Food Storage: Rice and Beans
While I am sure there is some debate on this way of storing food long term. It works for us. And honestly, I don’t think I need to store it for 20+ years. That is another post for another day.
I re-use water and pop bottles to store rice and beans.
Fill the bottles then add a little O2 packet (oxygen absorber). You can find O2 packets on Amazon.
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Make sure the bottles are clean and dry. I run them through the dishwasher then let them dry for a day or more.
Because you have to work fast on the O2 packets, once you open the package, this is where a second person is needed.
One shoves the packet in the top of the full bottle while the other comes behind and closes the bottle up.
Then I store the left over packets in a Mason jar with the air sucked out.
I buy the 25 pounds of rice and beans at Costco. What is pictured is 1 bag of each. Sure doesn’t look like much.
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The bottle is OK former Cox it’s PET bottle while I’m curious about the cap.is it breathable? In such case, oxygen absorber couldn’t create the oxygen free environment really,isn’t it?
The cap is a great o2 barrier. Think back to when the bottle was filled with co2 spewing soda? It kept the co2 in. Non-carbonated bottles use a slightly different material for the lid. Gas exchange WILL occur over a long period of time. But with the low volume of air space as pictured the single o2 absorber would have no problem keeping up with gas exchange over a 10-15 year period as long as everything was stored properly. Nothing lasts forever, the key figuring out a reasonable lifespan. Even a plastic bottle will decompose EVENTUALLY. Since stock should be used, replaced, and rotated nothing should be on the shelf longer than 2 years under normal living conditions.
I live here in Saudi Arabia. We dont store rice in air tight containers.In fact, most people here prefer rice that has been set aside for a yr or two. It tastes better. But everything I’ve read from prepper blogs says it must be stored in airtight containers. Is this true? or is the rice we get in the states different than what we have here in the arab world?
I think the rice is the same, but the environment is different. Our air has much higher humidity, which means anything dry (rice, beans, wheat) will last longer in an airtight container. The air where you live is probably dry enough that it’s not important for the container to be airtight.
Here in North Idaho we are much dryer than, say, Western WA.
That is good to know since I have a few bags that I have yet to store.