You know you need a supply of survival foods, but you may not know how to store them. The type of survival food supplies purchased will often dictate how they are stored and how they are rotated to prevent spoilage. The following reviews the most common types of emergency survival food and recommendations for storage and rotation.
Most survival food kits contain only enough supplies for a single person for up to three days. Supplies of this sort should be stored in the trunk of every vehicle and in each family member’s emergency go bag. Energy bars, containing as many as nine 400-calorie meals, can even be stored in children’s backpacks, ladies handbags and in the glove compartment of every vehicle. Short-term survival food kits require little space for storage and often have shelf lives of up to 5 years. Foods should be checked periodically to ensure they are still good but cannot truly be rotated since they are not part of the normal food supply. Always check to ensure your emergency food supply is still good before going on camping trips or on long drives.
Many survival food kits are meant to provide families with supplies for one week or more. These are ideal for protection against hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. As learned from Hurricane Katrina, relief can sometimes take up two weeks to arrive in the hardest hit areas. Grocery stores will not have the food and water supplies needed to support an urban population once the trucks and trains are no longer able to reach the city to resupply. Supplies will dwindle and disappear completely in about three days. Families should have several kits placed in strategic locations throughout the home. This will help ensure family members can reach food even in the event of a partial home collapse. Supplies often have a very long shelf life but should be checked regularly to ensure they are still usable.
Long-term food survival solutions of 3 month or more require greater amounts of storage space. Some families have set aside an entire room for an extremely large survival food supply. These rooms are often organized with shelving, with newer items being unloaded into the rear and older items being moved to the front of shelves. Families that do this constantly live off of their long-term food storage to keep their supply fresh. In an actual emergency, food may be more carefully rationed but it consists of the same items the family is already used to eating. This is a great way to handle food survival when children are young and may be unwilling to eat things, especially in emergency situations, that they are not used to eating already.
Storing survival foods properly can mean the difference between life and death for families facing emergency situations. If you have chosen to invest in an emergency food supply, be sure you store it properly and check it routinely to ensure your family still has the protection you paid for. The guidelines presented here should help you determine how to best store and rotate your survival foods.
by Luke Brewiss