Storing sugar and salt long term

Tetters

Tetters

Well-known member
Location
Kent UK
Hardiness zone
9a
I think that due to adverse weather situations etc., our American friends on the forum will quite possibly be more in the know about long term food storage. We are hearing opposing thoughts on the mylar bag storage of salt and sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Can anyone tell us about these products being stored with oxygen removers please? Some folk say that although sugar for example will form an iron like rock, while others mention the danger of encouraging botulism in the products.
My old mum would say ''if in doubt - don't'' but we'd appreciate your thoughts.
 
Although I'm American I don't worry about solid concrete sugar. I just whack it with a spoon and it goes back to normal. I do have sugar in a large glass jar with a (supposedly) air-tight seal on it but that's only because I was advised by my Doc to switch to Stevia products. Sugar is for guests.

I don't get why? Bees make honey from plants, sugarcane is a plant and so's Stevia 😣

As for salt it stays ok within it's cardboard box with the picture of the little girl holding an umbrella over her head. Can't use much of that either, blood pressure, you know. Lemon pepper is the substitute and it always clumps up so I take a fork to it to loosen it.

Is there something wrong with clumpy salt and sugar?

I don't bake from scratch so I don't have bicarb or baking powder
 
Thanks for that Annie, and as usual you made me laugh as well.
Thanks to you as well Meadowlark. I do use mylar bags. With dehydrated foods, I would never use an oxygen remover, but always a silica bag. The main query however, is the use of oxygen removers for long term storage - like several years.
I have learned about what will and will not be suitable for this kind of storage, but am concerned about whether or not botulism is likely to occur with those particular products.
As for hammering them to death Annie - I am definitely up for that, but it's the forming of botulism with those few foods that is concerning.
The whole effort would be a waste of time if it kills us, 😄
 
I don't know if it's any help but salt is a mineral and I've kept and used it for years with no known problems. Also never seen a sell by or use by date on packaging. Sugar I believe can be kept for a couple of years before it deteriorates.
 
Sheal said:
I don't know if it's any help but salt is a mineral and I've kept and used it for years with no known problems. Also never seen a sell by or use by date on packaging. Sugar I believe can be kept for a couple of years before it deteriorates.
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Salt has kept for epochs out in the salt mines where it comes from. I thought botulism was most prevalent in homemade canned foods, not an issue with staples, but what do I know??
 
Really a great way to store emergency food for long durations. A 5-gallon food storage bucket runs about $5 and will hold about 30 pounds of food including salt and sugar and whatever.

Special lids...I use gamma lids...insure ideal food storage conditions. For extra protection, one can put the food in mylar bags first and then in the bucket. Very convenient to move around and very effective.

food storage.webp
 
Mmmm I can get food safe buckets that size, although just a bit more money than $5, but having managed to find those lids you mention, they are a bit beyond affordability for me at a price each of a penny under £19 on Amazon, which is about $24.44 .... just for one 😵. I find that generally a bigger plastic storage container that takes several bags, and is lidded a more economical solution - just to keep out any unwanted vermin as oxygen remover bags are inside the mylars if and when they are needed.
Grateful for your input though.
When I was a child - hundreds of years ago, we didn't own a refrigerator or freezer, and the houses were all built with larders. These were always cool, with sizeable air vents covered in mesh gauze to keep out flies. Ours had shelves made of marble, and a special ''meat safe'' whenever mum could buy it.
There was no washing machine, and no central heating either! ..... and we'd never heard of mylar bags.
 
Again I went dark for a while on forums - lots of work and riding bikes.

We use buckets, like @Meadowlark pointed out, for bulk rice, flour, beans, and other misc dry food items. Mainly because these buckets are bug proof and mouse resistant and we buy bulk things 50 to 100 pounds at a time. The Gama lids are a nice luxury but for the cost are a bit painful. Where we have around 6 bulk buckets going only one flour and one rice bucket have Gama lids.

Salt and Sugar should be fine in just buckets or standard ziplok freezer bags in the bucket to keep things more organized.

All these dry things won't grow botulism because they're dry. You're worried about that toxin growing in low acid, low oxygen, wet environments. Salt and sugar in fact will desiccate things to preserve them. Think candied fruits (aka sugar plums) and salt meat.

The 5 gallon buckets are a bit heavy and unwieldy to work from so we decant from the bulk bucket into a more kitchen friendly size container. The Gama lids are on flour where we use 1400 grams at a time to bake bread or 900 grams for pizza dough - or simply large amounts making decanting impracticable.
 
Thank you for your input @Mr_Yan .... and I suggest maybe a little less work, and decidedly less on a bike as that activity has a way of messing up your credentials!!
Having done lots of homework on this subject, I realised that the oxygen removing bags were not necessary for salt or sugar, and in fact when I checked out those two previously closed bags, I had not put these in anyway, and both salt and sugar were still free running after 12 months.
My further preps are still away in mylar bags and heat sealed, complete with the oxygen removers. As I had no buckets, I decided to get some strong black storage boxes for the job instead, to eliminate interference from vermin etc. 1723926890213.webp These hold 42 litres each, which would be just over 9 gallons. Each storage box holds a variety of filled mylar bags, and Mr muscle aka @Zigs is able to lift each box when needed.
 
Tetters said:
@Meadowlark , I have no idea what ''food buckets'' you mean. Maybe it's another American ''thing'' ?
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We use rubbermaid siliconized food "buckets" containers. They hold about 10 lbs of flour or sugar. One can get a 5 gallon food safe bucket too I imagine. I would have no real issue with using a foodsaver vacuum bag save one condition. I would use a food processor to regrind if it got hard which is what they are good for after all. Or use a blender which is a big coffee grinder anyway. The problem with any polymer is that they slowly degrade over time so glass may be better for years of storage and the process of sanitizing the glass can be helped with a hot dishwashing machine. I use the open mesh of a very coarse sink drain sieve or colander to filter lumps out of ground or powdered ingredients. I love the brown cane sugars in coffee and they are so rocky I usually just dissolve them first in the water as it heats. Starbucks expresso with brown cane sugar and cream is pure decadance.

My issue with plastic degrading is modified by the colder temps of frozen storage which slows decomposition processes of storage plastics. At work we cannot put polyester solar film on plastic lexan or polycarbonate windows because they will trap gas bubbles from the decomposition gasses coming off the polymer substrates of which there are several makes. These are windows in the sun (think added heat). I have seen no problem when the plastic security windows were inside a building over years (Think one-way mirror tinting). There isa plastic primer film that allows gassing off under the film as the gas can exit out the sides but I cannot see how that is useful for storage bags.

www.southernliving.com

How Often Should You Replace Your Food Storage Containers?

Five things to consider when it comes to reusing or replacing food storage containers. Experts share their best tips.
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I've long since decided the ''decadence'' of stored food is totally unimportant when it comes to survival kits especially. The only things that are important to my cupboard space are those products that I deem to be ''essential''.
As a separate issue on this subject, I made one surprising discovery. I understood that freezing goods like - flour for instance, should by all advice kill off any pantry moth eggs that could be lurking. For this reason, and on advice, I have tried dehydrating frozen mixed vegetables and similar from the shop. Most of the time this has been an excellent and quick way to do the job, but one batch, properly dehydrated and conditioned resulted in the dreaded moths. How they managed to actually morph from eggs to moths in 12 months, in a sealed jar with silica pouch after the process of freezing and dehydrating is a total mystery to me. It couldn't have happened in the dehydrating machine, as it is completely sealed during the process. It has only been in ONE jar out of dozens. 😟❓
 
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