Via a conversation with Fred Choate – owner of Choate, Machine, and Tool – I found out that he had a rare experience with rice that had been stored for 40 years. Yes – 40 years! While many of us state that rice and other foods will last “forever,” this is the longest I’ve heard of someone actually testing their long-term food storage.
Here’s a brief discussion:
Fred – We were cleaning out Dad’s personal storage at the factory. This was May 2018. We found a couple pallets of food Dad put up between 1976 and 1978. Rice, brown beans, and shell macaroni. They were new one-gallon paint cans he rigged a CO2 tank with a stainless steel probe he inserted to the bottom of the can. He cracked the valve and let the can fill up and push the air out the top of the can. He had a 5-minute timer. I brought a can of rice home and opened it. I cooked it next to fresh rice. The 40-year-old rice was yellowed. I cooked a cup of each. The old rice had a very mild, flat taste but was not bad tasting at all. I ate half of it with no issues. Made the whole gallon can and fed it to the dogs. I haven’t tried the beans or macaroni.
Rourke: This is great information to have on long-term food storage.
Fred – Yes, it’s info that is good to have. It was kept in an uncooled or heated shop, almost the worst possible environment. The corrosion on some of the cans is where a jug of bleach on the shelf above leaked. I pitched all the cans that looked like they had holes in them. I still have all the cans that were left. I figured I would make dog food out of it. I have thought about trying the beans. It was the first long-term storage food Dad put up. I remember helping put the CO2 in the cans.
After hearing about this I asked Fred if I could share the information and he said, “Sure!”
If you are not familiar with Fred’s company – Choate, Machine, and Tool – check out their website. They are a leading supplier of firearm accessories specializing in stocks. They’ve been around a long time and have a great reputation for quality and value.
By the way, I love their pistol grip stock for the Ruger 10/22. Sweet! Oh – and Made in the USA 🇺🇲!!
Thanks again for sharing Fred!
Take care all –
Rourke
i have used co2 in the past in the form of dry ice, just be sure to let the bucket burp or you will have beans and rice everywhere, ask me how i know : )
i use dry nitrogen now to preserve my stash of food and pew pews. the initial setup was a little pricy with the regulator and all, but the refills and exchanges, on the smaller ” B ” bottles are dirt cheap at our local NAPPA and go a long, long way.
REMEMBER THAT CO2 and NITROGEN WILL DISPLACE OXYGEN SO USE OUTSIDE !
Good to know about the rice. On a related subject, I recently learned that baking soda can cause a reaction in baked goods that turns them green. The most common culprit is by adding sunflower oil to a baking soda/flour mixture. The end result is still perfectly good and won’t make you sick, but it’s undeniably green. We learned this the hard way when we made dumplings using a new recipe. I also think it was related to the sauerkraut they were cooked in, because we used that same container of flour before and after The Dumpling Episode and never got green results again.
Great article! My tests don’t go back near that far but I do have rice which I stored in 2009 in clean juice bottles. No CO2 was used but an oxygen absorber pouch was dropped into each one. The rice remains as white and fresh as the day I stored them.