Going Beyond Canned Food

For most people, building up supplies typically means buying lots and lots of canned and dehydrated food with a 2 - 25yr shelf-life. This food is a necessity and will save your family's life in a disaster situation. 

However, there is a way to get beyond the canned food and give yourself a couple of good first few weeks to a month of yummy food.  

Before I start, I am not saying you should alter your canned food supplies at all. Canned food is what will allow you to survive longer than most in an extended disaster situation. Maintain your large supply of canned food and dehydrated food etc. I am just saying, maybe we can delay your reliance on what some call less-appetizing food choices. 

What we must realize here is most disaster situations will be for a much shorter period of time than expected. Meaning you might only need a couple of days to a week or two of supplies before help arrives. While we should always plan for the longest survival situation we can afford, your initial food supplies can have a shorter shelf-life because you will be storing items you eat on a regular basis. By having a regular rotation you will be eating the food and replenishing far before the actual expiration date. 

What you will be doing is buying extra of the items you normally buy in a grocery trip.  

My family loves crackers, potato chips, granola bars and cereal. These items all have a shorter shelf-life than canned food but they are still good for on average of 3-6 months after I've purchased them. I buy a couple of extra boxes and store them with my other supplies. Then I rotate them into my family's cupboards as we eat them and continue to buy new boxes when I return to the store. Thus replenishing my supplies and extending the final enjoy-by date. 

Storing familiar food items will not only create a happier atmosphere in a bad situation but it will also be easier on your stomach. Unless you are used to eating dehydrated and canned food regularly, this food will most-likely cause stomach issues. Nothing like tossing diarrhea on top of scary dire times. 

A list of items we keep on hand: 

Crackers, potato chips, granola bars, mashed potatoes (just add water), cookies, spaghetti (don't forget jars of sauce), other sweet treats, beef jerky, and pudding snack-pacs. 

Just check the expiration dates on your regular purchases and you'll develop your own list pretty quickly. 

Keep on prepping!

Food Rotation and Survival

So, I was meandering through my supplies this week and noticed I have violated my own cardinal rule: I failed to properly rotate my stock and was forced to throw away a large amount of canned food.

Thankfully, this loss isn't detrimental because I can just go to the store and replenish my supplies. But what if Shit Hit The Fan before I realized a large portion of my food supplies were spoiled? My family would be in dire straits because of my oversight and I could blame no one but myself.

I consider this discovery both a negative and a positive. Positive because everyday I do not need my emergency supplies is a good day. Positive because I learned to keep a better eye on expiration dates. Negative because I just wasted a lot of food which could have been used up had I paid better attention.

Small mistakes today can have large impacts tomorrow if we are not properly prepared. I hope by reading this, you will double check all of your supplies.

Keep on prepping!