Safety and/or toxicity of mylar bags for long-term food storage?

Question

My family has been working on a plan for stocking up our pantry with several months worth of food (and more than that, because we want to be able to help family and neighbors in case they might need food as well). We just bought a case of 5-gallon bucket-sized mylar food storage bags for bulk items such as rice, beans and grains, but in perusing various food storage sites, I came across this page:

http://www.yourfoodstorage.com/faq

Check out the answer to the question "WHY SHOULDN'T YOU USE MYLAR BAGS TO STORE YOUR FOODS?" I've never heard this about mylar and can't imagine that it would be so widely used for food storage if in fact it broke down into toxic chemicals over time. Is this for real, or is this just a marketing gimmick by this site to get people to order their cans of dehydrated food instead of making and storing our own?

Answer 1

Mylar is a Biaxially-oriented Polyethylene terephthalate (boPET)). These or any other equivalent plastics are completely inert, in other words do not react with anything.



They last for a very long time and if any formaldehyde is formed when then decompose, it would be very little, not enough to be toxic.



They are suitable for archival quality storage of food, important documents and even banknotes.



Keep in mind that children's No Tear shampoo does contain formaldehyde in large amounts. The site you posted is not telling the truth about Mylar.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Mylar Bags Australia

Answer 4

All but the sugar are grains or in the case of flour a grain byproduct. Although they can all be treated similarly. Just keep them dry and away from bugs and other critters and they'll be fine for a few years. Moisture will be the biggest enemies of all of the above, and if moisture gets in to a tightly packed container of any of the above (except maybe the sugar) it will lead to molding. But the moisture will cause other problems with the sugar. Every grain has it's own "ideal maximum" moisture usually no wetter than 12-15% depending on which crop, but in general if they go into storage dry and are kept that way they'll remain edible for a few years. All grain bins are basically is metal containers that attempt to keep rain and critters out, and they keep grain good for quite a while, as long as they succeed at both of these purposes. I would see oxygen absorbers as maybe being a help if you were talking about really long term storage, I don't see the dry ice doing much good for any of these. These are dry goods and not highly perishable. Personally if it was me trying to store this kind of stuff long term what I would do is just simply keep a supply in a dry preferably cool place and rotate it regularly.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

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