Long Term Emergency Food Storage

[Scythe13]

You are better off dehydrating food and vacume packing it. That's what I'm going to be doing for my caches.

As for MRE's, I'm a REALLY fussy eater, just ask AlyBear, and the thought of eating an MRE kind of makes me heave a little. I think, if I have tins of food, or packets of beef jerky that will last around 8 years (in 2011 I ate chocolate that went off in 2003 and it tasted just fine, so screw what the sell-by date says!!! Go by what is actually true) then I'll have crops up and running by then.

Think of it this way. You're rotating food that lasts about 5 years (conservative estimate on my 8 year experience) and boom TSHTF. You'll still have food that will last another 5 years. If you can't get a crop growing in 3 years, you're probably a city slicker (BP's expression) or you're French. Either way, there's not much hope in a SHTF scenario.

Let's look at it another way. All good preppers have an alotment, or are out in the country planting seeds of fruit trees and the alike. Those will provide sustinance and buy time. You want to live off the land over the summer and autumn. But when the winter kicks in, natural foods will be much less readily available. So that is when you start to open the tins. If you have 1 years worth of food, you'll be able to split that up to 2 winters and 2 springs, living off the land in the summer and autumn. Meaning that you have at least 3 years to grow that crop to eat (if TSHTF in winter, you will have 2 winters, 2 springs, and 3 summers and 3 autumns. Same as if TSHTF in Summer, you have the land to live off for 2 seasons, so again you'll have 2 winters and 2 springs worth of food, but you'll get 4 summers and 4 autumns to ge the crop growing).

You needn't worry too much about having food that lasts 25 years. If you can't make it past year 3, there's no point worrying about how long the food stays fresh for.

I'd work mainly on learning to farm and live off the land. That way your preped food goes over twice as many seasons.

[Skean Dhude]

All true.

[uks]

The advantage with 25 year shelf life put it down and forget it no stock rotetion to worry about.

[Carnebwen]

Yeah, it was something to have as well as the canned stuff I eat day to day but keep stocked.

[Scythe13]

I like to save LOADS of the tinned food that I love, but that I don't eat on a regular basis. Things like tinned beans and sausage. It's BRILLIANT!!!! But I don't eat it on a regular basis. The reason being 2 fold.

1. I don't want to get too used to it.
2. I want to have those 'little treats' WTSHTF. "The world's going to ****, hey cool Alphabetty Spaghetti!!!"

I don't want to have the same meals post SHTF as I eat pre SHTF. I'd rather have daily little treats and bits of excitement. It's those small things that keep you going in really hard times.

[NorthernRaider]

I cant stop buying bacon grill, its a problem cos i got addicted to it in the army.

[Prepared Chick]

I have a mix of food stored -

loads of tinned items which I can basically eat straight out of the tin if there is no water

I then have a wide variety of dried food stored in mylar bags like cereal, tea, skimmed milk, rice, beans, flour, cocoa etc. I have about 4 buckets that have multiple items so these are my grab and go buckets which gives me a variety of meals - as I don't relish just eating rice, rice rice.

Then I have some MRE's - these are incredibly salty though so used as last resort and mostly placed in my bug-out bag if I have to get out in a hurry.

[Prep Girl]

Hi Prepared chick welcome ;-)

My Daughter loves that bacon grill, I wouldn't even smell it till my life depended on it lol , when eating stuff like that you should wait for half hour after you have eaten then have a hot drink, water will do, need to flush all that fat out of the arteries.

[Prepared Chick]

(6 October 2011, 20:39)sc1 Wrote: Mylar is so expensive...

Bottles it is, for now at least.

Not necessarily:
This UK Seller - has mylar bags - plus if you want 100 or more they offer great prices - but would need to email them at emergencyfoodstoragesupplies@o2.co.uk if you want in those quantities to get prices.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/efss-uk/m.html...ksid=p2897

if you are looking for buckets: - 10 - 20L buckets for £29.99 + shipping £6.99

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10X20L-LTR-LIT...1e6bb10927