Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Recommended storable foods you can acquire at any grocery store

I borrowed this list from Mike Adam's @ Natural News
Please feel free to add your own list

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Recommended storable foods you can acquire at any grocery store

These items are very low cost, loaded with nutrients, and are easy to store:

• Sugar (not to eat, but to barter with. Never eat white processed sugar.) Buy coconut sugar if you can.
• Pepper (a basic spice, easy to store, easy to barter).
• Mustard (excellent nutrition, believe it or not. Made from mustard seeds.)
• Raisins (easy to store and barter)
• Lard (yeah, lard. On a cold winter's night when the heat is off, you'll wish you had some soup made with lard... and it's healthier than "vegetable oil" which is mostly GMO soybean oil anyway.)
• Butter
• Pickled vegetables (all kinds, including sauerkraut)
• Coffee (even if you don't drink it, you can barter it. People will be desperate.)
• Coffee filters (can also be used to help filter water, cooking oil and other items)
• Brown rice (large bags)
• Steel-cut oatmeal
• Local honey (stored practically forever)
• Sardines and anchovies packed in olive oil (excellent storable omega-3s)
• Sea salt (you almost can't have too much salt stored away...)
• Yet more sea salt
• And even MORE sea salt, because you will run out in a prolonged collapse scenario.
• Peanut butter (portable, high calories, which you'll need)
• Canned meats (long shelf life)
• Canned vegetables (you'll need the nutrients)
• Natural dried meats (AVOID all MSG!)
• Nuts and nut mixes (almonds, cashews, etc.)
• Cans of coconut milk or coconut fat (adds delicious flavor to any meal)
• Spare can openers, kitchen knife, small cutting board, etc.

How to store these foods

For things like the soup mixes, you can't just store the bags without protection from rodents. You'll need to acquire 5-gallon pails with sturdy lids. You can get these locally at a hardware store such as Home Depot or Lowe's. Pack the foods in the pails, then attach the lids securely. This will keep out mice, ants, and so on.

You can also sprinkle some DE (diatomaceous earth) in the pails, around the floor, etc., to discourage insects and ants. DE is harmless to humans unless you inhale it. You can actually eat small quantities of it quite safely (some people actually use it as a detox supplement).

Obviously, do not use chemical insecticides of any kind, as they are likely to contaminate your stored food.

Store all your food in a cool, dry, dark place. A dry root cellar is ideal. Refrigerate foods if you have refrigeration space.

Items like salt and honey can store literally for thousands of years under the right conditions. Beans and grains can typically be stored for 5 - 10 years. More perishable items such as raisins are usually only good for 1-2 years. Canned foods and items like sardines are typically good for 2-3 years, depending on the item.

If you do eat some of your preparedness items on a regular basis, make sure you eat the older items first. Many preparedness experts recommend "store what you eat, and eat what you store" in order to keep your food supplies rotated and fresh. Personally, I differ a bit from that because I tend to eat fresh foods while storing non-fresh foods.

The important thing is to get squared away now, while foods are cheap and readily available.

For the record, by the way, this list I've shared here is NOT a complete list of everything you need. It's just a list to get started. Beyond this list, you will obviously need a water filter, a light source, a heat source, self defense items, communications gear, cooking utensils, emergency medicine herbs and tinctures, and many other similar items. Keep reading NaturalNews for more preparedness ideas and recommendations, as we will continue to cover this topic on a regular basis.

Final thoughts: Beyond food, you also need garden seeds

One thing I know without question is that, throughout history, every collapse scenario has caused a food crisis where people went hungry. The best way to insulate yourself from that -- and to promote calm during a crisis -- is to have a supply of several month's worth of food already squared away. Most of us who are into real preparedness have at least one year's worth of food stored for the entire family. (That's a lot of food, and it takes a lot of space.) But even if you're starting from scratch, you can at least store up a few weeks worth of food to get started. From there, you can add to it as you find the funds.

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