https://survival.works/survival-tips/prepper-food-storage-tips/
As soon as possible, you need to have your food supplies set aside for your long term survival. But for food to keep for any length of time, it has to be properly stored. Not all foods are good for long term storage, but many foods are.
Certain foods, if properly stored, will last for years and your goal is to have a long term food supply so that you can be self-sufficient. The list below names foods that you should buy and put aside for the future. These foods will keep well.
Buy beans. You want to buy beans in bulk quantity. You want beans because these will give you a supply of protein. Buy grains. You’ll want to have wheat, oats, rye, cornmeal, brown or white rice and flour, wheat flour, barley.
Buy powdered milk. This doesn’t taste the same as fresh milk, but this type of milk can last at least 20 years and you need milk – not only for cooking, but for children as well. Buy fruit. You’ll need to buy dried fruit or freeze dried fruit that you can reconstitute by adding water.
Make sure dried corn is also in your food storage supply. Buy sugar, honey, tea, coffee, peanut butter, nuts and seeds, salt and canned goods. You’ll want to buy canned meats as well.
Though these don’t keep as long as other survival foods, canned goods can often last many years at a time. You should also buy pasta. You’ll need oils like olive oil and fats like lard. If you have a baby who’s on formula, you’ll want to set aside a supply of formula for the baby.
Just buying the food isn’t enough. If you don’t know how to store it, the food will go to waste. Foods that are put back in storage are susceptible to oxygen, light, moisture and temperature changes – especially heat.
You want to store the food in a cool room where the temperatures are less than 60 degrees. To properly store your food, you can use food grade containers. You can get buckets like this at no cost from grocery stores and restaurants.
You can also purchase them. What some people like to do is to put a Mylar bag into the container first and put the food down into the bag. Then the top of the bag is sealed using a heat source.
The Mylar bag helps keep out what would destroy your food source and makes it last even longer than it would last just in the container alone. To help absorb the oxygen, you can put silicone gel packs into the containers or you can use salt.
Make sure that you date stamp the outside of the container so that you’ll know the month and year that you put the food into storage. Rotating your food stores is one key to maintaining a healthy food supply.
