I suppose it's all relative. "Buy what you eat; eat what you buy." Canned tomatoes should last 3 years, and if you are actively eating them at say 1 tin a month, that allows for a cache of roughly 36 cans before you have to start throwing the oldest away.

I don't keep canned tomatoes because I don't eat them. I do keep canned pears and pineapple. Pineapple has acid and the use-by date is just a couple of years, but I consume it fast enough not to matter.

Oh yeah, and not just 'maters. When my ex father-in-law died, I got the fun job of getting rid of all the stuff he had wasted money on over the years. He would buy a case of anything when it was on sale. Not as a "survival" thing, just 'cuz it was on sale. He would store those cases in his garage, which got down to freezing in the winter, and into triple digits in the summer, then forget about it. I found case after case of canned veggies and fruits with that dreaded black ring, many with the sides and tops starting to push out. I won't even tell about the cases of TP and paper towels with the mice living in them...

Home made beef or pork something in brine that had been sitting in an open air crock for at least a year.... Yeah, that was my last day with that job.

"They specify raw milk cheese from grass fed cows, but I wonder if that has anything to do with the nutritional value of the cheese or just their desire to avoid Pasteurized, "non-organic" milk for other health concerns."

I was reading about raw milk a while back, and they mentioned something interesting that may indicate that raw milk is more beneficial than the pasturized stuff: Many people can't drink milk because they can't digest the lactose. Some of these people tried drinking straight raw milk, and discovered that they don't have any problem with it. So, it may be a digestibility issue.

More open-minded research should be done on raw milk. It would be nice to know some FACTS instead of just profit-motivated opinions.

Sue

Thanks Cliff. Very good to know!

The raw milk issue has been around since man started cooking his food. Raw milk is great if you don't get sick. The probability of milk making you sick is very high.

The following article gives some history why raw milk is illegal to place in interstate transportation. It is illegal for intrastate sale in about half of the states.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/rawmilk.html

If you follow the chain -

sick cow
antibiotics in the cow
pus,flys and manure on the teets
antibiotics on the teets
Harry, the milker, has not washed his hands this month
Harry's dog usually cleans up when the milker is removed
flys, pus, dust and antibiotics on the milker cup
the milker has not been cleaned
Harry's brother the truck driver shook hands with Harry
The truck broke down and the milk sat at 95 degrees for 8 hours
Two days later you get some "FARM FRESH MILK"

It would be fresher and have less time to grow if you laid on your back and took the milk directly from the cow.

As you laid on your back, you would know why you cook your food and pasteurized your milk.

Its funny you mention this. When I was a kid, I was violently allergic to milk. Not the lactose but the pasteurization. I could drink milk that had not been pasteurized, but if it had been except for one Dairy in Des Moines, I could not drink it. This lasted until high school and now I can drink any milk and it does not bother me.

Corporate control?