The Food Dilemma: Are You Prepared?

We live in an amazing time. Just about anything you could want is at your fingertips. We go to one store to buy all our food and supplies and drive them home in our trucks, cars, and SUVs.

This has been the way the world has worked for as long as most of us can remember, so the thought of something happening that could not only disrupt this, but destroy it completely is almost unthinkable, but when you get right down to it, our food supply system is extremely fragile and could come crashing down if a disaster of moderate size struck.

This means that food storage and prepping is one of the most important things you can do to protect not only you, but your family as well. There’s more to food storage and prepping than sticking things in a freezer or buying out a store with great coupons however, so check out the tips on preparing yourself for a food shortage below and get yourself towards the goal of 1 year of food stored.

DIY Methods of Food Prepping

Most people start with the DIY methods of food storage and prepping, which is a good thing because once the SHTF, DIY is just about all we’ll have. If you’re interested in starting to store your own food, a great place to begin is with canning. Preserving food is an excellent way to have emergency food for when you need it.

It’s actually pretty easy to start canning with a little help from someone that knows the process and once you’ve learned how, just about anything can be canned and saved for later, sans refrigeration.

The other popular technique for IY food prepping is to start dehydrating food. Dehydrated food can be stored much more easily than it’s hydrated counterparts, meaning it’s a pretty good solution for emergency food caches. Dehydrated food takes up much less space, requires no refrigeration, and best of all, retains quite a bit of its original flavor and nutrient content. You can dehydrate fruits, vegetables, and meats at home now with a dehydrator and when the SHTF with a solar dehydrator that’s easy to build and use without electricity.

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Food Storage

So, once you have your food prepared for storage, how do you store it? Each type of food has its own needs when storing long-term, but if prepared correctly, each should be fairly easy to store.

The first thing you want to look for is an airtight container. Food-grade buckets with airtight lids are a great place to start. Seal smaller amounts of the preserved foods up in their own containers and place those containers in the buckets. This way, you don’t have to expose all your food to the air when getting some, and you get double the protection for it.

Keep all your food in a cool, dark place like a basement to prolong its shelf life, and make sure to record expiration dates for each item you place. Rotate food out of storage to keep your stores fresh and up to date.

The Easier Solution

While having these skills is great, what you really want is food that’s already been freeze-dried and stored for you. All you have to do is stack the boxes or buckets and you’re all set.

While it’s vitally important that you learn how to can and preserve food, having a ready-made supply while you settle in to your life post-EOTWAWKI, having some basic foods ready and waiting for you can mean the difference between life and death.

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So, what should you get? Well, there are two major areas of pre-made emergency food storage. First, you can buy freeze-dried food basics and use them to mix into recipes, which can be as elaborate as any recipe you make today, but just with freeze-dried food. Second, you can get ready-made meals that do cost a little bit more, but take the guesswork out of crafting a recipe, which in emergency situations must be well-balanced for you to survive.

The perfect solution is a mix of both. Save some full meals for hard days and the recipe items for the long haul. Ideally you should have a year’s worth of emergency food storage, so the more diversity you can put into that the better.

Here’s an example of some basic staples that you’d use to make your own recipes. Each is separated into packets so you don’t expose the entire food storage to the air when getting today’s meal out, and they come in buckets that keep out light, water, and air.

By getting pre-packaged food to add to your emergency food storage plan, you can create a more well-balanced plan and prepare in case one of your forms of food are contaminated. Proper survival is all about thinking ahead and having a backup.