Survival Food Storage — The Beginner’s Guide on a Budget

Reference: https://www.holar.com.tw/blog/survival-food-storage-the-beginners-guide-on-a-budget/

Sometimes when you think about the survival necessities, all the stuff you studied in physics and mathematics becomes pointless. Only one thing that hits your brain when the world survival comes is food.

Food is a basic necessity for survival. Be it an earthquake, hurricane, super typhoon, floods, or any sort of natural calamity or even war, you may lose access to water and food supply. For the rainy days like these, most people go for keeping emergency food storage. Unfortunately, for many of us, survival food storage is all about dumping all the canned food into the cart from a nearby store. We tell you, this act can cause you a huge trouble. Saving up an emergency food supply on a budget might seem overwhelming when you still have to buy food for everyday meals.

In uncertainties, generally, you tend to think of meeting basic needs as priorities than preferences and flavours. But this thing can become easy and valuable-y tasty if you plan it in a right manner.

To help you with an important yet legit tasteful task, we bring you the ‘right guide’ to survival food storage. By the end of this amazing guideline, you will know the basics of survival food storage on a budget, so you can start stockpiling the right foods in the right places to ensure you and your family have something to survive on after a major disaster. Equip yourself with a little knowledge about the most common food storage methods, and learn to avoid mistakes that could put your food supply in trouble.

Contents:

· Begin from Short to Long Term
∘ 1 Month:
∘ 3 Months:
∘ 6 Months:
∘ 1 Year:
· Store What You Eat and Eat What You Store
∘ White Rice
∘ Dried Foods
∘ Canned Foods
∘ Frozen Foods
∘ Spices and Seasonings
∘ Water and Other Beverages
· Where to Store Your Survival Food
∘ H (Humidity):
∘ O (Oxygen):
∘ L (Light):
∘ T (Temperature):
· About HOLAR

Begin from Short to Long Term

First things first — don’t panic at the thought of saving up all the food in the world for the longest time in the world, it is pointless. Don’t worry about long-term survival food storage you can simply do a little at a time over weeks, months, or even longer. Be slow and steady, build the reserves gradually over time as financial resources and space permit. Usually, in most families, they have at least a week-long food stored already.

To do everything right and right, we suggest you stay organized following the calendar. We recommend you to set goals for (1) 1 month (2) 3 months (3) 6 months and (4) 1 year.

．1 Month:

One legit easy and comfortable way to build a small supply of food reserves is to purchase a few extra items every week. Since who knows better about your appetite other than you, you are aware of how much food you and your family eat on a typical week, you can start by purchasing additional 25% of your weekly grocery shopping. After about 1 month, you will have an extra 1-month food supply. Remember, not to spoil these items by just throwing them down in the storeroom and wait for an emergency to happen, keep them rotating and eating regularly.

．3 Months:

Now, move forward towards the long-term food storage items that are best purchased in bulk. At this stage, you may not stop with your regular food storing routine, and make most of your cupboards, freezer, and refrigerator appropriately. However, adding some life-saving items to assure your ‘survival’, like grains, fats, milk, cheese, crackers and leavening would be ideal. This can sort out your everyday meal planning, and give you a complete hold over the entire stored up pantry, your taste buds and your appetite.

．6 Months:

So, now you have successfully completed the six months of food storage mission and now this is your checkpoint, where you must have a variety of foods and snacks to keep your family healthy and happy. Since you have gathered the basic survival items, consider adding combos and even year supplies of food that will drastically increase your food storage supplies in one fell swoop, which also saves you money. Add and make sure of the solid cooking items like grain, rice, sugar, salt, etc. Don’t spend your money like a pig by collecting loads of frozen food cans and boxed meals. Also, stay conscious of healthy food.

．1 Year:

According to the recommendations by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), its ideal if you are keeping 1 year of food storage on hand at all times. It also is normally the goal for most folks. It takes quite a lot of patience to reach the goal, and might also cost you several years to do so, but if you do everything smartly and with a right budget you can nail this food storage mission like a freaking pro. Don’t panic and begin from small and keep paces gradually, you will find it is not really hard. Just keep in mind one thing that you pay attention to the shelf life of your food. Some foods are not as ‘lively’ as you think, while the lifespan of other foods is pretty much longer.

Store What You Eat and Eat What You Store

After learning ‘how to do it’ now it’s time for picking the choices to which you can apply what you have learned before. As you stock food, take the account of the unique needs and tastes of your family. Obviously, you are not going to switch your eating habits upside down or from east to west. Keep in the list of familiar foods that you usually eat. They lift morale and give a feeling of security in times of stress. Try to include foods that your family will enjoy and that are also high in calories and nutrition.

We are suggesting you some of the items below. These are some foods with a long shelf life (a year or longer):

．White Rice

The top nosh item of food storage list is white rice. It is the topmost item of the list of shelf-stable foods because it is cheap and easy to get, you can find a wide variety of rice at any local general store. A rice meal is effective as it is filling and because it can help you overcome stomach upset. Within a proper packaging and a not-so-considerate temperature, it can last for more than 25 years or even more than that. On the other hand, brown rice may be healthier, but its shelf-life is not as long as the white ones.

．Dried Foods

Foods like dried beans and dried meat are something that is easily acceptable by every member of the family without having any ‘I don’t wanna eat this’ fights. They provide the perfect source of protein. The best part about these dried items is that they can be stored easily without any hassle. Store them in airtight containers made out of metal and plastic relax because they aren’t going anywhere then. Other dried foods like dried fruits like, raisins, apples, bananas and dried vegetables such as corn, popcorn, and mushrooms are also very popular among all.

．Canned Foods

Storing up food is the real deal when it comes to the shelf-life and health. Canned items can last for about a year and a half, while the manufactured canned items can last up to five years on the shelf. This means you can stock up on these items and not worry about them going bad, which is especially beneficial in times of power outage or other emergencies and quite a great deal straight away. The low cost of canned foods can allow you to stock up on a variety of fruits, vegetables, meat, and soup to stay healthy and fuller.

．Frozen Foods

The concept of freezing food came into existence since the 1930s. Freezing, in essence, is the pause button of nature. It maintains freshness, slows down enzymatic reactions, and increases the lifespan of foods by altering the time it takes anything to degrade. They have a long shelf life, which extends to about one year. The costs were also reduced by more than a third when cooking from frozen food. You can make your meals grab and gos’; just bend down in your deep freezer to take out the meal and voila, life saved.

．Spices and Seasonings

Meals and snacks give you life and thus they deserve some richness and goodness. Herbs and spices make food tastier while acting as a catalyst in healthy food. If you keep your spices and seasonings — such as salt and pepper — in your cupboard in the original package, you can count on them staying fresh for about a year to two years. If you want to know more details of what herbs, spices, and seasonings that are the must-haves in your kitchen pantry, we have a guide for it too!

．Water and Other Beverages

The most important and major component of any survival kit is water. If a water storage source is in ideal conditions, it technically can store indefinitely. Other beverages like milk, coffee or tea are great options for your survival food storage that can also boost up your energy and cause to consume less solid foods. Instant milk has a shelf life of 20 years when stored properly. Coffee is also a great option, store whole roasted coffee beans and grind them from a manual coffee grinder.

Where to Store Your Survival Food

Ever heard of a giant monster named HOLT? No? It is the ultimate food destroyer. Here is a fine break-up of his name with details.

．H (Humidity):

Humidity not only rots the mechanics in the houses near the beach, it eats your food too. It promotes both bacterial and mold growth. And it can happen secretly in even what you believe is the most hermetically sealed canisters you have. Keep your food dry and completely moisture free.

．O (Oxygen):

Oxygen is one of the primary factors that degrades food quality over time. Encourage the use of oxygen absorbers and seal the food in a food-grade bucket to help prevent rodents from chewing through. Shop for some high-quality plastic contains while storage food shopping, they are going to help you a lot.

．L (Light):

Light doesn’t always light up your world. It causes flavor and color changes in food, which leads flavors to deteriorate more quickly. This has the effect of degrading nutritional content and appearance. Keep your survival food storage in dark environment, preventing it from sunlight.

．T (Temperature):

Many foods are required to be stored at low temperature to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination. The temperature must be between 50 and 60° F. Keep your food in a basement or cellar where it will stay much cooler than it would on a top floor.

Never to forget that prepping is one heck of a patience test for preppers. You need to stay sound and calm throughout the process to make sure of every little detail that we tried to help you with this article. Take most of your time and build up your food stockpile like you build your empire, with research and care. Execute it in a way that will satisfy your family and give you peace of mind knowing you can put food on the table no matter what disaster comes your way. We can hope you are going to take full benefit of the tips and suggestions mention in this write-up.

God-prepping-luck, Preppers!

About HOLAR

We are kitchen and dining products expert supplier from Taiwan, and we specialize in manufacturing high-quality salt and pepper mill, coffee mill, canister, olive oil can, tabletop and more.

Please let us quickly brief our advantages:
- Over 50 years of manufacturing kitchen and dining products.
- Long cooperate and own factories to control the highest quality.
- Offer over 500 products for you to compete in any markets.
- Products are made of strictly selected materials to maintain perfection.
- 100% Taiwan Made to ensure highly competitive around the world.
- Third-party Certificate to deliver trustworthy quality products to you.

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