Sunday was a interesting food storage day, brought a new big 20 pd bag of flour in from the freezer and when I opened it, I didn’t like the way the flour smelled, it was off.. not rancid but I started into that bag and just didn’t like it..
Was to Make the first item, still didn’t like it.. when I poured it and felt it, still off, finally put it though the strainer, and sure enough scales and most likely eggs that I can’t see.. then as it warmed up, the smell came out.. rancid bug flour.. what the ??
O ya, last year when the big freezer got unplugged the bags of flour at that time got moved to the truch for a couple days while we cleaned and got the freezer bag again, clearly the bugs had a blast in that time.. neverless to say that flour is off the human table, I am still trying to figure out if I want to refreeze it (so the eggs that I can’t see but figure are in there can’t hatch in my house) and use it to make tack for the chickens, they don’t care about old flour or bugs in it..
Then I sent hubby down for a list of canned goods and one of them turned out to be a second year old rhurbarb, looked fine, popped fine, but had a single tiny black spot on the inside of the lid, hmmm Took off the top of the jar and smelled it, smelled fine, poured it out into a glass jug, looked fine, no mold strings, lifted out spoonful and stared at it, bright color, looks right.. looked at the lid spot again.. poured into a small pot and started to heat it, for two reason’s, a) if there is nothing wrong with it, i am being careful by giving it a boil for ten min, and B) if there is something wrong with it, the cooking will give time for the smell to come up and off, and that is just what happens once it got hot.. the nose knew what the eyes could not see.. this jar had gone bad! and down the toilet it went, not safe even for the critters nor the compost pile.
Then I opened up a new small jar of my bulk raw pumpkin seeds and they had gone/going rancid, sheez! Went to the hounds ground up as natural dewormers so that they could be all used up without going to waste..
It seems like every time I turn around, I am reading on a blog about learning to can or pressure can and how easy it is, and I agree, follow the rules and you will get a good safe product but I want to follow along with the canning and cook books in regards to advice, if you are new to cooking, canning or food storage.. use four of your five sences..
- Look at the food- and not just the top, pour it out, lift it by the spoonful, move it around.
- Smell your food -If in doubt, heat it to double check.
- Feel your food- sometimes just the texture and feel of a tsp of food will give you the answer
- Hear your food-Truly spoiled canned food can have sounds that will tell you that its gone..
But for heaven sakes.. Please! don’t taste that food until you are sure. and if it fails any of the above, don’t eat it! The problem with the above is clear to me, if you have never made that product before and or have little or no cooking experance, how do you know that the texture is off, or the color is off, and is that color off because its older or because it went bad.
I don’t have the answer other then to say that as with most things in life, time and practise are required, so might i recommend that you consider doing the above on all your good jars, so that when you hit that bad one, some part of you goes.. Stop wait..
If I didn’t make my bread by hand, those scales in the flour would not have been seen or felt by a wooden spoon but my first touch stilled me.. my rhubarb fruit was sealed, but bad spots on the inside of a lid.. should not happen in a good jar, and as for the jar of my bulk seeds, I always take a first whiff when I open a jar, typically its a pleasent thing, but it also gives you the first best chance as the air is at its most scented, one of the perks of storage in jars, raither then in bags.
Be careful and stay safe in the kitchen.. take that extra few seconds to learn your food, its worth the effort.
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Just another Day on the Farm 
I make it a routine to check my stores every two weeks. Just cleaned up of ‘taters with a few going bad. Nothing worse than finding a jar oozed all over the cupboard. I know some folks eat their green beans cold from the jar but I just don’t risk it. Even though I know I’m meticulous in my canning kitchen it isn’t worth the risk. My husband is bad to try and eat week old leftovers that plainly smell bad so I check the frig daily and anything suspicious goes to the chickens or compost pile.
Dee
That is a very good idea if your hubby lacks a good sense of smell and tends to eat thing that have gone to the dark side, DH does not have a great sense on this either but he will bring things for me to check before eating them.
Good morning FarmGal, Probably one of the most important things when putting down food is to ensure everything is well marked with the date produced: eg. (for me, at least) today is 2012-01-30 and batch number (let’s say there were several containers of Chili going into the freezer) #1 of3, #2 of3 and #3 of3.
That way you know exactly how old things are if they happen to get moved around on the shelf, or if there’s trouble with a certain batch.
I use a Film Marker/grease pencil to write on the (still warm) Mason jar lids or indelible marker on my reused (rinsed out with hot water when emptied; then hand washed, rinsed and air-dried with the dishes) plastic milk bags. *Gasp* PLASTIC!? Yes, I know some of you are horrified by this, but there’s nothing that I have found (other than glass, which is just too darned fragile and dangerous, sorry) that’ll keep things like fruits and veggies as fresh in the freezer once they’re vacuum-sealed shut (and they take up a lot less space too; )
Deb, I love the idea of marking the batches in numbers, I often will make a number of batchs of the same thing, when they are all ripe at the same time or in season and then can’t tell them apart because its just marked Strawberries with the month and year on them.. I’m going to give that a try this year on a few things..
One thing you mentioned I’d like to expand on- Botulism toxin has no discernible taste or smell but can only be produced in anaerobic conditions ( low oxygen). So if your jar doesn’t seal properly, it’s full of air which means mold and other bacteria can be in it but these are not deadly- just make food look and taste bad! You’re more likely to find botulism in sealed jars which either are too low in acid, or improperly pressure canned. The good things (as DEE noted) is that botulism toxin can be destroyed by heating it so if in doubt, you can always heat the contents to boiling to be certain.
Hi Callie
Thanks for adding to my thoughts, I didn’t explain why the ten min boil was to make sure it was safe, but yes when in doubt I will do a botulism simmer if the jar is sealed but still does not seem quite right to me.
Thanks for this GREAT advice! I am new to canning and food storage so I have a lot to learn!
Hi Megan
Welcome to the blog, and glad you found it helpful, I jump all over the place depending on what time of year it is and what is happening, but come garden/canning season, I go into food storage a fair amount.
Hope you will stick around..
Just a quick hint to save grains and beans, even after a bug invasion: Diatamacious earth. (DE). I had a real problem with pantry moths in my food (ICK!). Now, when storing my grains (rice, barley, etc) and dried beans I put them in the largest jar(s) I can find… then put a table spoon or two of Food Grade DE on the top. The food grade is a white powder… the feed grade is grey. The swimming pool stuff is chemically altered_ so keep it away from your food.
This keeps the bugs out of your food. When you are ready to use the grains and beans, just rinse the DE off (although it is edible)
Now if the critters are already in your grains/beans, add the DE to the top of the jar, and shake it to get down into it. The DE kills the bugs (larve.. ewww). You can safely rinse off the DE and then (now) dead bugs. I lost 75lbs of beans before figuring this out. Pantry moths won’t be stealing my stash anylonger! (Oh, fyi.. I tried other methods of keeping the critters out of the grains. One popular piece of advice was to put a bay leaf in the grains. My little critters apparently liked the bay leaves, as they had made nests on them.)