How long do dried beans keep ?

forever

Longer than you'll live if they don't get damp or too hot, no kidding.

And they are extremely hearty and have a short life cycle so you could quickly feed a large number of people from them in the even of a disaster.

They are nearly complete protein.

If you buy a tank of food grade nitrogen and airtight buckets, most any dried bean or grain will last nearly forever. My parents are still eating Y2K

How about (R)amen noodle soups ?

And if they are dry/old just add baking soda when you soak them.

Wow, that brings back memories. I was sitting in our company's "war room" (communications company) at mignight watching all the managers chew on their fingernails when nothing happened! Then we ordered pizza and enjoyed our triple-time for the shift.

But beans.... Beans will last forever! Keep 'em dry.

depends on what type bean
navy beans about 5 years
kidney beans about 2 years
they are still edible but will not get soft no matter how long you boil them.

remember kidney beans are poison until you boil them twice
1st time for 10 minutes, rinse and change water then boil them until soft

Their cellulose shell will go bad if left "in the air" (to degrade) in 11 months.

After that, if the rest of the stuff hardens...well...maybe edible I guess?

get a couple of pet pigs potty train them and keep them on a leash. you can breed them when need arises

Not if you live in the West with the arid climate.

Everything lasts forever here.

I can eat anything that is 5 years old and it's like it's just bought.

you put things on the counter and they dehydrate with 10 hours completely

no water = no degradation

Here's my website section on food storage. One of the pages is called How Long will it Keep?

[link to www.grainmill.coop (secure)]

OK. Just recanting my experience.
I'm midwest with 60-90% humid in the summer
But here you never have to buy beans.
Farmers pull a gravity wagon around a corner too fast and there will lay a pile of beans or corn or wheat...
Road treasure!
harvest season you can usually pick up a couple tons of beans off the road.
I usually pick up a couple of pales for me off the top,
bottom of the pile thats mixed with dirt, I feed to the deer and turkeys in the winter

Pressure can some so u can eat them readily if needed. Super easy, soaking isn't necessary when canning them, no joke. Spice some up for chili beans or red beans/rice.

Clean them, add 1/2 cup beans per pint jar, 1/2 tsp salt, hot water up to rim, add lid and ring, process 75 min for pint, 90 for qt at 10lbs pressure (or whatever you elevation requires)

Legumes and Lentils are safe to store for 5 years in something as simple as a material (like cotton) bag. As long as that bag is in a cool, dry, dark location away from pests.

I wouldn't store any food in a plastic container. Plastic has been found to degrade and adds toxins to foods.

I would suggest getting a canning jar vacuum and 2 quart sized canning jars. Fill each to withing 1/2 inch of the mouth of the jar, vacuum it, seal it, then put the jars back in their cardboard box and store in a cool, dry and preferably dark place. like a dry basement.

Most likely you can easily get 20 years of the Legumes and Lentils being safe to eat.

However, vitamins are complex, delicate molecules that rapidly degrade with time. Thus while those Legumes and Lentils will be safe to eat, they will lose their nutritional value rapidly after the 5th year of storage.

Same thing applies to all other foods, yes even those rated as long term storage start degrading and losing their vitamin content because vitamins are complex and delicate molecules.

Ramen. I wouldn't try to store the packets more than 2 years. They have a high oil content and the packets have oxidized minerals (salts) inside which cause the oil to go rancid rather rapidly.

Again, I would store the dry noodle in a glass jar vacuum sealed.

No more than 5 years tops because the noodles themselves have oils/fats which go rancid in time. I wouldn't worry about the vitamin content since Ramen isn't very vitamin rich.