So what will happen when the power goes out? Will the canned food freeze?

Originally posted by Rocketman7

Originally posted by Vandalour
reply to post by Rocketman7

 

even if the can explodes all over the ground of the cold, collect the pieces and warm it up.
as long the temperature dont go up and down up and down.. then it will be bacteria heaven

Well you know if there is an apocalypse of any kind, like where most of the people die, everywhere will be tons of stored food. And millions and millions of rats.

Oh good, fresh meat.

reply to post by Rocketman7


When I moved to a new place I left a plastic container of canned soups in the garage. It stayed there through the winter (below freezing weather) and summer (over 100* for 6 weeks). The cans looked normal when I discovered them, but I was afraid to eat them.

I think most warehouses are unheated and not cooled.

There must be a study on this.

I go to garage sales. Lots of people in this area store extra food in their unfinished garages on 2x4s attached to the support posts.

Originally posted by Sparky63
Based on further research I think it is best to do your best to not let cans freeze. If they do, then it is possible for micro organisms to contaminate the can, especially if the can is deformed. If you must consume a can that has been frozen, do so as soon as possible after the can is thawed out.
Survivors cant be too choosey, but you don't want to die of food poisoning.

I hear ya.

Even get sick and don't die, just get stomach aches etc and be vulnerable. Be lying somewhere helpless or incapcitated or weak. Not good at all. Something else will get you if the food poisoning doesn't finish you off.

Well that means if it looks like a long haul, with no hope of power returning, then one of the first orders of business will be to move canned goods and packaged goods like bottles and jars to some place that won't freeze.
Enough for maybe 10 years. WIth equipment it could be done easily enough, as long as you are not fighting off zombies at the time. WIthout equipment and by yourself, well, maybe you better look for an eighteen wheeler already filled up ready to make a delivery to a grocery store, and run with it and then, well, somehow store it, and insulate it or bury it, or drive it somewhere and cover it. Something.

Drive pick up trucks full of food stores into underground parking facilities but down there will probably freeze too because cold air sinks. And the building might explode from the gas and collapse in on the stores of food.

One thing is for sure, if you are a survivor, you will have to consider that before winter sets in the first year.

Picture typical NYC block where some 5000+people are packed in just one block, there already is a food shortage and power/fuel shortage. It's only a matter of time they will both be hungry and freezing indeed, due to artificial crammed living, people are dumbed and act oblivious to that.

It's important to live in a warm temperate and spacey terrain. Natural living. US cities are mostly the stark opposite of a survival scenario even in the tiniest of disasters, chaos will result.

Originally posted by ignant
Picture typical NYC block where some 5000+people are packed in just one block, there already is a food shortage and power/fuel shortage. It's only a matter of time they will both be hungry and freezing indeed, due to artificial crammed living, people are dumbed and act oblivious to that.

It's important to live in a warm temperate and spacey terrain. Natural living. US cities are mostly the stark opposite of a survival scenario even in the tiniest of disasters, chaos will result.

How good are you at sailing a cruise ship?

Can you come and pick me up in Victoria when TSHTF? I have a fuel storage depot and we can fill it up with gas, and room to park I think 4 or 5 cruise ships. They have walk in freezers and plenty of room to store supplies.

And the chicks would really dig it.
Victoria Cruise Ship Terminal

reply to post by Rocketman7


Canned food will expand if froze, some will pull apart at the weakest point in the can. Not all will do this, some...many items will be fine, but to make sure they don't spoil, you should try to have the items in an above the freezing point. Even being to hot will do the same thing. Any temp above freezing and below 80 is or for canned goods, but the best temp would be 40-60 year round.

If a SHTF and you had access to the storage facility, then get what you can...all you can and get it out of the extreme heat, or cold and you would be set as far as food goes...atleast a lot better than most.
I didn't say steal, but if its TEOTWAWKI then it will be a free for all with all the masses...it would be like black friday, and new nike air sales on steroids...all in one times 100 or times 1000.
You would be best to avoid anything like that...by having what you need for you now...but it is a good thing as a back up so you can really get a huge supply for yourself..if it was safe to go in and get it...once TSHTF.

Interesting observation boys. I got one to add. I work catering on weekends. This past summer there was a couple of days of 96 degrees. We loaded our gear for a cookout luncheon. Around 10 am it was already 93 degrees, first thing off the van was the canned sodas in cases and the coolers. As we located them under a tree for what little bit of shade we had to work with. Walking away to do other duties, there were the sodas starting to explode in the cases. Mind you we handle them carefully to begin with, so no just dumping them into stacks or piles or even into coolers in a hap hazard way. Each one is money, so loosing them over negligence isn't appreciated. But there was no stopping the bursting sodas. Was funny but was also a mess and out of pocket loss. Knew what a frozen can of soda does, but was a first for a hot one! Granted transport to event and relocating the stock probably shook them up a bit, but nothing unusual how we treated them. Just caught us off guard, cause you couldn't predict which ones would blow and which one wouldn't. Something you might want to consider for smaller stashes is putting canned goods into coolers for added insulation. Stock more dehydrated goods is the better option. One more thing, if electricity goes out and your day time high is still at or below the freezing mark, take freezer goods outside, again in coolers or make a snowbank, reinforce your storage from animal or human invasion.

Originally posted by saltdog
reply to post by Rocketman7

 

Canned food will expand if froze, some will pull apart at the weakest point in the can. Not all will do this, some...many items will be fine, but to make sure they don't spoil, you should try to have the items in an above the freezing point. Even being to hot will do the same thing. Any temp above freezing and below 80 is or for canned goods, but the best temp would be 40-60 year round.

If a SHTF and you had access to the storage facility, then get what you can...all you can and get it out of the extreme heat, or cold and you would be set as far as food goes...atleast a lot better than most.
I didn't say steal, but if its TEOTWAWKI then it will be a free for all with all the masses...it would be like black friday, and new nike air sales on steroids...all in one times 100 or times 1000.
You would be best to avoid anything like that...by having what you need for you now...but it is a good thing as a back up so you can really get a huge supply for yourself..if it was safe to go in and get it...once TSHTF.

Well this giant warehouse has no markings, no sign, just a bunch of old trucks in the parking lot, and so probably very few people know about it. Other than those who work there, maybe a hundred people, and the people in the close vacinity who live across the street and that. Most people would go to the grocery store and loot it and not think about where the grocery store gets its goods from.

If they did, then there are another 10 such warehouses in this city but they look like food depots with big signs and modern buildings and new trucks. This is the volume sales run by Chinese people or something giant discount wholesaler that probably just delivers pallets and pallets of stuff. And its in the light industrial part of town, and right close to the giant wholsale food club, and its huge. So people would be looting next door practically, and the motherlode is right there in all those warehouses.

I think the best option would be to take a big truck full of stuff and somehow secure it. Protect it from the weather, and even take it out of town. That and your bug out bag and all you might need is some human company and you would need little else. You could get right out of the way and not even get involved if you wanted to.
This area is not like the US. I have travelled the US and its difficult to get away from where people are.

Not here. You don't have to go far to get away from the masses. Today you will maybe see a forestry truck out there, but then, you will only see other people trying to flee into the woods. And its all dirt roads for forestry lands and not much else once you get off the one highway that is the main road. And thats true for most of Canada. One main highway in or out of the city. One main highway across the country.

In the US there is a town every 20 miles or even 10 miles, but here you could go hundreds of miles and not find a town. Next gas 250 miles. You see signs like that.

I didn't look to see where your from, but even in the USA we have areas that are like what you described your in...southwest US. gas stations there have signs up and say...last gas for 150 miles...so I do understand what your saying.
I would be careful about having a huge box truck to haul everything in...it would be a slower moving vehicle loaded down and it would also be a huge target. The ideal plan would be to have it and be where you need to be, before IT happens. We all think of ways to ensure we have what we need, for harder times...
Every person here...I hope has a plan, the same plan might work great for some, and fail for others...who's to say what will or won't work...
I just hope that we never find out.

reply to post by Rocketman7


Freezing wont ruin the food... Thawing will...

Once a can of food has frozen and thawed, it needs to be consumed immediately if it has remained below 40 degrees... Any warmer and you're likely to get food poisoning, possibly botulism...

wow people canned goods can last over a year but with the right temperature cold is not what anyone really has to worry about its natures refrigerator much like running streams and lakes and ponds even during the summer months.

That said every food product made today well most contain that most vilified perservative salt campings foods like mountain house is another reason it keeps so long.

Personally never seen a can exploded from freezing but never thought to throw in in the freezer to find out but i have heard about canned foods still being good even after 100 years but that was dependent upon the right temperature.

simple way to tell if its bad is look for dents and bulges if so forget it also if you know theres a food warehouse near you chances are other people do as well.

Hell there is a wall mart distribution center 20 minutes from where i live but not counting on it to be there if the shtf ever hit.

Remember anything you think of someone else a lot of others have thought of the same.

you would need to "acquire" the cans and bury them under a pyramid of straw or grass covered with earth. Like clamping potatoes.

If you can wrap them to keep them dry, then starting a compost heap above them will provide heat from the fermenting biomass.

Originally posted by neo96
wow people canned goods can last over a year but with the right temperature cold is not what anyone really has to worry about its natures refrigerator much like running streams and lakes and ponds even during the summer months.

That said every food product made today well most contain that most vilified perservative salt campings foods like mountain house is another reason it keeps so long.

Personally never seen a can exploded from freezing but never thought to throw in in the freezer to find out but i have heard about canned foods still being good even after 100 years but that was dependent upon the right temperature.

simple way to tell if its bad is look for dents and bulges if so forget it also if you know theres a food warehouse near you chances are other people do as well.

Hell there is a wall mart distribution center 20 minutes from where i live but not counting on it to be there if the shtf ever hit.

Remember anything you think of someone else a lot of others have thought of the same.

Thats true, so maybe I will hit the little mountain climbing store and raid their Mountain House dry food section while everyone loots the grocery store.

I actualy went there last pay day, I said to myself before I went in, ok, I am only going to spend a hundred bucks. I ended up spending 3 hundred. And I got 7 meals, a candle lantern (now there's a handy item) and a few camping cook pots combo alchohol stove kit, and a oh I don't know where the money went. Everything was pretty cheap but it adds up. A pair of mylar coverals with hood that is covered in plastic. Great for fallout or hypothermia.

I haven't eaten the mountain house dry meals yet. Haven't tested them out yet but they get rave reviews.
People say it is the best dry food you can buy for taste.

I went to their site, and they have dry meals in bulk in cans that will hast for 25 years.

The dry pouches that you just add boiling water to the pouch, has a 6 year shelf life. $6.50 per meal.
Big meals. They say for two people but its really one big meal for one.

But the stoves they had well, I am going to start a thread to talk about stoves. In fact heat and light packs, and stoves.

reply to post by Rocketman7


Actually your best bet is to supplement canned goods and other staples with those like mountain house since they do have such a high salt count they are not meant to live on for the long term.

A diet with high sodium intake can and has killed people and in that situation not like your going to be able to run to the hospital.

a Moderate intake is vital.

"So what will happen when the power goes out?"

wish that it was still on