10 cooking staples that can outlast you: Vinegar

angelbynature Jan 13 2011 at 1:14 PM

of course vinegar will last and is a very usefull household item to have always.

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dodie Dec 24 2010 at 5:17 AM

The most nutritious rice kept forever5ta and corn syrup rotted overnight. Sigh.

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sheryl Dec 15 2010 at 11:28 AM

I agree fully with the list, and a couple of the commentators. THE key is proper storage: airtight containers, dry, cool place. My experience has been that all of these will last forever. I have never lost any of these staples when I have had them in airtight containers in especially a place will little or no moisture in the air. I would also add a couple more items. Dried beans and legumes store as well as rice provided they are stored as well.

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Marie Presutti Dec 15 2010 at 8:28 AM

Molasses is another food that will last a long time

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JM Dec 15 2010 at 7:55 AM

Food storage is a tricky thing. Just because a particular food has been shown to last quite a long time doesn't necessarily mean the 5 year old box or bottle in your fridge or cupboard is actually safe to eat. The authors of this article should post their source/study data so people have an understanding of how they should keep each of these products. The authors should also be cautious about using terms like "Will never spoil" and "Keeps indefinitely" unless they feel like being sued by someone

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who manages to prove them wrong.

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LMG Dec 15 2010 at 10:26 AM

None of these things will hurt you as none of them support bacteria no matter how long you leave them. Now, what gets into them is a different story, but if you look into a box of cornstarch and see green stuff growing then "common sense" would dictate that that is probably no longer "pure" cornstarch and in that case it's your own fault if you get sick. And you might win a lawsuit in our insane legal system, but you really shouldn't be contributing to the gene pool.

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Perspective Dec 15 2010 at 1:02 AM

I'd just like to point out that this article's definition of "forever" is pretty limited. Sugar molecules will, at room temperature, naturally degrade in the presence of oxygen, as will pretty much all complex organic compounds. It may take centuries, but it will happen. Honey does slowly degrade, although on a timescale of tens of millenia. Same for maple syrup. Corn syrup will crystallize irreversibly in the presence of water, Corn starch will also polymerize into a solid mass if there's any

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water available (although it takes a while if you don't live somewhere super-humid.) There are even a number of species of fungus, especially the dangerous and hallucinogenic ergot, that will live and thrive on dry rice. Hard liquors eventually lose their alcohol content to evaporation even through corks - that's why whiskey loses alcohol content as it ages in barrels, and why wine is stored with foil over its cork. Once you open the bottle, the ethanol starts to go. Many of the flavoring compounds are even more volatile - try leaving a bottle of vermouth out of the fridge for a couple years and see if it still tastes anything like the original. Same holds true for all but the most tightly sealed spice extracts. And finally, acetic acid (ie vinegar) will eventually react with compounds floating around in the air to form more stable products, although once again it will take a somewhat...geologic timescale. The only ingredient on this list, in fact, that is truly a 'forever' food is the salt. That at least is pretty darn stable. It takes an awful lot of energy to dechlorinate something, more than is generally available in passive processes.

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