How to store survival food supplies
You know you need a supply of survival food, but you may not know how to store it. The type of survival food supplies purchased will often dictate how they are stored and how they are rotated to prevent spoilage. The most common types of emergency survival foods and recommendations for storage and rotation are reviewed below.
Most survival food kits contain only enough supplies for a single person for up to three days. Supplies of this type should be stored in the trunk of each vehicle and in the emergency travel bag of each family member. The energy bars, which contain up to nine 400-calorie meals, can even be stored in children’s backpacks, ladies’ handbags and in the glove compartment of all vehicles. Short-term survival food kits require little space for storage and often have a shelf life of up to 5 years. Food should be checked periodically to make sure it’s still good, but can’t really be rotated as it’s not part of the normal food supply. Always check to make sure your emergency food supply is still good before you go camping or on long trips.
Many survival food kits are intended to provide families with supplies for a week or more. These are ideal for protection against hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. As learned from Hurricane Katrina, aid can sometimes take two weeks to reach the worst affected areas. Grocery stores will not have the food and water supplies needed to support an urban population once trucks and trains can no longer reach the city for replenishment. Supplies will dwindle and be gone completely in about three days. Families should have several kits placed in strategic places in the house. This will help ensure that family members can reach food even in the event of a partial collapse of the house. Supplies often have a very long shelf life, but should be checked regularly to make sure they are still usable.
Long-term food survival solutions of 3 months or more require a larger amount of storage space. Some families have reserved an entire room for an extremely large supply of survival food. These rooms are often arranged with shelving, with newer items being unloaded in the back and older items being moved to the front of the shelves. Families that do this constantly live off their long-term food storage to keep their supply fresh. In a real emergency, food can be more carefully rationed, but it consists of the same items that the family is already used to eating. This is a great way to manage food survival when children are young and may be unwilling to eat things, especially in emergency situations, that they are not yet used to eating.
Properly storing survival food 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 to store it properly and check on it regularly to make sure your family still has the protection you paid for. The guidelines presented here should help you determine how best to store and rotate your survival foods.
