Food Storage

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In years long past before there was food readily available in a local store people would to the extent possible stock up on food, farm it, raise it, store it for as long as possible. When stores did provide the food for people in their daily lives, the need to store food long term is was so diminished that most people lost their concern for such storage. Yet as modern life has proven to make more and more evident that there may be crises where a store may no longer have food, and other contingencies and other contingencies may require relying on food in your own home, perhaps even for an extended period of time. So for more and more people home food storage (HFS) is a prudent and important thing to have.

There are essentially three categories of HFS: short term, medium term and long term. The short term HFS would cover needs for a few days to several weeks, say in the event of a natural disaster. The medium term would up to a month or two, and the long term could stretch out to a year or more.

For short term HFS, a family should be sure and rotate the food every few years so that it is fresh. One should try to cover at least three day's needs with appropriate food stuffs. That would for instance be dehydrated and freeze dried foods and frozen foods. Ready to eat meals are very appropriate. The military designed these to be used for up to three weeks. Since you may be in a emergency situation, it is optimal to have foods that require minimum preparation. One can then build on that core HFS from there, such as canned goods.

With regard to medium HFS one should begin by designing food for all the people in the household that would last from one month up to several months. One way to design for this medium term is to inventory what food your family typically eats in a week. Then figure out how one can buy all the basics to support your eating, and how you can build up to storing one to multiple months. They key for this medium storage is to rotate usage of your normal diet, and to think about stocking your cupboards first rather than simply think about filling up your refrigerator and kitchen cupboards. This takes planning and discipline on a daily basis.

When you plan have HFS for at least a year, you will move into obtaining a different kind of food stuffs. For storage up to two years canned goods should be a main element. If one puts bulk foods into containers it is critical that the containers are tightly sealed. That is a weak link with much long term HFS. Honey is a good form of sugar because it last indefinitely and does not have the vulnerability to water that granulated sugar does. One should have basic staples such as flour, wheat, sugar, oatmeal, beans rice and pasta. A revelation in long term HFS is freeze dried food. Some well packaged freeze dried meals can last up to twenty years. Even fruits and vegetables will last two to five years when freeze dried. It is more difficult to rotate long term HFS into ones food usage rotation, but it is good to make an attempt to minimizing food loss.

One last comment about the item of ultimate importance: water for all levels of storage. One cannot always count on water being available – from the short term emergency to long term situations. Water is critical but sometimes the easiest to forget. Be sure to look into getting the proper water containers for long term storage.