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Cereal Lasts How Long? (Let’s Make it Last Longer!)
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May 21, 2024
Breakfast cereal isn’t exactly what most people think of when they talk about food storage. But new cereal lasts a surprising amount of time. And I think I can make it last longer! Here's the stuff I used in this video Impulse Sealer: https://amzn.to/3Pxy3Q4 Mylar Bags: https://amzn.to/3sVxoPq Pantry Preparedness is a trademark of Income School LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company
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0:00
There's a question that gets asked on the internet
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apparently thousands of times every single month. That question is, how long does cereal last
0:13
So today I wanna go through how long cereal lasts in a few different situations
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So starting out at the very beginning, let's start with how long it lasts sealed in its bag or box
0:25
Even box cereal comes with a bag on the inside because we need to keep out
0:29
as much of the oxygen as possible. However, these aren't sealed with oxygen absorbers
0:33
They're not vacuum sealed or anything like that. And so it's not gonna last as long in this state
0:40
The best by date on this is July 23rd, 2024. Well, it's currently early September, 2023
0:49
That's 10 months, almost 11 months. So according to this, it's saying that for the next 11 months
0:57
it's probably gonna taste fairly fresh. In fact, the best by date on most foods
1:02
isn't when the food's gonna actually like be bad to eat or unsafe to eat
1:06
It's literally like how long until it's probably gonna start to be stale
1:12
or taste weird or look funny, just the quality starts to diminish. So we have quite a bit of time
1:17
As long as you store your cereal in a place that's not gonna constantly change a lot of temperature
1:25
that's gonna stay relatively dry, like in a pantry or any sort of food storage situation
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you're pretty good for a little while. But that's not a long time
1:35
It's plenty of time though if we're having a fair amount of cereal and we're just kind of cycling through it
1:41
Most of us don't really need to worry about doing much else. The next situation though
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what about cereal that has been opened? Once you've opened the bag
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now we're gonna close it up but we're gonna open it and close it every day or two. How long is it gonna last then
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What I found is that once we open a bag of cereal, if it's fruity dino bites
2:01
it lasts about a day and a half, mostly because by then it's gone
2:05
We just like it a lot, right? It tends to last though still for a couple of weeks
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without any trouble, without us noticing it getting stale, as long as you're able to zip it closed
2:15
The problem I found with some of the bagged cereal is that sometimes the tear strip ends up below the zipper
2:22
It's kind of a quality issue with the packaging or sometimes when you pull the zipper part open
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it tears past the zipper over here. The zipper only extends this far
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and you end up with a gaping hole right there. In that case, we're gonna wanna go through it
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fairly quickly. Now, once we open cereal, whether it's bagged cereal like this
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or boxed cereal with a bag, we don't usually keep it in that state
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We use these Rubbermaid containers that easily open and close but they're basically a pretty good air seal
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And then we don't have to deal with bags that tear, especially because I have kids
2:58
and they don't open and close things very gently sometimes. And so when they open them, they tend to tear
3:04
So that's just what we've done. We keep several of these here in our pantry and they actually extend the life
3:09
and basically make it so that any open bag of cereal easily extends several weeks, two, three, even four weeks
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without us noticing it really getting stale. The third scenario is what if I have taken some cereal
3:23
and I put it on into a bowl, but I haven't gotten it wet. It's just in a bowl and it sits out
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I have experience with this because I have a three-year-old. I've now had five three-year-olds
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but the fifth one is now in that state. And we'll pour him a bowl of cereal for breakfast
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a small bowl, and he'll eat like three Cheerios. And then it will sit on the table
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and it will wait there throughout the day hoping that maybe as he gets hungry
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we can make him eat some more of that instead of other snacks
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Usually by the afternoon, it's already getting stale. It does not last very long if it's exposed to the elements
3:58
The next situation is what if I've poured milk in that cereal
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Now you have five minutes. Depending on which cereal it is, cereal tends to get soggy really fast
4:09
The exception to this rule is grape nuts. Grape nuts will never, ever, ever, ever get soggy
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But now I want to propose a fifth situation. This is one that I do not yet have experience with
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but I'm about to have an experience with. And it's an experiment that's gonna take a while
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I am going to take this bag of cereal, freshly bought from the store
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and I am going to place it inside of a large Mylar bag with an oxygen absorber
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And we're gonna let it sit for a while. I'm gonna go at least a year
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although it's supposed to last 10 months, no problem, even in this bag
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So I think I might have to just set a reminder and go two years on this
4:50
It's gonna be a while before I have a result for you. Sorry
4:54
But I wanna see if we can make cereal last a lot longer so that we can have it for food storage
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Why would I want my cereal to last two years, you may say? Well, if one of these calamities does happen
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that many people are foretelling, where we're just not gonna have normal things
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available to us at some point in the future, maybe for a very long extended period of time
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while a lot of people are surviving on unground wheat, plain rice, plain beans, and ration bars
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I'm gonna be eating Fruity Dino Bites. That's right. I wanna be able to enjoy the apocalypse
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at least a little bit. So here we go. Let's go ahead and seal some of this cereal
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inside of one of these bags and see how long we can make it last. It's actually great for me
5:40
that it doesn't all fit in just one Mylar bag because now, for the sake of science
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I can seal this one up, but I can put some in a few smaller bags
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that I can test out at varying intervals, like, you know, a year and a year and a half
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and then leave the big bag for two years. That sounds like a good plan
6:01
Do a double seal just to be sure. You can't be too careful with your cereal
6:06
That is sealed. All right, I'm gonna do a couple small bags
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When all's said and done, I ended up with three small bags and one large bag
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I'll eat one of these in a year, one of these in 18 months, one of these in two years
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and if this one's still pretty good, I'll hold out and wait two and a half years
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to see how long I can keep it. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:31
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:35
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:39
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:44
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:48
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
6:52
I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up. I'm gonna seal it up
#Breakfast Foods
#Cooking & Recipes
#Food & Drink