16 Food Storage Myths Busted

As I have taught classes, composed handouts, and blogged about food storage alongside personal efforts of preparing my family, I have come across a whole lot of myths when it comes to food storage.  Read on to see how many of these you've come across, and how many you believe.  Then, check out the references or go to links to other articles I've posted on the blog here for more information.

Mormons store a lot of food.  The leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have counseled their members for over a hundred years to store food against a time of need.  The vast majority of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), as we prefer to be called, choose to ignore this counsel and store only a little bit more food than Americans in general.  So they have about two weeks' worth of food on hand.  And, in general, the more financially successful they are, the less food they store.  On the other hand, they are the first to panic in a crisis.  As COVID-19 gained a foothold in the US, people in Utah were the first to wipe out grocery stores.  In Idaho, which has the second-largest population of LDS in the US, stores were cleaned out four days later.  The Church does not publish any statistics on this.  The information comes from food storage specialists in the Church from around the country who have conducted their own unscientific surveys to determine what their congregation members have, what they need to learn, and how best to teach.  It matches my own observations as I have taught food storage and emergency preparedness in various congregations in different parts of the country. 

I'll just go hunting.  That's the plan proclaimed by many.  But history does not support this myth.  During the Great Depression in the US, many game species were hunted to near extinction.  It won't be any different the next time.  Game will disappear quickly, and then people will start taking chances with more questionable species.

If you eat too many rabbits, you'll get protein poisoning.  Protein poisoning occurs when people eat only wild rabbits.  This is because the body cannot utilize protein in the complete absence of fat and carbohydrates.  And those wild rabbits have precious little fat on them.  Domestic rabbits, on the other hand, if they are being fed appropriately, do have sufficient fat on them to avoid protein poisoning.  

If you're really hungry, you'll be happy to eat anything.  No, if people are really hungry, they may eat anything, but they won't necessarily be happy about it.  In a crisis, and especially without good food, people become irritable and make poor decisions.  Moreover, young children and the elderly just won't eat.  Children have sensitive taste buds and do not adapt to diet changes readily.  For their health and your sanity, make sure you store what your children normally eat.  If the foods they normally eat are not part of your storage plan, gradually introduce the foods that comprise your storage plan into their diet.

Food past date is bad.  Of course, it might be, but most of the time it is not.  Manufacturers are not required to put dates on packages by law, even for dairy or meat products.  They do it to help rotate stock.  If the consumer thinks food has gone bad and throws it away, so much the better for the manufacturer.  Of course, if you're talking about milk, you probably better not go too far past date.  I would have thought much the same about cream, but I opened a carton of heavy cream four months out of date that had gotten lost in the garage refrigerator.  Just for information's sake.  Because there was no way it would still be good. But you know what?  It was.  It was perfectly fine.  I made alfredo sauce with it.  Tasty.  We all loved it.  That was five months ago.  We're still alive and nobody detected anything off or experienced the least bit of stomach upset.  And for the record, I'm not saying that all food past date is safe.  I'd never say that.  And I wouldn't plan on it, either.  But there's no reason not to check it out.

Food spoilage equals food poisoning.  This isn't true, either.  These are entirely different terms with different meanings.  Spoiled food has started deteriorating, growing mold and other nasties.  It looks bad and usually tastes bad.  Food that will give us food poisoning, on the other hand, looks and smells and tastes great.  That's why we ate it.  Food poisoning can be due to any number of bacteria or viruses that were spread by infected individuals or equipment.  Some poisoning develops because the food was held at ideal temperatures for too long or because the equipment wasn't cleaned.  Other types, like botulism, arise due to improper processing of foods or poor sanitation and hygiene among food handlers.

Canning butter and cheese is safe.  Canning butter and cheese is most definitely not safe.  It is not USDA-approved, which may not matter to you, and I understand that.  I engage in some non-USDA approved practices myself.  On the internet, lots of voices insist that their grandmothers and others canned butter and no one ever got sick.  And they've done it themselves without incident.  However, the reason home canning of butter is not approved is that butter is a low-acid food that is 16% water.  And botulism can grow very easily in this environment.  Botulism is bad with modern medical facilities.  It will be far worse when there is no doctor.

The bacteria that produce the botulism toxin are found in the soil.  And that is why so many cases of botulism arise from improperly canned foods.  However, did you know that infantile botulism accounts for most of the cases of botulism in the US?  And while we are always cautioned to never feed honey to a child under one year of age, due to the risk of infantile botulism, did you know that most cases of infantile botulism have no link to honey?  Most cases of infantile botulism occur in infants who happen to live near active construction sites.  It is believed that they are inhaling contaminated dust and acquiring the disease that way.  So while one might think that canning butter or cheese poses no risk, since they aren't garden products, the reality is that some botulism spores are in the air.

And all of what was said for butter applies to cheese.  There are other safer options for both.  Melting dairy products and putting them in a canning jar creates a vacuum seal.  It is not canning and it is not safe.

You can get botulism from dehydrated foods.  No, the bacteria that produce the botulism toxin grow in anaerobic, moist, low-acid environments.  Foods that are dehydrated do not have enough moisture in them to facilitate bacterial growth.  If mold or bacteria grow on your dehydrated foods, it's because you didn't dehydrate them fully, or because they were not protected from humidity. 

Oven canning is safe.  There are two separate myths to bust here.  The first concerns oven canning in the sense of water bath and pressure canning.  Yes, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers canned this way.  Oven canning was considered an acceptable method of preserving fruits and vegetables up until 1917.  In that year, the USDA announced that oven canning was no longer deemed safe for preserving low-acid foods, but it was still acceptable for fruits up until 1940.  In the early 1940s, there were increasing numbers of reports of people being burned by exploding canning jars.

The second deals with "dry canning" of items such as grains, beans, and nuts in canning jars.  Basically, the food is heated for a given amount of time, usually thirty to sixty minutes, and then the lid and band are applied as soon as the food is removed from the oven.   The oxygen is still in there, it's still not safe to expose jars to direct dry heat, and it's not cheap when one factors in the cost of the lids.  Even buying new buckets and gamma lids would be cheaper.  And remember the enemies of long-term food storage?  Light, heat, humidity, and oxygen.  The only thing dry canning is protecting food from is humidity.  The last thing you're supposed to do is get your food hot when you don't have to.  What am I missing here? 

Baking in canning jars is safe.  There are two separate myths to bust here as well.  The first deals with the temperatures the jars are exposed to.  Yes, temperatures get high in boiling water baths and pressure canners, up to about 260 degrees.  But it's a gradual temperature change, not the rapid changes caused by direct contact as happens when jars are set on pre-heated oven racks or removed from ovens to cool on counters.  Canning jars are made from annealed glass, not tempered glass.  Annealed glass does not tolerate temperature changes and there is the risk of the glass shattering and causing substantial harm, especially to the eyes.

The second myth concerns the popularity of baking bread in canning jars, so-called canning of bread for later consumption.  If a lid is placed on the jar right after baking to create a vacuum seal, one is also creating the ideal conditions for the growth of botulism.  Yes, there are commercial manufacturers that make bread in sealed tins.  They have more advanced processes and safeguards for this.  We don't.

Cooking foods in freezer bags is safe.  Actually, according to the folks at SC Johnson, the makers of Ziploc Freezer Bags, their bags are not designed for cooking in.  The plastics may leach into the food when in direct contact with the food at boiling temperatures.  Backpackers and campers prepare food this way quite frequently, but it doesn't mean it's safe or recommended.

Hand warmers work the same as oxygen absorbers.  Well, they actually do work the same.  They get activated and absorb oxygen.  But some of them also contain asbestos and vermiculite, things we don't necessarily want in contact with our food, and they aren't in food-grade packaging.  And without capacity listed on the handwarmer packaging, you have no idea how many you need to absorb the oxygen.  Don't try to improvise here.  Save the hand warmers for keeping your hands warm.

Oxygen absorbers are the same as vacuum sealing.  Oxygen absorbers remove the oxygen from the container and leave the nitrogen behind.  Oxygen is what contributes to food spoilage.  Nitrogen is harmless.  The packaging, especially bags, may not suck in completely around the food it is protecting, but that's ok.  The goal is to remove oxygen, not nitrogen. Vacuum sealing does not remove all the oxygen. 

Salt lasts forever.  While most salt is salt is salt, iodized salt does not have an indefinite shelf life.  The iodine eventually dissipates, and in about five years, it's just table salt.  As iodine is essential to life, iodized salt must be rotated just like any other food.

Links to related posts:
Best-By, Use By, Sell By--What Those Dates Really Mean
Food Poisoning Overview
Canning Butter and Cheese
Salt 
Oxygen Absorbers 
Cooking in Freezer Bags  
Botulism
Food Fatigue 

For further reading:
https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/canning/exhibits/show/techniques/processing/oven (oven canning)
https://extension.psu.edu/canners-and-canning-methods-that-are-not-recommended (oven canning)
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/36cakes-breads.html (baking bread in canning jars)
http://localfarmmarkets.org/PYO.php?PAGGE=/canningbreads.php&NAME=Utah%20State%20University%20Canning%20Breads%20Safety&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fextension.usu.edu/tooele/files-ou/food-preservation/FN-FS_250_10.pdf
https://www.sorbentsystems.com/Oxygen_Absorber_Facts.pdf  (hand warmers are not the same as oxygen absorbers)