Canning flour???

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Lobo mentioned to try canning flour in your owven using regular mason jars. <>

Could you please tell me where this information is located in the book? I've searched for almost a half an hour and can't seem to find that particular information. Page number please.

-- Leslie (wondering@thetimeing.com), March 02, 1999

Answers

Canning flour is unnecessary. While white flour will slowly lose its vitamin content over a period of a year or two (it will still be useful as a source of carbohydrates), heating it up for canning will destroy the vitamins right the and there.

Store white flour in its original bags, inside *two* zip-loc plastic bags with a bay leaf inside, in a metal container such as a (new and thoroughly cleaned, please!) galvanized garbage can with a tight-fitting lid. It will keep for several years this way. Not recommending it, but I'ved used it after five years of such storage, with no ill effects... it looked, smelled and tasted the same as when I put it away - YMMV.

Note: you cannot store whole wheat flour this way, as the oils from the wheat germ will go rancid in a fairly short time - same goes for brown rice. White flour is like white sugar... a devitalized food, low on vitamins, rich in carbohydrates, that will store indefinitely providing you keep it dry, cool, and away from vermin.

Got a sifter?

-- sparks (wireless@home.com), March 02, 1999.


Add some of the nutrition back in to white flour with soy flour and powdered milk (Cornell mix). Also, add in some grains, like millet and flax (plain white bread can be so boring...) and herbs.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), March 02, 1999.

BUT ... Whole wheat flour has 23 vitimines and minerals ; White has only what the government was forced to put back in in the early thirties when they found out what damages the lack of vitamines B1 and B2 ccaused in humans. By the way, did you know there are SIX types of D vitamines, and with typical government stupidity (i.e. lack of research) allowed the ONLY ONE THAT CAN'T BE UTALIZED BY HUMANS to be added to milk ( Vitamine D3 )AND NO ONE WILL CHANGE IT !!! Best to buy cod liver oil tablets for yourself and the kids. They may be inside a LOT in the winter of 2000. Eagle .... Circling, with BOTH eyes OPEN !

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), March 02, 1999.

The Mormon canneries DRY PACK white flour. There is no need to cook it. Just place it in the can, add an oxygen absorber and put the top on.

Jolly

-- Jollyprez (Jolly@prez.com), March 02, 1999.


Pillsbury told me their white flour was good for 18 months, wholewheat for 9 months. That means stored in original paper packaging, cool, dark, dry. Sealed in pails with oxy absorbers should be good much, much longer. Double freezer storage bags should extend life also. Not so sure about the bay leaves--the food co-op where I used to volunteer quit using them in their bulk flours and such because they didn't work. If you can freeze the flour for 24-48 hours it might be better insurance against bugs.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 02, 1999.


BYW - if you are storing any kind of grain and it gets buggy, put it outside in the cold (Y2K will happen in winter) to slow their growth. Wait for summer and put the container out in the heat. The grain will be fine, but the bugs will die (adding a little protein to your food storage :)

-- Linda (smitmom@hotmail.com), March 03, 1999.

Umm, Linda, have you met Mark Hillyard?? Not important, it's just that you seem to share a similar viewpoint toward bugs. Personally, I prefer my food sans the extra protein.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), March 03, 1999.

No, I haven't met him. Actually I prefer mine without the addition of the little critters, but in a pinch it works.

-- Linda (smitmom@hotmail.com), March 04, 1999.

Agreed, just kidding. Mark had made a comment a month or so ago about eating a "live" sandwich once and having discovered it kinda shrugged his shoulders and continued eating it (or something to that effect).

Dad used to joke about the "extra protein" thing for years. Now that I think about it, the struggle to protect a pantry from little invaders is rather ancient. It's just that I've never had to maintain a pantry before always having lived within 5 minutes of a major grocery store.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), March 04, 1999.


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