Food storage/packaging = spoilage (regardless of temperature)?

[Tad]

I am not talking about temperature here

Just leaving foods that last seasons or years (like dehydrated/smoked meat and flour) on the ground has been causing them to spoil much more quickly, I’ve noticed. Now, do I need to put the food into a container and then it will be okay to put on the ground and not rot so fast? I understand whether its inside or outside contributes to the spoilage rate.

Do I need to put the container (e.g. plastic jar or canvas sack filled with food item) into a storage location (crate, cupboard, etc.) ?

Basically, I want to make my smoked/dehydrated meats not spoil so quickly, so outside of using a vaccum sealer what kind of containers am I to use to assist in this?

[KiBoy]

Just to clarify, if you make dehydrated meat from meat that is actually close to spoiling, it will have much less lifespan than a fresh meat one. It’s easy to test by cooking meat, both fresh and old. The old one will spoil much quicker despite being cooked. That might be the issue that you’re having. As in, cooking doesn’t reset the % of food lifespan that was already lost.

If you want to test this youreself, get 2 pieces of meat from one source, cook them both, then put one in a container ( like a dresser, obviously do not test with fridges ) and one on the ground next to it and observe.

I do not think food just spoils faster if you put it on the ground, from experience.

[Tad]

A pile of flour placed on a table in a basement V.S. a pile of flour placed into a bottle or canvas sack in a basement = ? which one will turn rotten first if all the other variables are the same? The piles of flour will both start with the same age to begin with, in this hypothetical scenario, just so you know.

I was not refering to that mechanic at all, but I get that you’re just trying to tell me the basics. I am beyond that point, I literally will have something that is labeled “smoked meat (fresh)” ‘This good is as fresh as it could possibly be’ or whatever it says, but it will turn into (old) status after just a couple days of sitting in my shopping cart outside in the cold rainy weather.

That being said, the meat and food I am refering to is not being packaged in any way at all. I understand vacuum sealing helps, and canning or whatever, but I am refering specifically to non-specialized containers that can be used to store general food products/items into, will those containers contribute to the longevity of the food?

[kuros]

Can you even reuse plastic bags, cardboard boxes, canvas bags, etc to store food in?

[KiBoy]

Can you even reuse plastic bags, cardboard boxes, canvas bags, etc to store food in?

You can use plastic bags for “vacuum-sealed” foods. I do not think you can just use the bags “raw”, same with cardboard boxes ( I usually use those for arrows ) As for canvas bags, no clue. Never tried putting anything in them.

A pile of flour placed on a table in a basement V.S. a pile of flour placed into a bottle or canvas sack in a basement = ? which one will turn rotten first if all the other variables are the same? The piles of flour will both start with the same age to begin with, in this hypothetical scenario, just so you know.

I tried to test this myself, unfortunately I’m not able to put flour inside a bottle:

Screenshot

WARNING: SCIENCE BELOW!

Instead, I decided to try something a little different.

10 pieces of tainted meat, 5 put on the ground in the basement, vs 5 put on a unfolded tourist table in the basement. Freshly butchered off a survivor zombie. It is the middle of summer, so fastest spoilage for easier experiments. Results:

6 hours after initial placement: Both of test groups are no longer fresh, both say they passed their midlife.

2 ( 8 hours total ) hours later: Both groups of meat say they will be old soon.

1 ( 9 hours total ) hour later: Same as above.

30 ( 9:30 hours total ) minutes later: Interesting. Meat on the ground has already received the ( old ) tag. The meat on the table still has to get to this point.

55 ( 10:25 hours total ) minutes later: The meat on the table finally gets the ( old ) tag. The ground meat sitll hasn’t rotten.

15 ( 10:40 hours total ) minutes later: Ground meat rots.

Finally, 1 hour ( 11:40 hours total ) later: The meat on the table rots.

I’m actually surprised, it seems you actually caught a wind of something Ted. I can only wonder what would happen if we had four groups to test.

• Meat on ground
• Meat on ground in a container
• Meat on table
• Meat on table in a container

[Mantar]

Meat sandwiches come in paper wrappers, so you could science that.

[KiBoy]

Well, if you say A, you gotta say B next.

I’m usually not the type to do !!SCIENCE!!, but I already started this so whatever.

I copied my old world settings and made a new world. Spring 1, I debugged 4 ( well, technically 5 but ate one ) meat sandwiches in paper wrappers in.

• First sandwich was unwrapped and put on the floor. ( Hencefore, this will be referred to as Sandwich 1 )
• Second sandwich was put on the floor but not unwrapped ( Sandwich 2 )
• Third sandwich was unwrapped but put on a counter ( Sandwich 3 )
• Finally, fourth one was left in its wrapper and put on the counter ( Sandwich 4 )

12 hours in: Sandwich 1,2,3,4 all lost their ( fresh ) tags.
93 hours in: Sandwich 1,2,3,4 display the ( old ) tag.
98 hours in: Sandwich 1,2,3,4 had rotten.

So… this experiment went completely differently than the first one. All sandwiches, regardless of the conditions of their packaging or being put on the ground rotten at the same time.

This means that my first experiment was probably flawed.

[Mantar]

Perhaps there was a temperature variation between tiles on the first test.

[kuros]

Wasn’t the first test done in summer, whereas the second was done on Spring 1?

[KiBoy]

Perhaps there was a temperature variation between tiles on the first test.

Maybe, but then again, the meat was basically placed one tile apart from each other.

Wasn’t the first test done in summer, whereas the second was done on Spring 1?

Yeah, I did the first one on my main save in the middle of summer. I could try to repeat it on my main, but I don’t see it being any different. Maybe each piece of butchered meat has slightly different lifespan, that’s why the first test came out as it did.

[TheZoneWizard]

Use my idea from my thread for Camping food. Look up freeze dried camp food on amazon or walmart, REI, EMS and Cabelas. Different brands but in short Freeze Dried food from Mountain House irl last 30 years+.

No joke. 30+ years!

You can buy Freeze Drier machines too. So even though they are super rare. You can add them to the game and with a little metal foil and some plastic plus a recipe to Freeze Dry, Do or Die DIY. You too can make long lasting food.

Freeze drying food and NOT adding them to a package will also give you a long lasting food item with less enjoyment when eating. Unless it is fruit based. You can find lots of FD food in walmart if you wanna try it. Also in wally world, is a camping area that has full meals. Expensive, but tasty!

[Tad]

Thank goodness! A sane person on the forums that actually knows what I’m getting at; I’ve certainly struck gold here (^_^) .

The name’s Tad (not mad or anything when ppl say Ted, I just figured I outta tell you as you seem like my kind of person).

Your little science experiment delighted the absolute feck’ outta me, as I was contemplating doing something like this myself but I can’t get past the frustration of this whole ‘where is the food located/is it packaged/what kind of package is it in/etc.’ problem I’ve been having.

The results are indeed interesting, and to those who were saying there might have been a slight temperature difference, I gotta say that’s bullshit (not insulting anyone here, this is just how I talk). Here’s why:

Standing on the floor v.s. standing on a table right next to the same spot on the floor doesn’t cause any temperature difference if it’s not near a heat source or something like that, in the game at least. I’ve checked this by observing and recording the heat values/warmth state whilst standing on the floor and standing on a table, and there was no difference in any of the various scenarios I could have tried .

[Tad]

Also, forget the packaging aspect, as your sandwich experiment (Lol ‘sandwich experiment’ ) proved to me that the focus should be on where the food items are placed rather than how they’re packaged.

There must be something to this, surely. I saw someone in a post a few months ago talking about implementing certain unnamed features that try to dissuade players from eating/storing food in a ‘floor spaghetti’ way and the likes of that (basically discouraging players from just leaving food on the floor).

I want to run some tests on whether or not storing foods in a cupboard or in a dresser or a storage locker v.s. the floor has any affect on food spoilage, both indoors AND outdoors. So basically, yes, leaving food outside subjects them to temperature fluctuations, however, does storing food within storage objects outside affect the spoilage times in any way compared to just leaving food sit outside on a table?

Sorry for not being concise about this, it’s just that there’s so many possibilities as to what could and what could not affect spoilage rates that it makes me want to brainstorm like a mad man.

I would like to see how food placed in a_sealed crate_ outside compares to the same food placed onto a table outside. One right next to the other.

Also, just for shits and giggles (and to make a benchmark with which we can compare other results to) we should also add in a test where we leave the food on the ground outside as well, and compare that to food left in a metal storage locker that’s also outside).

See what I mean, the possibilities for testing are endless. You seem quite adept at it though and so far you’ve encouraged me to come back to this game specifically to tinker around with these spoilage variables.

[NuG]

I asked about this and was told somewhere in a thread on this forum or on Reddit by a contributor that it didn’t matter if you unloaded your food or not from containers and left them on the ground in a pile, the spoil rate would be the same as if you left it n the containers they came in. This was before the freezing update happened though, so not sure now.

Is it possible to look into the code and get a definite answer, or is testing in game the only way?

I know this is a bit off topic, but found this YouTube channel recently of a guy obsessed with opening MREs. It’s one of those things I never thought would be interested in, but it’s quite entertaining to watch him open the old MREs especially. I am in no way affiliated with them or anything, just thought it was kinda interesting and he even eats the 20+ year old food when possible, and sometimes it is possible weirdly enough https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA

[TheZoneWizard]

Seen a guy yesterday eat meat from a 1899 british ration. The people on the internet are not the sharpest tacks in the box sometimes. lol

[Tad]

That man ate a hardtack cracker from the civil war, manufactured in 1861. It was actually from a civil war museum and was officially curated, with paperwork and all to go with the hardtack.

150 year old food, stored in an unwrapped paper sleeve.

The hardtack was edible enough not to kill him.

He’s only gotten sick a couple of times.

He smokes the ciggies too from the old military rations, that’d be a real treat.

[TheMightyHercules]

Are you talking about Steve1989MREInfo by any chance?

[NuG]

Yes I linked his page on my comment, and have enjoyed watching some of his videos, interesting stuff.

[TheZoneWizard]

Oh yeah, that is his handle. Funny guy. I like reading the comments on his videos too.

“Just imagine if he talked about a girl the way he does some of the food he eats” Priceless xD