Fruit is an important part of your diet, remember the sailors who had scurvy when they were on the ships for long periods of time.  They found out that they needed fruit to keep them healthy.  That is an easy fix if you have grocery stores or live in California or Florida. Or if you were smart enough to have planted an orchard.  So, there are freeze dried fruit that will last the longest, but you can purchase some dried fruit from the store that will last for quite a while.  I have also dried fruit myself on an electric food dryer.  You can also make solar or air dryers that can be quite large.  If you have a garden this might solve a big problem with the ability to dry your own veggies and put them up. Sprouts also help prevent scurvy.

Beans become an important part of your protein when you don’t have meat put up and there are lots of different types of dried beans that you can get at the grocery store.  Again if your children do not like beans, start introducing them now, change up often until you find a way that they like them.  We have put soy sauce, salsa and butter on them to change up the flavor, and of course there are lots of different types of spices.

Canned meat will last for a while and then there is dehydrated or freeze dried meat, but this gets expensive. If you can cook a little bit of meat in with pasta, rice or potatoes then it will make the meat go farther.  You can can your own meat using a pressure cooker. And you can find lots of canning jars at garage and estate sales.  If you don’t already know how to use or have a canner, it would be a good thing to have because you can use it on an open fire and can meat if you get a large animal and need to put it up.  Look at what you have in the freezer right now, what would happen if the electricity went out suddenly.  If you did not have a way to put the meat up then it would probably spoil before you could eat all of it up. Pressure cookers also save energy and shorten cooking times. See post on autoclaves.

Getting chicken and beef bouillon cubes, being able to make gravies, having spices to change the flavor up are all extremely important when storing food for any type of disaster.   The difference between a disaster and an inconvenience is which side of the conversation you are on.

Dried potatoes come in flakes, sliced and pearls. Your family may not like flakes, but if they don’t have fresh then they probably will eat flakes if you add things to it.  If you use can chicken stock instead of water or add powdered butter to them and put spices on them and they will taste almost just like real potatoes. A variation is powdered ranch dressing or cheese. They can be put up the same way that rice is. One lbs of dry potatoes is equal to about 10 lbs of fresh and you do not have to worry as much about spoilage.

On eggs, you can break them into a bowl, lightly salt, stir and place in ice cube trays to freeze. After they are frozen you can place into plastic bags, double bagged is best and put back into freezer.  These will last for a few months. If you are concerned about the power going off, you need to look at either having chickens or getting powder eggs.  Again, they won’t taste like the fresh but if you make them into omelets then they will taste fine.  On any of this if your children do not like say omelets, start getting them use to it by adding bacon and cheese and work up to more veggies. Also, if you can purchase some powder eggs soon and start getting them use to it, powdered milk would be the same.  One thing about powdered and dried food, you don’t have to worry about spoilage of fresh and having to throw something out. Also you are not taking up space by storing egg shells or orange peels, etc.

On flour, cake mixes, cornmeal, pancake mix, and things like this, there are fats in the mix and flour and they will not store long without refrigeration. Instead you will need to find whole wheat, barley and rye, whatever you use to make bread. This can be stored like the rice, you can even take and put the whole wheat in a non-garbage bag liner and put in a large, new plastic garbage can on rollers preferably so you can move it around to where you will be cooking. Baking powder, baking soda, and cornstarch will be needed if you bake. Yeast does not last too long, only about a year if you have it in a refrigerator. So, look into making sourdough for your bread, it lasts longer than yeast.

With sugar, as long as it is kept clean and dry, it is supposed to have an indefinite shelf life. If you want brown sugar just add molasses to white sugar, because brown sugar will not last as long. You can also put up honey. Molasses does have a long shelf life, however, again if it changes color, has a different odor, has mold or taste different throw it out. Molasses would be good to have for cookies (comfort food for children).

Oil will not last long either, without refrigeration and in air tight containers. There is shortening and butter or margarine powder that can be purchased for longer storage time. Also there is baking cocoa, dough enhancer, buttermilk powder, cottage cheese and sour cream. There is also freeze dried cheeses, yogurt bites and even ice cream bars.

Of course milk does not last very long and when frozen the water content starts separating, so powdered milk becomes the food storage of choice.  When you have refrigeration if you mix the powdered milk with warm water, mix well and refrigerate by the next morning it will taste better than just made.  Our children also liked it if we used chocolate or strawberry powder mix to add to the milk, it makes it taste better than just plain. Depending on where you get it, milk usually comes in a box which is not safe to leave in very long as it reacts with air and can attract insects and mice. We are a firm believer in 2 liter plastic bottles, especially if you like to drink pop or ready-made juices.  You can store milk safely in 2 liter plastic bottles for quite a while, we have had some that have been stored for up to 10 years and the milk is still okay to drink. You can also put up in #2.5 or #10 cans if you have a canner available.  Masson or ball jars work well too.

It is nice when you have only water to drink if you have some powdered Kool-Aid, lemonade or tea (black, green or herbal) to go along with it for the children as well as adults. Don’t think that you won’t need it too add variety. These can be purchased on sale for a reasonable price and should last for quite some time.  If you get the kind that is already in the small plastic bottle with a measuring cup as the lid, they will store safely that way for quite a while.

Okay, now let’s talk about pasta.  On dried products they last a long time, we have some that have been in 2 liter pop bottles for 10+ years and when we moved to a lower altitude they crunched in some.  But that was fine, it means the seal is good and that was just a 2 liter pop bottle that we drank out of, washed and let dry for a few days and then put the pasta in and tightened the cap back on as tight as we could by hand.  Even spaghetti can go into 2 liter pop bottles. Make sure that you have a variety of kinds of pasta, of course spaghetti & macaroni and cheese are favorite comfort foods and are good to have lots on hand.  But there is also a twist kind of pasta that is made out of veggies that adds to your healthy eating.

Rice is a big one for us, we love it and eat rice probably 3 to 4 times a week.  Rice can be put up in 2 liter pop bottles or cans or Mylar bags which are the foil type bags that you heat seal. Another way you can put up rice is by putting it in zip lock bags and then placing them into a clean bucket.  We have bought buckets at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc and have successfully used them for years and have not had any problem with spoilage, also it helps keep the mice out.

Okay now as you start purchasing the food that you are going to keep for years how do you store it.  For the #2.5 cans for the most part can just be placed into your food storage as they are. You do need to date them with a permanent marker with at least the year on them. We like to put the year and month that we purchase them. But you need to remember the cans went through being packaged and shipped to the warehouse, then probably shipped again to the store. How long did that take before you purchased the can? There are a few products that are canned that do not last very long one being green beans, and the other is anything with tomato sauce in it. Tomatoes are very acidy and will destroy the can if left in too long. Once you mark the date on the can, make sure that you rotate them so that you use the oldest first.

Mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, barbeque or cocktail sauce and salad dressings don’t last very long. Look at the expiration date, this is what by law the manufactures have to say the earliest possible spoilage. The other things that make a difference is the  1)temperature at which it is stored, 2)light from outside or fluorescent lighting and 3)humidity. If the color starts changing, if the odor is different, if the ingredients start separating, these are all things to watch for. It would be best to put those products into active use and maybe consider reducing the stock level of that particular item because you are not using it fast enough. This is where you will need to look for powdered replacements for the long run.  All of these have fats in them that will turn rancid and there is nothing worse than to have lots stored up and you open one up to find it bad and the rest are the same way.  There is some money down the drain. [There IS a use for spoiled food that we can talk about later] Mayonnaise and salad dressings are made with powdered eggs and or powdered milk and ketchup, barbeque or cocktail sauce are made with powdered tomato sauce. You might want to get some powdered eggs, milk and tomato sauce to try some before you have to make it or have none.

On to A-1, Soy Sauce, Worchester Sauce and such unopened according to manufacturer has an expiration date of 2-3 years, if stored in cool, dry, dark place. However, it can change color or have an odor to it. So use your own best judgment. These can add flavor to dishes.  When you cook the same things over and over spices began to become very important in changing the taste of food and making it different, which is good.