When I was a teen, my grandmother lived with us in an in-law unit on the property. We had about 20 fruit trees and a large garden. Each year she would put up excess fruits, veggies, and sauces. She would write the year on the lid with a Sharpie pen. During the winter, we would eat from this pantry, oldest food first. It was not uncommon to be eating food from three or four years back. Tasted fine, looked fine. About 2% of the jars would loose their seal, but the safety button would pop up and be noticed, and we would simply toss the contents onto the compost pile. Also the jars were stored in a cool, dark, and dry place.

We seal dried goods in the mason jars and I'd expect it to last 5+years. Rice, oatmeal,sugar.
We make our own granola and seal it up. No troubles with jars 2+years old.

Vacu sealer is a good investment.

I recently got a vacuum sealer from a thrift shop, with several rolls of the heavy bags, and what appears to be a thing that does fit right over a mason jar, but it came without instructions for the jar sealing.

Does anyone know of online instructions for this use?

Sue

Sue if it's the Tilia Food Saver their website www.tilia.com should have instructions or at least tell you how to contact them for the directions
BTW Shari (DW) and I love ours <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Mike

Susan,
If you have the 'sealer top' that fits over the mason jar....fill the jar and leave about 1/2 to 1 inch of space. Make sure the top of the jar is clean. Make sure the 'rubber' on the thin metal lid is clean too. Seat the thin metal lid onto the jar and place the 'sealer top' over the metal lid and 'press' down (until it feels as if it is seated completely). Attach the tube from the sealer to the top and turn it on. (For my machine...)When the vaccuum is complete, the machine turns off the suction (Idon't know if it will for yours). Remove the 'sealer top' and place one of the mason jar 'metal rings' over the vaccuum sealed metal lid. All should be complete. If you find that after turning on the machine, you don't seem to have any vaccuum sealing occurring but it is obviously attempting to apply suction.......try to "screw" the vaccuum sealing top down while the suction is on. This will help to seat the metal lid better.

Hope this helps.

I vaccumm pack almost everything in my / wife's BOB . Clothes, fire-starting "stuff" and yes food. I share a lot of your ideas, I personally pack complete meals in vaccumm bags. I have beans, jerky, dehydrated onion, salt pepper, boulion and mushrooms. I have similar with rice and chicken jerky, chicken and noodles and beef and noodles, etc... For breakfast, oatmeal with dehydrated apples, Rice with sugar and cinnamin. All vaccumm packed with my food saver. That is also the reason my BOB weighs so much! BTW I have tried the meals after a year and it was all as good as it could be with the limited items I had, but it filled up three adults and 1 child per meal. All I can say is I am a true advocate of a vaccumm sealer. Seal everything is my motto.

Here's one I just found today, dried figs. Their not exactly local, except there's a Mediterranian import shop and resturant I visit. They are 100-120 Cal for three figs and come 20-30 to a plastic wrapped package 4" in diameter and 1 1/4" high. Around 2000-3000 Cal a package and highly nutritious. They're high in sugar and carbs (not necessarily a bad thing) but also contain iron, calcium, potassium and fiber. They're also $2-3 a package. They store a month or so at room temperature or six months refrigerated. Think I'll start including them in my survival rations. Good for longish storage or for carrying in a wilderness kit.

actually, the dried shrimp stores well for a long period of time. It's great to add to soups, make a gumbo (takes a big handful), & goes into anything that is cooked in water for added flavor & nutrition. The big drawback is the price but I think 2 liters would/could be stretched out for awhile & be worth the cost.

Polished kernels last almost indefinitely provided you store it dry. The best before on my packages is usually at least two years in future. I had some that was about 3 years old and it was still good. Full kernel rice doesn´t last as long. It has fat in it that can go rancid after 6 to 12 month even when stored properly. HTH