Cooking/Vegetable Oil: will store up to ONE year only; it MUST be labeled and rotated . Choose the highest quality cooking oil that you can afford.
Olive Oil: can be stored up to 3 to 4 years if you buy a good quality filtered extra virgin olive oil. It is best to get in smaller-type bottles. When opened, if it is close to 4 years, it may go rancid perhaps faster than you would use it. Even though you are storing olive oil in a cool, dark place, still put a brown paper grocery bag over it to keep out ALL light.
Shortening: Crisco seems to store longer than other brands (the cans with the silver foil interior). 5 to 8 cans (3 lb. size) per person/one year (less if storing a variety of oil and shortening). Will store for 5 + years. 'Spectrum' brand has shortening with no trans-fats, look them up online if interested.
Coconut Oil: There are two types of coconut oil, Virgin and Copra. Virgin is pressed from the coconut and bottled within generally 8 hours from the time the nut is opened. It will appear as water in liquid form and have a nice coconut smell. Copra coconut oil is made by allowing the coconut to sit in a warehouse for several months, is bleached and deodorized to cover the burnt smell and then processed with heat. It will have a yellow color and no odor of coconut and will not store very long. Coconut oil can be stored either in a liquid or solid state as it melts into a liquid at 75 degrees. It generally has a storage life of 3 years or longer depending on how it is stored. It should be stored in a temperature stable location and out of the light. The test to tell if it, or any oil is good is the look and smell method. If it is clear without any "floaties" and the cap is not bulged, open it and smell it. If it smells like coconut oil, or the oil that it is, it is ok. In any case, if you have had it for 8 years, get rid of it. Another benefit of coconut oil is that you can use it on your skin to keep it soft.
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: you can 'mix and match' oils/shortening you choose to store, just make sure to have 10 to 12 quarts per person/one year. (To help you figure amounts: one quart is 2 lbs. or 32 ounces). If you open your shortening and find it has a bad smell, don’t throw it out, you can always put a wick down the middle of it and have a 30 day candle.
So there you go. I will be posting some recipes that use different types of oil so keep watching. For what it is worth, we store several types of oils. We store virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, grape seed oil Crisco in the can corn oil, peanut oil and avocado oil. The last three only in one quart size that we use regularly. We also store powdered butter. Honeyville Farms has a GREAT tasting powdered butter. One trait of using powdered butter is that it will not melt when heated or spread on anything hot so don't use it to try to fry things with like regular butter. It does taste like real butter and is great in recipes calling for butter, toast and pancakes. If you are using it in a recipe, you don't reconstitute it before using. Honeyville Farms also has powdered shortening. Again, these two products are NOT a replacement for cooking oil.
Have fun with your food storage.
Bob and LouAnn Singer
