Look up pemmican the native Americans used it to carry meat for years without refrigeration. Freeze dried meat lasts for decades sealed in air tight vacuum bags. Salted dehydrated jerky keeps for years as well. The British sailed around the world and held a world wide empire with hardtack and barrels of salted meats. It’s where the expression scraping the bottom of the barrel comes from. Hardtack from the 19th century has been found and tested to still be edible. Canned foods last for hundreds of years, recently canned food from the 1800s was found in a lake bed in Canada from that era the researchers tested it for.pathogens the found zero , they also tested for.nutrients over half.
.remained after more than a hundred years they determine it was still.edible but were prohibited from trying it but scientifically it was safe to eat still. If you know what you are doing you can store food for.decades of not centuries
Pioneers had game. Live food. When food is alive, its immune system prevents rot.
Drying meat is not forever. For sure 100s of techniques for preservation were invented. The rats appreciated it.
The US west got populated mostly by Tuberculosis. Go West, Young Man!!! Because a study out of upstate NY informed the world that fresh air could extend life 10 yrs and brochures from western cities were printed and sent east.
If you want to dig deep, you’ll find rather a lot of pioneer stories that end with a return east. All it takes is one bad crop year. One invasion of deer. Or rats. Always the rats.
There are great studies that don’t immerse themselves in some attitude of yankee know how or American exceptionalism. They just look at math. If you’re in a situation that requires you to care about this stuff, you ain’t gonna have gasoline or electricity. F O R E V E R. You aren’t trying to survive 2 weeks until the power comes back on. This is FOREVER.
Think hardtack and pemmican saves the day? The rats will be grateful.
If you plan a survival compound, get walnut trees started. They take 8 years to yield, but once they do they generate the highest calorie total per acre of any plant. The acre issue is critical. You have to walk out there and gather the nuts. No gasoline. No power.
Read about the SS Bertrand which sank on the Missouri river in 1865 and was excavated more than 100 years later.
It was like a floating Walmart and had tons of food inside as well.
All the preserved food was edible... maybe not very tasty, but edible.