Comprehensive Survival Food List and Storage Guide

Posted by clnews _Featured_, Food Saturday, October 13th, 2012

(By Rady Ananda |Activist Post )

Survival food storage practice doesn’t require Mormon membership, but the tradition, wrought from their first Utah winter, is worth emulating should disaster strike or technology fail, two survival books by Mat Stein. This guide, Part 2 of my survival series, relies on Stein’s books, and websites dedicated to survival preparedness.

At its most basic, food storage wisdom demands that you buy what you eat, and organize and label the boxes or bins with contents and date. Stocks should be rotated based on shelf-life longevity. Using Stein’s general guide, when properly packaged and stored, various foods last several months, years or decades, as follows:

10 years or longer: Honey, sugar, salt, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce and wheat berries.

5-10 years: Most dried legumes and whole grains, dehydrated cheese, instant or vacuum-packed coffee, baking powder, powdered eggs and frozen butter.

Up to 5 years: Processed (partially hydrogenated) liquid vegetable oils, Crisco shortening, cornmeal and corn flour, and nonfat powdered milk.

2-3 years: Bullion cubes, cornstarch, white rice, powdered gelatin, white wheat flour, white flour pasta, tapioca, textured vegetable protein, hydrogenated peanut butter, catsup, canned salmon and sardines, most dried fruits, and most other canned foods except meats, some fish and fruits, as well as sprouting seeds (alfalfa, mung, soybean, wheat, etc.).

Up to 18 months: Canned meats and seafood (halibut, mackerel, tuna and shrimp), unshelled raw nuts, dry active yeast, bagged snack chips, cake mixes, dry pudding, herbal and black teas, bottled juices, most seasonings and extracts, jams and jellies, canned non-citrus fruits (blackberries, blueberries, cherries, pears, peaches, plums, etc.), cranberry sauce, pickles, canned rhubarb, and sauerkraut.

One year: Canned nuts, breakfast cereals, rolled oats, bottled dressings, mayonnaise, natural liquid vegetable oils, candy bars, bottled juices (grapefruit, pineapple, apricot, orange), canned citrus fruits and natural nut berries.

Six months: Most boxed food, fresh potatoes, granola, shelled raw nuts, and unshelled roasted nuts.

Studies by the Brigham Young University Dept. of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science observe that proper packaging, storage methods and temperatures should yield the following storage capacities:

• 30 years or more: Whole grain wheat and white rice that has been packaged to remove oxygen and stored at room temperature or cooler.
• Up to 30 years: beans, dried apples, macaroni, potato flakes and oats.
• 20-30 years: freeze-dried foods.
• Up to 20 years: properly stored nonfat dried milk.

Baking powder will store for “many years” and baking soda will keep indefinitely. Most food stores longer under cool, dry and dark conditions.

Read the rest of the article…