Operating in a Vacuum

After cleaning out more food storage containers, I vacuum sealed some split peas and lentils I purchased earlier in the day when I went to Walmart and also bought a dozen quart jars for packaging the dry goods. I found that I could fit 2 one pound bags (just) into one whereas the other day I was only able to fit 1-1/2 bags of regular peas into a jar that I had on hand. Lentils were almost but not quite two bags.

But I've also been researching the best methods of food storage too. While Mylar bags are considered to be the gold standard of food storage, I want to know why they were. Why couldn't a 6 mil. plastic bag be just as good?

It seems it's for several reasons. One, the opaqueness of the Mylar helps prevent degradation. That much makes sense, but also their thickness and the way they're constructed helped prevent the loss of of the vacuum created by the addition of oxygen absorbers and also the prevention of bugs from gaining access to the supplies.

Somehow I think a 6 mil. bag would also prevent infestation, but there is something to be said for the opacity of the bags. Then again, I plan on storing them inside a plastic container so no light will be penetrating the space anyway.

The other thing I researched was oxygen absorbers. The how and why of them. What you find as soon as you start trying to research "Mylar" or "oxygen absorbers" is that preppers dominate -- absolutely dominate! -- the search results. It's hard to find information unrelated to prepping to get an objective answer.

Could be there isn't one. Mylar and oxygen absorbers are the end all, be all of food storage, but still IO'd prefer to have an objective opinion as to why. All too often we simply get, "this is how you do it!" Which really isn't ll that satisfactory.

So it seems hand warmers are similarly designed as oxygen absorbers -- but everyone basically says don't! without say why "don't" -- and I briefly considered using them anyway, until I realized that Prime members on Amazon can get a whole bunch of them for cheap. Far cheaper than hand warmers. Like less than $7 for 100 cheap! Since there's no real savings going nontraditional routes, I'll pass on being more exotic in protecting my valuables. So scrubbing out some buckets, getting my preps together and vacuum sealing some beans and lentils was the order of the day.

I also had fun designing a label for my jars. No reason to do so other than I wanted to. Of course, also listened to The Survival Podcast for my daily does of prepping news.