Do you have a food reserve?

Some people have canned and preserved food stashed away in case of an emergency. Do you? What type of food would be best to keep? It will be flood season soon where I live and sometimes it gets so bad you can't leave your house. We also have really hot and humid weather so lots of food that would regularly keep spoils pretty fast.

 

Canned goods would be great to store up for emergency situations. They last several years and you can buy them up, then begin turning them over with your every day food supply so that everything stays relatively fresh. You can also buy huge bags of dry rice or beans at Sam's club. These can be divided up and sealed with the foodsaver and will last a very long time. I have learned that as long as you have a good seal, the bugs won't get in there. I store my everyday supply of beans and rice in mason jars on the pantry shelf. I bought some gaskets off Amazon, that fit the wide mouth lids. They are great. I was losing food until I got those and now they stay fresh. Dry milk also and may some whole oats, prepared the same way. I could live a long time on that menu.

 

Those are all super good ideas! I remembered about this because i recently read The Road and the father and son basically survive on canned food all book long. They even find some reserves that are years old and the food seems just fine. It got me wondering how long canned food actually lasts.

 

Canned food will last indefinitely if stored somewhere cool and dry. I regularly eat canned food that is out of date - although I do rotate my stocks, sometimes there are cans lurking in dark places that have slipped through my rotation rotas!

 

They last that long!? My parents are difinitely really overreactive then. They won't keep canned food past its expiration date. Is there any way of knowing how safe it is once its passed?

 

If the can is blown at the ends then throw it out as the contents have gone bad. If the can isn't blown then the food is fine to eat - there may be a slight deterioration in the quality of the contents - taste wise - but in an emergency situation that wouldn't really be a problem; plus, I have plenty of herbs, spices and condiments to add some flavour.

 

Thank you! I will definitely try this and be on e lookout. I think I will start my own preserve once I am done with college. Can't really keep stuff in a dorm room right now but hopefully in a few years.

 

I usually don't keep preserved food because the zone I come from is in the tropics where weather changes are not drastic. However, there are adverse climatic conditions like El Nino where it would be prudent to stock up on dried vegetables due to scarcity during some of these seasons. Some people stock up on dried meat called nyirnyir to eat with stiff porridge. But glucose is a very good choice as a food to stock.

 

Yes. It is wise to always have extra on hand. Beans and rice are easy to purchase and keep in reserve for lean times (whatever the cause). In addition to preserved food, don't forget practical products such as toilet paper, basic first aid items and extra medicine if you are unable to get into town for a period of time.

 

I agree with most other posters that push the rotation policy. Canned food will store for a very long time, but it does expire, no matter what anyone here says. I have gotten a hold of expired cans in the depths of my pantry that were long forgotten about and when I opened them it was easy to see that they were no longer good. However, the can was two or three years past the printed expiration date. You should technically never have food this old if you are rotating. I also have a few vacuum containers that I have sealed that have large amounts of rice, lentils, pintos, and the like. These goods last for an insanely long time anyway, but I vacuum seal them to extend their shelf-life and keep out pantry pests.

 

As I had posted in another thread, our cupboard is a food cabinet that always have canned goods and other foods that can be stored for long. We have corned beef, spam, sausage, pork and beans, milk, and some other preserved foods like sardines. That's aside from the canned juices and other dish ingredients like pasta and noodles. I hope it wouldn't happen but in the event of a calamity where there would be food shortage, we can comfortably live for one week at least with the stock of food in our cupboard.

We have a method for our food cabinet - first in, first out so the stock will not expire. There's also an inventory before going to the supermarket, we check the amount of the stock. The canned goods should be at least 4 pieces so if we had used only 1 corned beef then we buy 1 can for the inventory. By the way, we also have a stock of 2 cans of biscuits (the big cans) which we also eat for snacks.

 

We have a huge freezer full of food, but that would not really get us too far if the power went out. A generator would work for awhile, until the gas ran out. My parents have a good stash. I go to Sams Club and buy cases of all kinds of food for them. We stockpile it under the beds. We use it for everyday and replace it as it goes down. They also have lots and lots of rice and beans, divided into Ziploc bags, and stored in very large stainless steel stock pots. We have not done this, but their house is right up the road. I do preserve foods in mason jars. A little of this and that, never a huge amount. Though we have made lots and lots of pickles. I understand that chicken can be processed in mason jars and that it is really delicious that way. I want to try this but I need a larger pressure cooker.

 

Since the power often goes out in my area whenever thunderstorms hit, I am conscious of not relying on my refrigerator or freezer when storing food. I try to store items and foods that do not require electricity.

 

When it comes to meat there is the process of brining where you cut the meat into slabs and immerse it in a mixture of pickled salt with a small proportion of sugar, this is done mainly for pork. Pack the meat into sterilized jars and store in a warm place for around a month's duration after which time you can store the meat in plastic or moisture paper and keep in a cool place and then you would have cured meat. For beef and other meat, there is a process where you may smoke the meat to preserve it.