Good information Anita, thankyou. One concern I have though is that if your canned goods freeze, the expansion might likely break the seal & they will become succeptible to bacterial growth. So I feel highly uncomfortable about relying too much on canned goods for my food storage. On the other hand, things like sardines, packed in oil, shouldn't expand too much (I should try an experiment on that)... I'm presuming it would be items with high water content that would be most succeptible...

I used to work on a northern lookout tower in the summers and was always instructed not to use any canned goods that had been left behind for the winter. Being of thrifty stripe, I once did use some canned pumpkin, even though the ends of the can were bulged from freezing... I was young and stupid, what can I say?

Regarding sardines & fish, I've been apprehensive to buy them since the Bp nightmare & fukashima nuclear disaster. I've even though of getting some sort of radiation detector to wave in front of the goods at the grocery store (hey, we should write a prepper sit-com!!) Any thoughts on fish & potential contaminants, especially radiation.

Oh, last but not least, I saw an investigative news piece on shrimp farming. They're grown in what appears to be filthy cesspools in China. Puts a whole different perspective on "all-you-can-eat" shrimp offers.

Oh Martha! I love shrimp. Loved shrimp until today that is. That snippet of reality has changed my perception. That is until I place the next succulent shrimp into my mouth and delight at the exquisite unique flavor. No, now it think about it I still love shrimp.

It is probably better for the peace of mind of everyone that they do not see how any form of meat is raised , butchered, processed or for that matter prepared. In the end if it is done humanly, is free of bacteria, contaminates and exotic preservatives it is the taste that counts.

😆 I felt the same way when I heard they were allowed to have have so many parts and full sized slugs/bugs/etc. in canned mushrooms. I heard that years ago and have never bought another can since then!! 😯

I am not a huge fan of commercially canned foods anyway but sometimes there are no options. Someday I hope to can everything we eat at home but I have a long ways to go in order to do that for all of us.

DH likes sardines and herring in a can - I always check the labels to make sure they haven't come from China for the same reasons you mentioned Martha. I find that most frozen fish is from China and I can't get past the cesspools/human liquid waste either. No fish for me unless it's certified organic (which might not mean a thing but I choose to believe it does!)

Depending on where you are, google for a fresh fish market, in my own case, a trip to montreal will net you 🙂 some very fresh whole, cleaned fish at reasonable prices given the quality you are getting and thankfully if you have a pressure canner, canning fish is very easy.. Frozen is good, cuts and vaccom packed so you can do different things with it are all great idea's.

and of course you can always look at picking up a fishing permit and a pole and some basic gear and see what you can find close to you.. It was only this year that i was finally told about and offered a place at one of the private land/public water way to come and fish, have to admit that time has got away from me this year and I just didn't have time to do so, but hope to be able to do that next year..

There is local fish, when I lived in both NWT and NU, you could go to the local fish market and buy local fresh caught, the char was amazingly good!

I love fresh fish and I do some fishing, probably not as much as I would like. Come summer or winter the river/lake is 500 feet from my door. I admit admit coming from the UK I still prefer salt water fish but the occasional pickerel or trout isn't too bad either. Actually I prefer bass to pickerel as I find pickerel does not have much taste.

thanks for you fish feedbacks, but I'd like your thoughts on possible freezing of canned goods. Let's say if all your canned goods froze solid, and the ends were bulged out from expansion, how would you know if the seal had broken making the contents succeptible to bacterial growth? Obviously, you could thaw & eat some of them, but if you build a major supply of canned goods & they all freeze, well you could have a big problem on hand as you likely would not be able to keep all of them frozen til consumption. That's why I'm leery of investing too much in canned goods, and I've put a lot out for freeze dried.

I suppose in your example of living in the far north you would need to be concerned with frozen canned foods. I store mine in a place that won't freeze unless I do 🙂 If the cans were ever frozen to the point of bulging I probably wouldn't take the chance. My opinion is there are much cheaper food sources than freeze dried. Dehydrating things for yourself will be more cost effective if you watch for sales at the grocery store or pick your own or your own garden. I have back ups to my heating system as well so I am not concerned with freezing cans.

Are you worried for a more specific reason??

My thoughts are that the weather is unpredictable, events are unpredictable, my little mind feels uneasy about counting on keeping things from freezing. I do have a woodstove, but being in town, I'm not sure that I'd want to have it burning a lot. Seems like it would be a magnet for other people, and though I want to be ready to be helpful to others, I don't necessarily want to be the go-to place for the town. At this point I'm far, far from having enough wood to burn anyways (that's on my to-do list).

I sort of imagine huddling in the main room of the house in a blanket tent with maybe a hobo stove for heat, and just occassionally firing up the woodstove

I'm also leaving open the possibility that I might have to leave the premises for some reason, either temporarily or for longer, so if I did get detained elsewhere for a time, if things didn't get pillaged while I was out, they may freeze. So that's why i don't want to put too much stock in canned goods.

I did do some dehydrating, need to get a more efficient system for next summer. I had a horrible outbreak of fruitflies in the house and had to shut down production. The fruitflies came from dragging home too many fallen apples for dehydrating and they spread to my worm bins and eventually I had to euthanize my worms (out in freezing temps) and stop all dehydrating till the air cleared. By that time I was behind in every other aspect of my life, so I never got back to it.