And it’s why you must make sure stored food is safe from it, or your food will spoil. This is a known problem with canned food, but affects all food you wish to store.

Oxygen causes rancidity in fats, and allows insects, fungi and aerobic bacteria to damage your food. Therefore, this is a problem for food with high fat content such as powdered milk and eggs — and even for high fat grains such as rolled oats. split peas, nuts and brown rice.

If you buy food specifically for long term storage, from companies that specialize in this area, it should arrive properly sealed, or you should demand a replacement or your money back.

However, if you simply buy some bulk foods at your local health food store, you must do it yourself.

You can buy oxygen absorber packets which draws the oxygen in the air and combines it into iron oxide (rust). This is not feasible for plastic containers. You need canning jars or Mylar bags.

When you try to store food for future use, you have to remember that a lot of creatures want to eat your food. Rats and insects don’t believe in food storage.

Do everything you can to make sure rodents cannot get into your food storage area. They can squeeze through just about any crack, so you must seal them up good.

The same storage that protects food from oxygen should also protect it from insect infestation.

However, if you’re buying food that hasn’t been cleaned and treated, there’s a high possibility that some little critters or their eggs are already in there.

If you can freeze the food around zero degree Fahrenheit for seven to ten days, that will kill any insects in the food.

You can also use diatomaceous earth (DE) that is safe for human consumptions.

This is a white powder of the skeletons of tiny marine animals that died, and accumulated over thousands of years. When you dust it lightly over the food and insects eat it along with the food, the spiny skeletons tear up the insect’s digestive tract.

However, these skeletons are too small to affect people, and it has no taste. Sprinkle about one-half to one cup of DE into a five-gallon container of any grain or seed and roll it around until all the food is covered.

This is safe for people, but it can irritate your lungs and eyes, so wear a face mask when you’re sprinkling it around.

Another way to clear oxygen from a food container is putting in dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) and letting it evaporate, driving out the bugs.

Be careful, though, as that is too cold to handle with bare hands. Always use thick gloves or tongs.

Oat groats, or whole oats: These are minimally processed – only the outer hull is removed. They are very nutritious, but need to be cooked and/or soaked for a long period of time to so you don’t break your teeth on them.

Steel-cut oats, or Irish oats: These are groats that have been chopped into small pieces. They have a firmer texture than rolled oats, and people in the know often prefer them for hot oatmeal cereals and muesli. A tip on purchasing steel-cut oats: some of the name brand varieties are prohibitively expensive, so search for them in bulk, which usually sells for under $3/lb.

Oat bran: This is the outer casing that is removed from the groats. The bran is particularly high in soluble fiber. Oat bran is very versatile, and can be used with groats or alone, and as an addition to baking recipes, or even raw in shakes.

Rolled oats, or old-fashioned oats: These are oat groats that are steamed and flattened with huge rollers so that they cook quicker. Cooking times listed on the containers vary from 5 to 15 minutes, which is excessive. For the best results, minimize cooking time (1-2 minutes) to preserve the texture and flavor.

Instant oats: These are made by chopping groats into tiny pieces, precooking them, drying them, then smashing them with a big roller. They need only be mixed with a hot liquid. They usually have flavorings and salt added. All of this processing removes all traces of the original texture and rich flavor of the groats and reduces the overall nutritional value.

Oat flour: Oat flour is made from groats that have been ground into a powder, and contains no gluten so it does not rise like wheat flour. It can also be made at home by grinding rolled oats into a powder in a blender.

When in a hurry we usually choose old fashioned oats. However when you can budget for more prep, there’s
nothing like the steel-cut variety.