I've been doing a lot of research on canned food tonight since writing the post (usually I do things the other way around but I wrote the original post at work so what can you do?) and I'm really amazed at how effective a technique that hasn't really changed much since the times of Napoleon is (the man ultimately responsible for the process even if he didn't think of it).

I've been reading about 100 year old canned fruit being dug out of ship wrecks and being completely safe to eat.

The general consensus seems to be that any food which is canned properly won't spoil...it can only lose it's taste color, and maybe Vitamins...and even that takes 2 years (more if stored at a nice cool temperature).

I think the real question when it comes to canned food is which foods to choose and how to rotate them so they stay relatively eatable.

I like the idea of beans and I LOVE to eat them...but when I think of situations where I'd need to dig into those dried supplies I think of how much water it takes to prepare them (soaking, boiling, etc). You wouldn't want to waste the water but it might not keep long to be saved for drinking.

Rice will also keeps years and it needs very little water to prepare...definitely something to look into.