If food is stored where rodents can get at it they will.
We had rats chew through a 5 gallon plastic bucket and the mylar bag to get at wheat and corn we had stored in a U-Save rental space.
These were new buckets not repurposed buckets that had previously held food like frosting, salad dressing, etc.
We do have some of those that we got at the local supermarket deli and I imagine they would be real rodent magnets if stored in the wrong place..
Ace Hardware, Loews, Home Depot, etc. still sell different size old style galvanized garbage cans.
I bought several 32 gallon cans to keep sealed mylar bags of stored food safe from rodents.
Shop around and watch for sales and you will sometimes find good deals on new cans.
If the flea markets in our area ever open up again I am going to comb through them for more clean metal cans.
Thanks for the info, definitely “food for thought”. I spent not a little time getting extra calories “put up” or put back, and maybe less time than I should have worrying about protecting it directly from vermin.
I use to throw MRE meal entrees and other items that I didn’t particularly care for into a box and saved them. Have quite a lot of those now, and I still don’t like them - they are just “bad” enough where I’m not inclined to snack on them. But they are filling and nutritious in terms of food value. But they are also completely vulnerable to mice or anything like that, being a thin cardboard box and mylar pouch. I need to come up with something suitable, storage wise. A few years ago I (sort of) almost got rid of them, as I doubted I’d ever actually need them. Now? I look at them just slightly short of “worth their weight in gold”.