# Shelf Life of Home Canned Goods



## davisfarris (Nov 14, 2012)

Hey All! This will be my first real post to this forum, or any forum for that matter. My wife and I have been getting into prepping lately and moved from Chicago to south Louisiana (thank goodness we are outta there) a few months ago. I am curious, how long will our home canned goods last. I've read about a year if done properly, but surely they last longer, right? I see pictures of hundreds of cans on shelves. You are telling me people use those every year and restock? Thanks!


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## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

If properly done, literally decades. They lose some nutritional value over time, but as long as the seal remains intact, you're good to go.

How much food do you eat in a year? Hundreds of cans will barely cover a year for a family.


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

Congrats on your first post, anyway, my wife and I have canned goods that we canned MANY years ago, and as partdeux says you lose some nutritional value and in some cases texture and color, but it is still edible and tastes good.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

I always like to eat at least one jar from this years batch, as soon as they are stored.
But as a rule you should eat the oldest foods first. That way you have a longer time to store a food, if you have a bad year or can not work the ground.
EXAMLE: We had the wettest summer in 45 or more years. The tomatoes did very little, but last year we had so many we gave away what we could not can.
This is the Joseph effect, like Joseph of the coat many colors.
Seven shinny cows ate the seven fat cows.
Still a good rotation is best.
If you are home steading, think about perennial garden plants like, asparagus,sunchokes,walking & potato onions,leeks,garlic, fruit bushes & vines. They give the maximum fruit with the minim work after the first year.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

When canning I try to think 4 years ahead. If I use 100 jars of something per year I try to have 200 jars on the shelves... I use as normal for year 1 (100 jars used 100 left) then if I have a crop failure in year two I begin to ration (use 50 jars, 50 left), year three if I have a bad year I'll ration again (use 25, 25 left) etc etc. If I have good years one after the other I give a lot away or feed it to the pigs.... 
Take the last 4 years, year one was a great tomato year, canned hundreds of jars but the next three years have been terrible. 2 years we had flooding and one year it was just too cold for heavy crops. I still have plenty of toms on the shelves but only as I started with a LOT. I've managed to can some every year, but haven't had enough for all the sauces and salsas I would normally do. I haven't run out of anything, YET . 
As far as number used in a year...... we eat fresh from the garden/farm or can or dehydrate our food. Try not to freeze anything but a bit of corn on the cob, a few snow peas and the best frying cuts of meat. That means we need a LOT of jars. Just one beef cow will fill 300 quarts, more if we want ready meals like stews. I have maybe 1500 quart jars but some are refilled more than once a year. If we butcher a pig I'll use maybe 100 quarts, some just meat, some stews or pork and beans etc, some bacon and ham. Then we'll eat most of it. When we get low we'll butcher again and refill, might do this 3 or 4 times a year. So those 100 jars might equal 400 quarts of food over a year.
I'm aiming for 4000 quarts on the shelves. That's enough for everyone on the farm as well as visitors (we have a lot through the year) and enough for extended family. Plus a big margin for bad years or in our case long periods of bad health. It's not at all unusual for us to open 10 jars in a day.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

In high moisture areas rusting lids can be an issue. Other wise I have read where 40 year old home canned foods have been tested and were still safe to eat.


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## dixiemama (Nov 28, 2012)

We've ate 10 year old pie filling. I mushed it up for baby food for Bubby.


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## pops (Feb 15, 2009)

A few months back I opened one of my Danish Canned Hams that I had in my storage for 5 years. Same texture, taste and color.

On the other hand, a can of Carnation condensed milk turned into a solid brown blob in two years.

Both cans were stored in my house out of sunlight and the warmest that my house ever gets is 78 deg according to my thermostat.

More to come.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

not even canned.. I took a plastic sealed 2 lb package of ham out of my deep freeze and it was 5 years expired.

Thawed it and ate the entire thing over the next month as sandwiches. 

I have a lot more faith in my home canned jars than that plastic sealed wrap, my jars require NO temperature control. my chili, soup, chicken, beef, cheese, etc etc etc require absolutely no help at all. They are just waiting


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

In terms of safety and edibility as long as the container is sound (lid not rusted through and still popped down) it will be fine. Once the bacteria are killed and/or the conditions are right to prevent botulism spores from growing, that doesn't change with time. 
In terms of "freshness" and nutrition it depends more on what type of food is canned and in what way. Meat and fish last Very well while fruits and veggies will sometimes go soggy and pale over time. The nutrition such as the protein in meat will not be effected, nor will the minerals, but vitamins and similar compounds will degrade over time, obviously more of a concern with fruits and veggies.


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## davisfarris (Nov 14, 2012)

I had no idea. This is AWESOME! For some reason I thought we needed to go through our pantry and pitch all our old canned items. We canned some super good strawberry-rhubarb a few years back and I just found a jar and got really excited until I found the date! Then I got pretty bummed, but now I'm excited again! 

As far as the meat canning goes, it's something I've never tried but I really would like to attempt. I love making jerky and I can't wait to try Dakine's jalapeño marinade on my next batch. I'm wondering if it is very hard. 

I appreciate all the responses. We are relatively new to the canning world and can what excess we grow or what good deals we get at the farmers market. Enjoy the weekend!


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Welcome to the forum & congratulations on getting out of Chicago :congrat: South Louisiana might be a culture shock but Louisiana folk are usually good people. You picked a great forum to be on, there's some really smart folk here with lots of experience.

About your question, there are a couple questions at play. Will it kill you? And Will it have the same texture, taste, & vitamin content? The answer to the first is no, as long as the lid is still sealed with no breach of integrity & the jar completely intact. The answer to the second question is nothing completely stops the aging process, including canning, so the food will continue to breakdown, be it at a very slow rate. Storing what you eat & eating what you store solves any possible problem.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

I think I posted this before but after my grandmother passed on a few years ago I found 2 jars of Okra and Tomatoes on one of her shelves that were dated 1979 and decided to try them out.

They were still edible and I didn't get sick or die but I did decide that they were past their prime being 30+ years old.

What did really surprise me though was that the lids had absolutely no rust at all on them, inside or outside.

My aunt recently gave me a box of canning jars she had gathered up from her(my grandmother) house and mixed in with them was an unopened jar of sauerkraut that has to be over 10 years old. She(grandmother) hadn't made any for at least 15 or 20 years and I think it was from a batch I made and gave her about 10 years ago. I'm going to take it to the Meet-Up next month and let anyone brave enough try it, have a taste.


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## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

My powdered milk was vacuum sealed with O2 absorbers. It's two years old and looks like the day I jarred it up.


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## JayJay (Nov 23, 2010)

Regarding your question?/
I ate the last home canned jar of green beans last summer dated 1992.
They were great. Tasted like just garden picked.
Yes, that's 20 years.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

davisfarris said:


> I had no idea. This is AWESOME! For some reason I thought we needed to go through our pantry and pitch all our old canned items. We canned some super good strawberry-rhubarb a few years back and I just found a jar and got really excited until I found the date! Then I got pretty bummed, but now I'm excited again!
> 
> As far as the meat canning goes, it's something I've never tried but I really would like to attempt. I love making jerky and I can't wait to try Dakine's jalapeño marinade on my next batch. I'm wondering if it is very hard.
> 
> I appreciate all the responses. We are relatively new to the canning world and can what excess we grow or what good deals we get at the farmers market. Enjoy the weekend!


my experience with the jalapeno marinade was that it had low kick and good flavor for me. I prefer things bring the heat, I have a friend that will not sit well with anything that is from a pepper so I didnt even ask her to try the beef jerky but those others that did, LOVED IT!!!

If I make a batch again that I experiment with, I might try habanero peppers next time. Thats on the candied peppers, the left over syrup for the beef jerky is AWESOME so I'm fine with leaving it as is, it's a crowd pleaser and I'm fine that I want more kick that others would find way to hot.

Maybe what I'll do tomorrow is try using canned jalapeno slices instead of fresh cut. I spent a LOT of time in the prep work, and thats not even counting the prep time sorting out the good peppers from bad at the grocery store, and when you're trying to buy like 6lbs of peppers... good luck!

and by that I mean making it just for jerky and meat rub marinade. it's that good that it deserves making it for it's own recipe.


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