You may not consider yourself to be a prepper since many people think that preppers are just paranoid, conspiracy theorists. Regardless of what label you choose to put on yourself, if you are into emergency preparedness and especially food storage, you really need to read this article.
What most people don’t realize about storing food is that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. If you do it the wrong way, you may not be able to survive on your food storage during an emergency situation.
Hopefully, after you read this article, you’ll be better prepared to make sure that the food you are storing will be viable and able to keep you alive if things ever get to the point that you have to survive on it exclusively.
Things to Consider When Storing Food
Below you’ll find my list that outlines six reasons that you may not be able to survive if you have to live on your food storage someday.
- Most people simply don’t have enough food stored to last them long enough. We never know how long an emergency situation might require us to live on our food storage supplies. If you run out, and you have nothing to eat, you won’t be able to survive. As a matter of fact, many people in this day and age don’t even keep enough food on hand to feed their family for two or three weeks. In my opinion, the best possible strategy is to store several months worth of food at the very minimum. I happen to believe that more is always better when it comes to storing food and that people should work towards having a one to two year supply of food properly stockpiled.
- What many people don’t realize is that if food isn’t stored in the correct way, meaning that the packaging is inadequate for long-term storage or the conditions in which the food is stored are not favorable, the food will eventually spoil. If the day comes when you need to rely on your storage of food supplies to survive and you find that most, if not all of it is spoiled, you won’t be able to survive on it.
- One thing that a lot of people who store food don’t consider is that not all items have a long shelf life. As a matter of fact, in this day and age, many items that you buy from the grocery store don’t have a long shelf life. If you can your own food items, you can save money but in all reality, there is no way to know exactly how long it will last before it spoils. In addition to storing short-term food storage items, it’s important to store items that have a very long shelf life as an extra precaution.
- Some people overlook the importance of storing their food in rodent proof containers. Having extra food in a garage or a basement is an invitation for rodents to infest your home. That is, of course, unless you are storing them in the proper types of containers. Food that has been infested with rodents or rodent droppings should never be eaten. If you wake up one day and realize that you suddenly have to dip into your food you have stockpiled to survive with, you don’t want to find that it has been destroyed by a rodent infestation.
- Another thing that might cause you to not be able to survive on your food storage is if you don’t have a wide enough variety of food items to eat. Have you ever heard the expression, “man cannot live on bread alone”? This is a very true statement. We need a variety of things like vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates, that come from eating a well-rounded diet for our bodies to thrive. If all you have stored is rice and flour, this will not be enough to provide you with the nutritional needs that your body has.
- The last reason that you may not be able to survive, even if you have taken great measures to build up your food storage supplies is if it is ever stolen from you. If looters break into your home and steal the only items you have stored, what will you eat? This is a good reason for having an alternative secret bug out location that is well stocked with a supply of food and water.
Recommended Reading
While we’re on the topic of storing food for emergencies, I suggest you take a minute to read my article called DIY: Build A 3 Drum Rain Collection System, Very Easy & Very Cheap. Knowing how to store water is just as important as knowing how to store food.
In addition to reading my article about how you can store water, you may be interested an reading an article called Feed a family of 4 for 1 year, for less than $300. If you have the time, you might want to check it out!
By Patty Hahne
its great as your other articles : D, regards for posting .