It’s essential for your long term survival that you have food supplies set aside as soon as possible. Since we don’t know precisely when the day will come in which we will need to use of food storage, we must store our food properly. This is because food will not keep for any length of time without proper preparation. Not all foods are adequate for long term storage, but there are many foods that are.
Your goal should be to become self-sufficient and part of this process is to acquire a long term food supply. Certain foods if stored properly will last for years. You should but and put aside foods for the future from the list below. These foods will keep well.
Buy beans. You’ll want to buy in quantity when possible. You’ll definitely want beans as they’ll give you a supply of protein. You’ll also want to buy grains. The following grains are important to have in your food supply: wheat, oats, cornmeal, wheat flour, barley, rye, brown or white rice and flour.
Buy powdered milk. You may already know that powdered milk doesn’t taste the same as fresh milk. But this kind of milk can last at least 20 years if stored properly. You’ll need milk, not only for cooking but for children as well. Buy fruit. We know we can’t store fresh fruit for any length of time. So you’ll have to buy dried or freeze dried fruit that can be reconstituted by adding water.
Another important food to have in your food storage supply is dried corn. You’ll also want to buy sugar, salt, nuts, peanut butter, tea, coffee, honey, seeds and canned goods. You’ll also want to buy canned meats as fresh meat will not keep.
Canned goods don’t keep as long as other survival foods, but they can last many years if kept in the proper environment and of course rotated. You’ll also want to buy pasta. You’ll need oils such as olive oil and fats like lard. It goes without saying that if you have a baby that uses formula you’ll want to store formula for the baby.
You can’t just buy the food and leave it out in your garage. The food will go to waste if you don’t know how to store it. Foods that are placed in storage are susceptible to oxygen, moisture, light and of course temperature changes – especially heat – as in the garage.
As mentioned previously, heat can be your enemy when it comes to food storage. You’ll want to store the food in a cool room where the temperatures are less than 60 degrees. You can use food grade containers to properly store your food. Many times you can find this type of bucket at no cost from grocery stores or restaurants.
You should be able to purchase them online or in stores. A lot of people like to put a mylar bag into the container first and then put the food into the bag. Once the food is in the bag you can seal the top using a heat source.
The purpose of the mylar bag is to keep out what would destroy the food (like insects) and makes it last much longer than it would if it were in the container alone. Another important thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to find a way to help absorb the oxygen. You can purchase silicone gel packs or special oxygen absorbers to put into the containers or even use salt.
Another often overlooked tip is to make sure you write the date on the outside of the container. This is so you’ll know exactly when the food was placed into storage. The key to maintaining a healthy food supply is to rotate your food. Don’t store food that you or your family will never eat in an emergency. By rotating the food your family will become accustomed to eating the food in your food storage and not turn up their nose when eating from the food supply.
