Survival Food

David Stifle

David Stifle

Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
10,188
Hi Folks,

I want to lay in a food supply for my family in the event of a disaster, i.e., prolonged electrical grid down, etc. But I don't know much about the subject. I've seen some commercials, and went to their website. Pretty expensive, to say the least. Anyway, I'm looking for advice, who's the best company, quality, price, etc. What about the storage conditions?

Lol. I really don't know enough to know what questions to ask.
 
I keep about 50lbs of rice and the same in beans as back up emergency food in air tight storage containers, that along with canned meat and home caned veggies is a lot more affordable than a few cases of MRE's or prepackaged emergency foods.

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Behind the mops and crap are good storage containers those hold the rice/beans on the bottom and flour and sugar in the top ones.

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If you're in a situation where you can't grow your own food or relocate you have to focus on water, rice, beans, and some canned foods. Pasta and oatmeal too, although they won't keep as long as the others. Canned goods will last for years past their stamped date, just have to be careful about dents. If you boil canned food for 15 minutes it should remove any bacteria.

You also want spices, salt, honey, and maple syrup (or some other sugar). People who have tried these diets have had a hard time, and the spices are a way to change things up. Honey and maple syrup should keep almost forever as long as it's stored properly.
 
Store what you eat. Eat what you store. A power outage is no time to find out you don't like MRE's or other emergency rations.

Meat stores on the hoof or frozen. In a prolonged situation you'll either need a local source of livestock or local power.

Rice, grains, pasta, flour, beans, peas etc store well.

Cans of beans, tomato sauce, corn, fish etc all come in handy.

Jars of preserved fruits and vegetables.

Basically look around your kitchen to see what you eat and then se how you can get the desired shelf life. You will not be able to have as varied a diet during a crisis but it would suck to go 6 months on rice and beans alone. Especially if you don't like r&b.

It is tricky to manage and rotate a large food store but if it gives you piece of mind go for it.:thumbup:
 
They will, you just won't feel like your alive. I tried it once, gotta have some meat and spices or i'm going canibal.
 
We're planning for a disaster not a night in the kitchen with Bobby flay haha. Set a trap line and collect wild edibles. Make salt like Gandhi.
 
I store what we use. I try to keep 30 day supply of food in the house. Obviously it is always not a 30 day supply, but I want to be able to eat something for 30 days from my stores. Canned goods is what I concentrate on.

Have a generator and a couple days of fuel on hand. Should be able to plug the generator into your house wiring correctly. This way you can just rotate breakers on and off and provide basic lighting, keep freezers and frigs cold and so forth. It also allows you to live somewhat normally assuming you can obtain more fuel as you need it. So, keep a fair supply of fuel and water containers somewhere. These things sell out quickly in emergencies as do generators.
 
I buy bulk canned veggies and fruit along with lots of flour, beans, rice, corn meal, sugar, honey, oatmeal, some canned meat (chicken, tuna, ham) and always have a full chest freezer of pork, beef, and chicken in the garage. If the power goes out in an emergency situation the food in the house fridge and freezer gets eaten first and the garage freezer gets a few cycles on the generator to keep frozen until I am ready to dig into it. All the dry goods I listed can be stored for years if done properly the only downside will be reduced nutritional content. Also if water is an issue make sure to buy canned goods in water with no added anything that way you can drink it. For canned fruit get it in fruit juice not syrup as this adds to the nutritional value. All these items are eaten on a pretty regular basis so none get even close to expiring. Just be sure to label and rotate.
 
Marking canned goods with black magic markers (expiration date) is a handy way of quickly identifying the older stuff. Try to use the stuff routinely and re-supply on some regular basis (monthly for me for re-supply). I want at least a two week supply of food in the house at all times and keep more in canned goods that lasts a long time. So, in an emergency, we could likely be able to eat for about 30 days. You never know when something might happen, so it is possible that we would only have a two-week supply which is about when I look at re-supply of basic things.

Dried potatoes are useful as they make things appear more "normal". Bread machine is useful along with the proper flour and so forth.
 
My set up is about half of Rimfire's Maybe a little more like three weeks.

First is WATER! Where I live if the faucet stops the only thing I could do is set up on the beach boiling water. Not too practical.

So I have a gallon a day per person and one gallon per day for our pets. Heavy on the canned foods, meats Tuna, That gallon is for drinking personal sponge bath etc

Remember that you have as many gallons of water already in your house as there is in your water heater. At least 30-80 gallons.

If the semi's stop rolling you are about nine meals from riots in the streets if you live in a big city like I do.

Medicines If you are a diabetic have high blood pressure or children with asthma etc.. I have at least a 30 day supply of all of my personally needed meds.

If there are riots the Pharmacies will be some of the first placed cleaned out. For the narcotics mostly. But there won't be anything else left after they burn the place down, like just happen recently.

So stock up on grandmas meds too. If you watch the dates and get all of the meds you need refiled as soon as possible each month it only took me about six months to have a full 30 back stock of my needed things. Antibiotics, pain meds etc can be good trading fodder if the SFGT too

I built a relationship with the mom & pop pharmacy so that they take care of the reorders for me. Plus those folks know how to bend things just a little with the Ins co..:)
It can save you money as well.
 
I'm glad I started this, as there's some very good input here. I can certainly store 30 days of drygoods and canned goods plus water at my house. I have a small place in the country, well water, set well away from population centers, where we would probably go in the event of trouble. I have a gen, various calibers of firearms/ammo for hunting both large and small game, plus some gasoline and diesel in store. I am still interested in the freeze dried food, though. It is supposed to last up to 25 years and I could store it in my unheated garage. Laurence, good point on the meds!
 
Water is the most important thing one should stockpile. Then you got canned food, grains, salt, sugar, oil, coffee, etc. Probably doesn't hurt to have a few big bags of jerky or other dried/cured meats, too. Cured/dried fish also lasts a long time, if stored properly.
 
Bread machine ?? That requires electric power !! The only power equipment should be a grain mill though you can buy small handmills.Whole grains will store better.
It's not difficult to make bread by hand .Make your own recipies , add things [dried fruit etc] for variation. Yeast stores fairly well or you can make your own . But yeast is not necessary .Baking soda/baking powder will get things to rise ! But then there are various flat breads .Rolled out thin ,can be cooked in an oven or pan or grill .

Try to stay away from sugar .Stick to protein, whole carbohydrate, fat for each meal. Mixes may be convenient but limit you . Be creative and mix your own.
 
Yep. Bread machine. Yes, you can make it by hand too. But, a strong YES to electric power. I consider it nearly a necessity. Electricity is life. I keep two generators available for use; one is 2800w and the other 5500w. Wish the 5500 was a tad bigger, but it works just fine and both are very reliable with Honda engines. I just can't run my HVAC with it. Eventually I may go with a 10,000w or so generator for the whole house and free up the others for other tasks. It starts getting very expensive.

The freeze dried foods are very expensive to me in quantity. My problem with them is I would never use them except in an emergency. It really depends on just how long a period you might be planning for without access to grocery stores.
 
Where I live the whole Idea is to bug in. Ether the gubbermint restores order and brings in food in about 2-3 weeks or its over! for the majority of people around here. Unless you don't mind eating BBQed Zombie?;)

When the masses come to try to take your supplies
 
I would lay up a supply of powdered milk, too. Not all powdered milk is equal, so I would try a few brands to see which I liked, then stock up. Powdered eggs might not be a bad idea, and instant coffee and tea.
 
Start with a list of stuff you normally have in the house that'll keep. Buy more of it, and always put the new stuff in the back of the cupboard. Buy it when it's on sale, and buy enough to last till the next sale plus your reserve.
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Where I live the whole Idea is to bug in. Ether the gubbermint restores order and brings in food in about 2-3 weeks or its over! for the majority of people around here.

When the masses come to try to take your supplies.
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The unfed masses are a potential big problem in such an event. You're right about the 2-3 weeks time frame. After that, you would begin to see massive starvation and things would start getting rough. Frankly I think my house is in-defensible. But for the people that think they would just come and take things because they are armed, well, the other side is armed too.

I agree Cougar. That is the place to start.
 
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