Canned meats for BOLO

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What is your opinions on canned meats for emergency preps. Canned hams, Spam, Tuna etc. I know that foods last much longer than their use by dates, but will the commercially canned meats have long term benefits? Thanks guys.
 
Nothing wrong with having meats in tin cans in case of an emergency. They will last a long time after the expiration date too. We used to have some cornbeef, hash, Spam, viennas and tuna on hand, but now i only keep cans of tuna. All my other meats are canned in jars or dehydrated now if not in the freezer. When the boys were younger they'd just pull off the shelf and eat straight from the can for a snack.
I find that bringing along dehydrated meats for camping trips is a better option if you don't want the added down weight. Other than Jerkies, he only meat I have dehydrated is ground beef and chunks of chicken. I would think that dehydrating tuna would also work well. It doesn't take long to rehydrate and I just toss into soups or stews. I will rehydrate before putting in a casserole or potpie though.
 
The only meat I have canned is chicken. It is great too. And it has no preservatives which I love. All I added was a little canning salt. It made its own broth. Too bad it's in glass jars
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DrHenley said:
I would eat spam if all else fails. I can't see making a regular daily meal out of it.

I have some Vienna sausages in the prep foods though.
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I love fried spam with a slice of tomato.
 
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Everytime I go shopping I pick up a few tins of meat or fish to add to my stock. Our local store has a limited selection but about monthly I'll make the trip to Walmart or Albertsons and stock up. My stock came in handy after I sold the trailer and before the cabin was livable. Some of what I stock are; chicken, ham, beef, Spam, salmon, sardines, clams and oysters. I always carry a few tins with me whenever I'm out away from the cabin. I never bother looking at the expirey date. If the can isn't rusted or damaged, and doesn't smell bad when opened, I'll eat it.
 
Arcticdude said:
Everytime I go shopping I pick up a few tins of meat or fish to add to my stock. Our local store has a limited selection but about monthly I'll make the trip to Walmart or Albertsons and stock up. My stock came in handy after I sold the trailer and before the cabin was livable. Some of what I stock are; chicken, ham, beef, Spam, salmon, sardines, clams and oysters. I always carry a few tins with me whenever I'm out away from the cabin. I never bother looking at the expirey date. If the can isn't rusted or damaged, and doesn't smell bad when opened, I'll eat it.
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Since I lost my sense of smell and taste, that makes it a little trickier for me. I have to rely on others one of which is my special needs son, so that's a tricky one.
 
robinjopo said:
Since I lost my sense of smell and taste, that makes it a little trickier for me. I have to rely on others one of which is my special needs son, so that's a tricky one.
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That could be a problem Robin. Way back in the olden days before our nanny government decided that we were too stupid to know when to eat our food, my father would write the date of purchase on his canned foods. It's effective and easy to do. Most people do the same when they can their own food too.
 
Arcticdude said:
That could be a problem Robin. Way back in the olden days before our nanny government decided that we were too stupid to know when to eat our food, my father would write the date of purchase on his canned foods. It's effective and easy to do. Most people do the same when they can their own food too.
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Yes, I always put the date on my canned and frozen goods.
 
I had bought a bunch of cans of tuna when I decided to start a good pantry here in 2013. I recently chunked them as they were expired and I couldn't donate to the food bank here. The problem is I don't like tuna. It took me a while to learn the stock what you eat thing.... I do have several different canned meats now, but primarily get the canned chicken. You can use it in just about anything to make a heartier meal. Even though I can my own stuff in mason jars, I like the tin cans as they last longer than home canned goods. My most recent focus has been on the #10 cans of freeze dried stuff. They last longer and are lighter than anything else. Walmart.com has pretty good prices and selection but it's still pretty pricey.
 
I rely heavily on my canned food for my prepping, and canned meats are a priority.

The important thing with canned meats is to check the integrity of the can.

I would starve before eating any canned food that came from a bulging can (especially low-acid foods like meat).

Botulism poisoning--with a few exceptions--is almost exclusively a problem with canned, low-acid foods.

A half gallon of purified botulism toxin is enough to kill every human being in the United States if it was evenly administered.

Botulism can also happen from infected wounds that have gangrenous tissue, infants who are given honey, and certian other unhygenic cooking practices like leaving cooked onions in vegetable oil for a long time.

Getting back to your canned foods, canned meats would make excellent barter material, and empty metal food cans can be repurposed into useful containers, arrowheads, lanterns, fish hooks...and even improvised munitions.

There was even a (possibly unsubstantiated) story about a Mujahadeen fighter in Afganistan cutting and shaping a piece of metal from a tuna can to replace a broken part of his AK47 and putting the weapon back into service.
 
I keep a good stock of canned spam, tuna, canned salmon, kirkland chicken and kirkland roast beef. All will easily keep 5yrs on the shelf, I have eaten spam, salmon and tuna beyond 5yrs. My rotation is by my dates (experience) not manufacture, the tuna for long term rotation is canned with water, short rotation is canned with oil (1 to 3 years)

Most manufacture dates are set for nutritional value not necessarily for when it goes bad.
 
Maverick said:
I keep a good stock of canned spam, tuna, canned salmon, kirkland chicken and kirkland roast beef. All will easily keep 5yrs on the shelf, I have eaten spam, salmon and tuna beyond 5yrs. My rotation is by my dates (experience) not manufacture, the tuna for long term rotation is canned with water, short rotation is canned with oil (1 to 3 years)

Most manufacture dates are set for nutritional value not necessarily for when it goes bad.
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Umm, Spam. I know what I'm fixing for breakfast.
 
I only do the canned ham, chicken, and tuna. I used to eat Spam as a kid, but can't stomach it these days. I currently use canned chicken in soup, make tunafish sandwiches out of canned tuna, and sometimes slice canned ham and grill it to make hot ham and cheese sandwiches....but that's really the only uses I have for it.
 
Maverick said:
Jelly is fat, soak in water overnight to remove the salt content and soak out the fat or fry it in olive oil
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I didn't mean it in an offensive way. I just always thought of spam as a of sort of "survival" food...that isn't particularly healthy to eat. I eat a lot of other unhealthy foods I guess so who am I to talk.
 
Mom used to make our sandwiches for school out of mayo and that canned Devils Ham.. . still can't stand the taste of that stuff. Spams OK fried for a sandwich or diced up for breakfast burritoes. I treat it the same way I do hog head cheese and scrapple.
 
toexist said:
I didn't mean it in an offensive way. I just always thought of spam as a of sort of "survival" food...that isn't particularly healthy to eat. I eat a lot of other unhealthy foods I guess so who am I to talk.
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Lisa never ate spam until we met, she always thought it gross because of the fat content that's on it, she called it jelly too :) Me personally it doesn't bother me, i'll slice it straight out of the can and eat it but generally I fry it. After a while she started loving it, in her youth she was always told it was poor peoples food (Government welfare used to give it to the poor) and she seen kids teased at school over it so she never touched the stuff, apparently it had an stigma tied to it. Lisa was born in Alabama but raised in California so she knew no better ;)
 
I like it fried. But not as much as,as is. I'll either make sandwiches or add it to mac n chees.we had relatives in ft Smith Arkansas, that we'd go visit every summer.in which we'd make stops for lunch on/in a pull off, look out point. In which most lunches included spam sandwiches
 
I like it fried. But not as much as,as is. I'll either make sandwiches or add it to mac n chees.we had relatives in ft Smith Arkansas, that we'd go visit every summer.in which we'd make stops for lunch on/in a pull off, look out point. In which most lunches included spam sandwiches
 
I like it fried. But not as much as,as is. I'll either make sandwiches or add it to mac n chees.we had relatives in ft Smith Arkansas, that we'd go visit every summer.in which we'd make stops for lunch on/in a pull off, look out point. In which most lunches included spam sandwiches
 
Maverick said:
Lisa never ate spam until we met, she always thought it gross because of the fat content that's on it, she called it jelly too :) Me personally it doesn't bother me, i'll slice it straight out of the can and eat it but generally I fry it. After a while she started loving it, in her youth she was always told it was poor peoples food (Government welfare used to give it to the poor) and she seen kids teased at school over it so she never touched the stuff, apparently it had an stigma tied to it. Lisa was born in Alabama but raised in California so she knew no better ;)
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spam_can_open.jpg


I don't care about its stigma...it just looks unappealing. I eat a lot of unhealthy food myself but it has to at least look, taste and smell good. :D Unless the world were coming to an end...I wouldnt think to touch the stuff.
 
It's "tolerable" if you pan fry it, in some butter, and some basic spices. Kind of like pan seared ham...but as canned ham isn't too much more these days, really no point in it. We ate it when I was in Alaska, as we simply didn't have a grocery store around the corner...and you needed a break from rabbit, deer, and such. Now, we did go to the base commissary too, and had more normal stuff, but you had to supplement due to supply levels.

Grilled spam and cheese.

Tried it as an adult though...and just didn't care for it, but ate it. If I was going to starve? Sure...but not something I'd stock up on.
 
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