One of the most important pieces to the prepping puzzle is making sure you have enough food to get you and your family through an emergency. Whether it’s a snow storm that cuts you off from the grocery store for a few days, an earthquake that can cut you off for weeks, or a true SHTF scenario that cuts you off indefinitely…food storage is vital to survival.
While food storage is important, many people don’t investigate how to store food properly before getting started. This means there are mistakes in how food is stored, what food is stored, and how much is kept. There are a few key mistakes that many food preppers make, and by avoiding them, you can make sure you’re on the right path to food storage and safety.
1. Variety
One of the biggest mistakes when storing food for survival is not having enough variety. It’s easy to say now that you don’t need a variety of food and that you can survive off of beans and rice forever. That’s all well and good until the SHTF and you’re eating it every day. Not only does this not give you a boring diet, but eating the same items over and over can actually give you an allergy to them, or bring out an existing allergy that isn’t a big deal with the variety of foods you currently eat.
Keep spices with your food, too. This will allow you to spice dishes differently and keep some variety. You want to aim for a well-rounded plan of meals both in nutrition as well as texture and taste. When things get bad, you’ll be glad you have a variety of foods to eat.
2. Balance
Speaking of variety, many people will make a plan for food storage that includes a variety of foods, only to purchase all of one food at a time. Meaning, you know you need 200 pounds of rice, so you go and buy all 200 pounds at once. When you get more money, you go buy a few cases of olive oil, and so on.
This method might save you some money in the long run, but what happens if the SHTF when you’re only halfway done buying your food? You’ll be stuck with a few hundred pounds of grain and nothing else to go with it. Buy smaller amounts so you can build your prep out smartly. Instead of building your entire larder for a full year, aim for one month at a time and buy all the foods you’ll need in that time period.
Not only will you prep safer, you’ll be able to manage expiration dates on what you buy in a smarter manner than if all bought at once.
3. Psychological Foods
Just as with variety, it’s easy to say now that you don’t need candy or sweets when things get bad. You can say that you’ll cut out coffee and cookies cold turkey, but the truth of the matter is nobody wants to do that, ever. If you ever have to start living off of your food supplies, things are probably pretty bad in the world, or at least your corner of it. By cutting all fun foods and snacks out, you’re making a tough situation worse.
They call them comfort foods for a reason, and it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world, food makes you happy. Have some easy to prepare foods like MREs available, and make sure to include some coffee, candy, Jell-O, and other items like this. They won’t take up a lot of space, but the first time you get to open a pudding cup in a survival situation, you’ll forget about all the bad in the world, even if only for a minute. Don’t make a bad situation worse, and help yourself out with a few foods to help your psychological state.
4. Vitamins
Not so much a fun food like we just mentioned, but vitamins are crucial to survival. Moving to a survival diet is a big change, and no matter how well you’ve prepped your food storage, you and your family will go through a change in nutrition from what you eat today.
Vitamins will help you maintain healthy levels of necessary nutrients, and for children, this is crucial to a successful survival.
5. Containers
The containers you store your food in are just as important as the food itself. Many grains like rice and wheat come in sacks or bags, which are great for transport but terrible for storage. Make sure you’re using food-safe containers and empty these bags into them. Use airtight containers whenever possible to keep foods fresh. Storing grains in an airtight container can more than triple their shelf life and keep moisture and pests out.
If you want to keep things cheap, place bagged grains into tin garbage cans for storage. This keeps pests and moisture out, but makes for easy access. If you’re using food-grade plastic containers for storage, pay attention to how high you stack them, as an earthquake could easily topple them, spilling your food onto the floor.
On the topic of earthquakes, make sure any shelving you use for your containers is secured to the wall and that there is something holding the containers on the shelf. Both are simple to do, but can keep your food in place no matter how much the earth shakes.