Posted on 09/02/2011 12:36:52 PM PDT by Kartographer
When someone says “survival food preps” or “stockpiling survival food“, what do you think of? Do you think of tons of dried rice and beans stored in mylar bags? How about a basement full of #10 cans, does that come to mind? Or is it a combination of several things?
When I was thinking of writing an article about survival food preps, the first thing that popped into my head was – MREs, canned goods and garden seeds. But where does perishable goods fit into that narrow picture? For the first week or so people are going to be eating stuff out of their freezer. For the sake of discussion, lets move past that first week post SHTF. Something bad has happened, the food in the grocery stores has dried up, people have gone through their immediate perishable food items,,,, now what?
A book about the Roman military I just finished reading contained a quote from an ancient historian – “nothing caused as much stress within the troops as the lack of supplies.” Just like it says, when the supplies started to run low, the stress level went up. 2,000 years later, and nothing has changed.
(Excerpt) Read more at survivalboards.com ...
A year old can should be just fine. Though I’d eat it soon only because of rotation practices. Buy what you eat and eat what you buy, and rotate. That way there’s nothing wasted or thrown out and money is saved. If you don’t like chicken noodle soup then don’t buy it next time. It no biggie to add fresh veggies to it to make it taste more like homemade soup or turn it into a casserole. Or if you know you’ll never eat it, give it to the dog.
I really like Thrive foods from Shelf Reliance. I’ve shopped around quite a bit from Walton Feed, Honeyville, Emergency Essentials — none of them are BAD, but Thrive has a bigger variety of foods (freeze-dried mandarin oranges!) and allows you to set up your own customized auto-ship system called the Q. There’s no minimum monthly amount, you can change or cancel at any time. They have excellent customer service, including online help.
www.shelfreliance.com
Full disclosure: I signed up to be one of their reps, figuring I might earn a little extra money to help me stock up more quickly.
THanks for your information.
A good rule of thumb is to consider that most canned foods are good for two years. If you're in a starvation situation and trying to assess whether a can of food is good to eat first inspect the can before opening. If it is damaged or bulging in any way then toss it. Second, if it smells bad then discard it. Third, if it tastes half-way decent, then go for it.
MRE's are a "niche food" with a very specific purpose. They are for "eating on the move" (whether on foot or by vehicle). So, don't think you have to have a ton of MRE's stashed back.
On the other hand, we've put back a TON of dried pinto beans and white rice - vacuum sealed in mylar bags and stored in 5-gallon food grade buckets. Beans and rice is a perfect blend of carbs and protein (a complete source of protein, in fact). The challenge then is to also put back spices and some freeze dried meats (shelf life maybe 7 years) to throw in to that beans and rice to make it palatable.
We also compliment that beans and rice with plenty of good ol' peanut butter (you have to rotate through this due to limited shelf-life - but we use peanut butter regularly anyhow) and *raw* honey from a local vendor. The peanut butter provides much-needed fats, while the honey has an infinite shelf life and can be used for a very wide range of purposes (including as a decent topical antibiotic!).
There's a good discussion of beans and rice on our local preparedness forum (including a great report on somebody who prepared a beans and rice meal for her family as a test):
http://floridareadiness.org/?q=node/203
There is also a need to put vitamins back to suppliment the above.
These days we just subscribe to the monthly food delivery from "Shelf Reliance". Most of what we get from them are freeze-dried meats to throw in with beans and rice.
I have a few of those entres left around here somewhere. Not sure where though:) Those are hit & miss items. They might still show up on occasion.
Thanks for the link to shelf reliance. I have been prepping for over 12 years is somehow missed this company.
Thanks for the reply. I have used some canned soups and vegetables that were a couple of months past the expiration date without a problem. I also heated them well, but not quite as long as you did.
Intersting story - thanks for sharing! I’ve read similar stories about canned goods that were even older and still were edible.
Thanks for the link! That’s the information I was looking for.
LOL! While I haven’t had any for years, Mrs Reform and I ate quite a bit of the stuff when we were first married.
Thanks for sharing your manual and all the other great info you post on FR! I do try to rotate as much as possible but one can only eat so much soup, tuna, etc. When sale prices are good, I’ll buy a dozen or more cans instead of the 3 or 4 that would normally meet short term needs. With frequent sales, the number of extra canned goods adds up quickly.
Knowing that many are considered nutritious and safe well past the expiration date means I’ll save money because I won’t be rotating the older cans (those a year or two past the expiration date) to the trash. FReeper djf’s link in reply 35 contains detailed information and was also helpful.
Adding fresh veggies to the old soup is a good suggestion. I like the soups, etc that I buy, it’s just that I don’t eat them often enough.
See my reply 71; re rotation. While I don’t have a whole year’s worth of food stored yet, I’ve been loading up on more canned goods during the past couple of years (I also have a few months of freeze dried food stashed and am buying more as funds are available). My concern is that in a major SHTF crisis, grocery stores will quickly run out of everything and not be resupplied for many weeks or months. My thinking has been to use the canned goods (some bought in 2008) to bridge the gap between fresh foods (in fridge and freezer) and the freez dried. With enough canned goods, I can push the time to freez dried back. It’s a balancing act and I’ve still have a lot of work to do.
Thanks for your reply!
On the other hand, we've put back a TON of dried pinto beans and white rice - vacuum sealed in mylar bags and stored in 5-gallon food grade buckets.
That's something I haven't done yet, but have been seriously considering - I need to get started. I've been stocking up on canned goods as a medium-term solution to a SHTF crisis.
Thanks for the info and link!
Actually, I did some further looking and was able to find a pack of 18 Menu B entree-only MREs with a July ‘11 mfg. date on eBay for 49.00. Even with the shipping that’s only $3.36 per MRE. Not too bad. Best I’ve found so far.
Having decided quite a few years ago to be prepped with necessities for whatever, here are a few things I’ve learned that work for my small household.
1. Do NOT buy what we don’t normally eat, or at least what we don’t like. For instance, spaghetti sauce...
2. Rotate, rotate, rotate. For instance, all beans get tougher the longer they sit. So with beans (or grains) (and we eat a variety of them), I store with bay leaves in 5 gallon buckets, and scoop out say a gallon or half gallon at a time and keep in the kitchen and use up.
3. I label every bucket on two sides and the top with contents and date of purchase. That way rotation is much easier, I use oldest stuff next.
4. I label glass jars with date if I need to.
5. Even glass jars I label contents if it looks like something else.
6. It’s vital to incorporate the kinds of foods you are storing into your regular meals. That way you can easily rotate, so nothing goes bad, and you are used to eating those kinds of food. Vital vital vital!
7. Cheese, if in sealed plastic thingies - I buy Tillamook 2 pounders - keeps forever. The cheddars do, they just get a bit sharper. Jack or mozerlla don’t keep quite as well (so they say, we’ve never had any go bad). So we go to the place that has much cheaper cheese prices, and stock up. I’ve used cheese one year past expiration date and it was perfect.
8. It’s cheapest to store basic ingredients rather than mixes, also mixes have oils and other ingredients in them that go bad much more easily. So I make everything from scratch. Still practicing with crackers.
9. A good water filter is essential. It’s impossible to store potable water for a long time, or for a long outage/disruption. A good water filter is real peace of mind. I have a Berkefeld that I’ve used for years and just a Katadyn as backup.
10. To help with appetite fatigue, things like mustard, good vinegars, salsa, as well as cooking herbs and spices in bulk and stored well (in glass, out of heat and light) are important to me.
Hope these are helpful. I really need to get my blog organized and ready for public viewing!
My pleasure. I started a preparedness group here in Central Florida a couple of years ago, which has been one of the best things I've done. Since then I've been studying this quite a bit, and prepping quite a bit.
I intend to barter using whiskey.
now, I buy a lot of Progresso....I'll buy tomato soup....tomato soup is one thing we all love....
lesson numero uno for prepping: store things that people will eat...
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