Test Your Food Storage Supply… and Yourself
Many of us have emergency food with a long shelf life stored for a crisis. Whether it’s a 72-hour supply or a one-year stockpile, it’s the smart thing to do because we never know when we’re going to need it.
Of course, it’s also a great idea to have plenty of clean drinking water and other essential items ready to use following a disaster.
But how do you know if you’ll actually be able to live off your stored food? Many of us have never tried cooking it or tasting it.
My suggestion is to give yourselves and your families a “72-Hour Emergency Food Challenge,” consuming only the emergency food you have stored during a three-day period. There will be plenty of lessons to learn from an experiment such as this, including these five:
- Taste. Do you and your family members like the taste of your emergency food enough that you can eat only that food and not dip into your refrigerator, freezer or pantry?
- Quantity. Do you have enough emergency food to feed yourself and your family for three days? What if the crisis were to last longer?
- Quality. Does your emergency food supply contain enough of the important vitamins, minerals and nutrients your bodies need to get through a crisis?
- Variety. Does your emergency food include a nice variety that will keep people satisfied, especially if a crisis lasts a week or more?
- Location. Are you storing your emergency food in a cool, dark place so that it is not susceptible to sunlight, temperature and critters?
You can learn a lot from a three-day emergency food challenge. I’d strongly recommend that you give it a try.
Have suggested in the past that you take your plastic containers and switch to a metal rodent proof box. Just got done with a rat problem in my basement, if I had not stored everything in 55 gallon drums would have to throw everything out. Caught about 50 RATS!
We love the various soups, there seems to be a low sodium content which makes the taste great. Now breaking into my emergency supply, may need to re-order soon, Thanks for a great product.
Just sampled cheesy broccoli and rice soup last night.
Used 4 cup box of chicken broth and 1/2 cup of warer, added a small can of diced tomatoes, 1 chopped red bell pepper, and some fresh, chopped broccoli. My husband and I each had bowl and he went back for seconds. There was small bowl left over.
So far, everything we have sampled has been great but I can never resist the edge to add stuff.
I am in the same situation as Sid Lane. Will the food still be good after being stored in a hot environment for a couple of months?
Got a question for you Frank. In Kansas where I lived when I bought my 15 months of food stores, I placed them under the house in a relatively cool controlled environment with lots of room. I’ve just relocated to upstate NY and have no such storage room. I placed the totes in an outbuilding without environmental controls and my wife suggested asking the question of shelf life in a potentially hot environment for 2 to 3 months of the year, and alternatively sub-freezing temps for another 2 to 3 months. If the outbuilding location is detrimental in any way, I’ll relocate them under the house in the crawl space. It isn’t as accessible, but should be above freezing and below 80 degrees year round.
Thoughts?