talk can seams. While it isn’t the most exciting sounding topic in food storage land it is a VERY important component to getting your food reserves to live up to their name.

First off, there are several forces working to spoil your food storage namely Humidity, Air, Light, and Temperature (HALT). A metal #10 can will clearly block light and an 02 absorber can reduce oxygen levels to neccessary levels but if the can does not have a great seal then air and moisture will enter the can over time and speed up spoilage and kill nutrition and palatability. Without a rock solid seam your average food item will go downhill fast.

In a Brigham Young University study, they examined the quality of rice after it has been canned and stored for a long period of time. They found that 1/3 of the cans they sampled had a poor seam which led to increased air and humidity levels. See the image below for examples of good and poor can seams from their study.

While the rice in this particular study did relatively well (even with bad can seams) the important point for this article is to show what a good seam looks like and the ramifications for most foods (outside of rice and a couple others that don’t need great environments) that would not fair so well when placed in a can with an inferior seam.

At The Ready Store we understand the importance of a good seam, we test our cans regularly and at the slightest seam degradation we stop production and tune the can seaming equipment to make sure it turns out the perfect seam as seen in the image below. We know our food is only as good as the seam on the can and want our product to be there for our customers when they need it most.

TIP for the DIYer: Purchase a dial/digital caliper and measure seam width and height of the top and bottom seams for consistency (cans from the manufacturer are sent to food storage companies with 1 seam already made. The food storage company fills the can with food then performs the last seal on the open end). If both are very similar it would tell you that the food storage company is doing a good job of matching the manufacturer’s seam.  If the height was significantly shorter (we are dealing with 1/1000 of an inch here) than the manufacturer’s then I would worry about overlap of the body and cover hooks, if the thickness was a lot larger than manufacturer’s (should be .058 of an inch) than I’d be worried about overall tightness. In the image at the top of this page you will see in the poor seams that they are fatter and not overlapping internally as much as they should. Another option (which destroys the can) is to cut a can in half and check the cross-section of the seams as we have in the photo of a Saratoga Farms can above this paragraph.

Unfortunately most people in the US don’t get to handle their #10 cans before purchase and those that do don’t have the training to evaluate a seam correctly. In the end, buy from someone you trust. Food storage packaging needs to create the ideal environment for the food and for that to happen the can must be sealed well.

Let’s face it, any person can throw some food in a can and claim it’s going to hold up multiple decades, but us pros at The Ready Store know there’s much more to it than that. For that reason we wanted to create an in-depth series on how to make a food storage product not only be edible after several decades but still maintain its nutrition and great taste.

The first aspect we wanted to cover is the little ol’ oxygen absorber or as some call it an 02 scavenger. These packets are dropped into #10 cans (ValueBuckets too) along with the food during the canning process. The packet then goes to work absorbing the free oxygen found in the surrounding air. It works by chemically binding the oxygen by oxidizing finely divided iron into iron oxide. The reaction’s net result is the removal of oxygen creating an atmosphere free from rancidity, fungi or aerobic bacteria. What it all means to you is great shelf life and quality of the food, but some ask…

Why does The Ready Store use 02 absorbers and not use a nitrogen flush process instead?

Simply, we have found that nitrogen flushing does not do as well of a job as an 02 absorber. The peak performance and consistency lacked when comparing the two methods. For the Saratoga Farms line we are not ok with a good or acceptable process when there is a superior alternative. Below, check out the results from a comparison study by FreshUs the brand of 02 absorbers used by The Ready Store.

So now you have the best means of getting rid of oxygen, you are done right?

Nope, not so fast. Next, you must choose the right size absorber for the amount of food being stored. Using too small of a packet will not get the oxygen level down to a sufficient level. Including more than needed is perfectly a-ok, as a matter of fact we err on the side of caution and do this with all food storage products.

Brand can also matter. We’ve researched and compared various brands and have chosen who we think is the best out there. In recent tests performed by FrushUs, their oxygen absorbers lowered oxygen levels faster and lower (or as low as others) than any other brand. When you are on a race to the bottom FASTER and LOWER are words we like! Check out a recent test of the FreshUs absorber against some of their competitors in the 02 absorber industry.



So now you have the best oxygen depletion process and the best absorber on the market, you are set right?

Maybe, there are certain use and care instructions that need to be employed to assure that the absorbers work as intended. We have heard from canning pros who have worked as consultants at competing food storage companies where they witnessed employees leaving 02 absorbers out in the open for long periods of time. Here is one of the scenarios, it’s the end of the shift and the bell rings. Employees scatter leaving absorbers sitting in the bottom of empty cans that are waiting to be filled with food in the production line. The absorber slowly dies like a fish out of water.

At The Ready Store we keep the absorbers sealed until they are to be dropped in with the food. From the time they are deposited to the time the can seaming process has been run fewer than 5 minutes have elapsed. Will an 02 absorber work just fine if left out for a couple hours? Yes. Overnight? No, but when shelf life is at play, being safe and not sorry is the best way to go. Doing our best and striving to be the best is a part of who we are and strive for everyday and I think you will see it shows in everything we do.

Over the course of the next few weeks we will be going into detail on important topics related to shelf-life. Next week we will be cutting cross sections of our can seams then taking macro level photos of the seal. From there we will compare those shots alongside photos from a major university’s can seam study where they inspected various seam quality differences (and their implications) so you can see for yourself how good of a seam ours is in comparison to others out there. At a future date we will talk about the cans themselves and go into what makes a good can, there we will explain what a double enameled can is and why you should settle for nothing less. From there we will move onto other important factors related to making food storage products last so in the end you can feel 100% confident in what you get from The Ready Store to help prepare for your families future.

If you’ve recently harvested your garden, and you want to get the most out of it, Shelley Stonebrook has written a fantastic article outlining some ways for you to preserve your food through the winter months. I’ve decided to curate this article here because storing what you grow in your garden is an important part of a solid preparedness plan.  This is of course in addition to storing freeze dried and dehydrated food.  Here is this article in full:

Do you like eating fresh, local food even during the winter months? That may be easier than you think—especially with crops that store well, such as potatoes, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes and other root vegetables. Of course, freezing and canning are great options for putting up all kinds of fresh food to enjoy during winter, but underground root cellars are great, too, and are an oft forgotten option. Here are three simple setups for underground food storage.

1. Dig a Trench Silo

Dig up root crops such as carrots, parsnips and beets and cut the tops off, leaving about 1 inch of the stems. Next, dig a trench that’s about a half foot deep and 2 feet wide. “Replant” your veggies close together at the bottom of the trench, add soil back in, and then heap soil in a small hill over the top of the trench. Mark the area with stakes so you know where you buried your goodies. Because your veggies are buried deeper in this setup than they would be if just left in the ground where they originally grew, they’ll be protected from the cold. Dig some of them whenever you need them all the way through winter into the following spring, simply replacing the soil after you harvest crops from your trench.

2. Make a Garbage Can Cellar

Dig a hole about 6 inches deeper than a standard-sized garbage can, and place the garbage can in the hole. Next, add a layer of leaves or straw to the bottom of the can, then a layer of root vegetables, then a layer of leaves/straw, etc., until the can is full. Put the lid on the can. Fill and pack the area around the can with soil, but don’t put soil right on top of the can. After that, cut some foam and plywood both to the size of the lid. Set the foam cylinder on the lid first, then the plywood cylinder. Cover the plywood with a large rock to keep it all in place. That’s it! Harvest from your garbage can cellar throughout the winter. (You can use this same method for storage apples, but keep apples and root veggies separate. Apples release ethylene gas as they ripen, which will shorten the life of other foods if stored together.)

3. Create an Old-Fashioned Root Clamp

If your region doesn’t have super-hard winters, you can use this method. To make a root clamp, mound your vegetables on a bed of straw. As you work, create horizontal tunnels of straw that extend beyond the edges of the pile (this will allow air to pass through the pile so that excess moisture won’t build up and cause rot). Next, cover the whole pile with a 6-inch layer of straw followed by a 6-inch layer of soil.

If you didn’t grow many root crops this year, get down to your farmers market and stock up. Then, make a fun weekend project of creating an underground root cellar, and you’ll be enjoying delicious, local food this winter.

You can read the original article here.

Food Storage is about more than just having a backup of calories.  It’s about taste, nutrition, ease of preparation, and peace of mind.  Make sure you get the most out of your food storage by preserving it’s nutrient value AND it’s taste.  Food is only good if you will eat it.  So make sure you are storing your food properly.

You’ve probably seen food storage kits popping up all over the internet and even in your local Walmart, Sams club, or Costco.  But make sure you look close at the actual calorie and nutrition information you get in these kits.  You may be surprised at what you find.

For example, in Costco you will find the “Food For Health, 200 Serving Food Supply” in buckets.  That sounds good, but what constitutes a “serving”?  We did the math and found that each serving in this bucket is 133 calories.   To us, it sounds more like a diet plan than a food storage plan.

Other companies such as Wise Food Storage and Food Insurance take it a step further by telling you that your food is actually enough food for a specified period of time. But is it? Here is information we gathered from their websites:

Food Insurance: The 1264 Kit (a comparable priced kit to our ultimate year supply) only gives you 800 to 900 calories per day!

Wise Food Storage: We believe a meal should include an entrée, sides, fruits and veggies, and a drink. Wise counts the main entrée as a complete whole meal.

The Wise Food Storage 2160 Serving Package purports to be a 6-month supply for 4-adults. (also comparable priced kit to our ultimate year supply)  However, you only get 3 servings per day (not three meals per day… three servings!). Their entrées average 236 calories per serving.   That’s 708 calories per day!

Can you imagine living for 6-months on only 708 calories per day?  Let’s put that in perspective:

Auschwitz prisoners, with less physically demanding labor assignments, received approximately 1,300 calories per day, while those engaged in hard labor received approximately 1,700. After several weeks on such starvation ration most prisoners began to experience organic deterioration that led to the so-called “Muzulman” state, extreme physical exhaustion that ended in death.

700-900 calories per day is simply not enough food to sustain an adult for any real length of time, especially not for 6-months.

The point of storing food it to make sure your family won’t go hungry in the case that you need food.  Having some food is better than having none at all, but if you are mindful enough to store food, why not store what your bodies really need?

TIP: Look for calorie per day claim on a kit, if all you see is total servings you need to be wary and do the math! There is probably a reason they are advertising servings counts and not calories per day.