Commentary: A great review of 10 food storage items that you can pick up ( and probably already have) on your next grocery trip. What else would you add to this list?
10 Best Survival Foods At Your Local Supermarket
As food prices continue to skyrocket, having a bulk supply of food is a great investment. But it also provides security and peace of mind against potential emergencies.
By now most people should be aware that grocery stores only have about 3 days of food in stock when crises strike. So if anything was to disrupt the food supply chain for an extended period of time, there would be untold chaos in most communities.
Any number of events could trigger mass disruption to a fragile food system, many of which are well documented and even predicted. Even NASA has warned its staff to prepare for potential disasters with survival foods and other precautions with their “Family Preparedness Program.”
Prepping for disasters can seem overwhelming with so many aspects to be considered. However, for those just beginning to recognize how perilous these times are and are new to prepping, you can find many great survival foods at your local grocery store.
There are many fancy freeze-dried food companies offering light-weight storable meals. These are cost effective and great for new preppers. But if you don't have $1000 laying around to buy a large supply, it may be better to pick up a few key items each week at the supermarket to build up your food bank gradually. And by buying base foods at the store, you'll ultimately save money.
It's best to keep your survival food list simple, and concentrate on storing foods with the highest amount of calories and the longest shelf life. This list is geared toward foods that will help you survive a crisis that lasts for extended periods of time.
Here are the ten best and cheapest survival rations available at any store:
Rice: Every time you go to the store you should buy one 10-lb bag of rice. You can find them for around $5 at most supermarkets. Rice will stay in good condition for 10 years or more if stored properly. It offers high carbohydrates which is especially important if you are exerting a lot of physical energy during a crisis.
Beans: Beans are known to be one of the best all-round survival foods. They're high in protein, and if sealed in food-grade buckets with a small amount of dried ice, they'll stay for up to ten years. Make sure to store them in a cool, dry, dark location. Buy a 4-5 lb bags of dried beans every time you go to the store. All dry beans are good to store; black beans, red beans, pinto beans, lentils, etc.
Cornmeal: All-purpose flours are good to store, but cornmeal may be the best overall. Cornmeal is packed with dense carbohydrates and contains oils that helps extend its shelf life. Additionally, if the power grid is down during a mega disaster, it is much easier to make good corn breads and tortillas with cornmeal in a simple skillet or solar oven, where refined flour will need yeast and oil to make decent bread or biscuits. Get a 5-lb bag of cornmeal ($10-$15) at each grocery visit. Seal and store the same way as beans (buckets, salt and dry ice), and it will safely keep 8 months to 2 years.
Lard: If you're a health-conscious reader, hydrogenated lard does not sound very appetizing, but in a survival situation you can't afford to be picky. Animal lard or vegetable shortening both offer much-needed calories during times of crisis, cooking oil for multiple uses, and it will keep longer than cooking oils because of the hydrogenation. Buy a 6-lb can ($12) and store in a cool, dry, and dark place and it will stay good for 2-3 years or longer.
Salt: Salt is one of the most useful survival food items. It's used for storing food, curing beef, and flavoring most meals. Salt will stay forever, so always buy extra when you're shopping.
Canned Fruit & Vegetables: These are another obvious survival food, but not as practical as many would think. They're heavy and somewhat costly for the calories they deliver. Additionally, acidic fruits and any cans with tomatoes will not keep as long as most people think. But most canned food is good for 5+ years. Buy green vegetables and fruits like peaches and pears for long-term storage, but more importantly, buy what you already eat in case you need to rotate them into your diet before they go bad.
Canned Meat: Canned meats like ham, tuna, and chicken are excellent to store. They typically will keep for 6-10 years and they're an excellent source of protein. However, if the grid is down for a long time (apocalyptic), hunting and fishing will likely provide most meats. Therefore, it may be sufficient to buy extra canned meats every other time you go shopping.
Sugar: Brown and white sugar will add much-needed flavor and calories to a survival diet and they'll keep for ten years or more if stored properly. Honey is also excellent as it will store forever. Make sure to buy extra every other time you go grocery shopping. You won't need too much, but they'll be well worth having if a crisis strikes.
Pasta: Pasta is a good light-weight storable food that is also a great source of carbohydrates. Pasta will not keep as long as rice, but it can stay for around 5 years in good conditions. Pasta is also very inexpensive and extra should be bought at each trip to the store. It will take up more space in your food bank than rice, beans and cornmeal, so plan your space the best you can.
Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a terrific source of protein, fat, and calories. Plus, it's just a great treat to have on hand. Peanut butter can last up to five years in root cellar conditions. Stock up whenever there are good deals at your grocery store. You'll be happy you did if the SHTF.
If you consistently buy these items 3-4 times per month, you'll quickly acquire a year's supply of survival rations for your whole family.
How to store it?
A really basic way to store the rice, beans, cornmeal, sugar and pastas is to buy several 5-gallon seal-able paint buckets or food-grade buckets from your local hardware store. Put a cup or so of salt into a sandwich baggie (opened) at the bottom of the buckets. Then fill it with food stuffs and add a couple of ounces of dried ice (found at large grocery stores) which will remove the oxygen from the bucket after it's sealed. Finally, label each bucket with its contents and the date, and place it in your cellar.
Please let us know what other food items you think will be useful for new preppers….
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I would add powdered milk, oatmeal,grapenuts type cereal, coconut oil, large plastic jar protein powder, spirulina in tabs or powder, bulk bag of walnuts, almonds, instant coffee, dried fruit, beef jerky, cocoa powder, and popcorn. Most of the food in the supermarkets today is GMO, pesticide laced, herbicide laced, hydrogenated, solvent processed, toxic, chemically preserved, cancer causing garbage. Be careful what you buy, food is supposed to nourish you, not cause disease. When the shtf you want to be stress resistant, healthy, and ready for come what may. God Bless
Ed, you took the rest of the words right from my mouth. All those things are excellent and I am trying to stockpile, though I live in a second story condo, with no cellar. my question is WHERE do i store these things. i also don’t have a separate freezer. any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Suezen, I live in SC. No underground cool spaces here. Suggestions:
You can put items in the 5 gallon buckets, and hide in closet, or take two pails and make a table out of them by putting a board on top and cover with a cloth. Makes a good side table or table behind couch. Also can attach pouches on back side of dressers or hutches etc. As long as a/c is on, buckets, etc will stay cool.
Of course it won’t be as cool as a basement or cellar, so trim a few years off the self life. So the food may not be as nutrient, but it’s still put something in your stomach, and won’t be poison, if you don’t trim off a few years on your hoard. As long as the lid stays sealed and no bad smells or other signs of spoilage! Hope this helps.
I agree with your list and with what Ed has added. The Mormons say Honey, Salt, powdered Milk and whole wheat grains (with a mechanical grinder of course or modify this to oatmeal) The Mormons are good at survival. They have been practicing it for longer than any of us have been a live. They have past the understanding down through the generations. I’m sure they are a helpful group and would not mind sharing their knowledge with the rest of us who never had their insight.
Below mentions some of their staples for survival:
Salt, Honey, Whole Wheat and Powdered Milk
Salt stores easily and if it clumps, it will break loose. Whole Wheat needs to be stored in a cool, dry, moisture proof airtight opaque food grade container in a dark area. Anything less than Raw Honey is not beneficial. However, raw honey should never be given to infants under one year old. And, never allow the temperature to reach greater than 160 degrees F. Hot temperatures will destroy its nutricianal value as well as taste. Powdered milk should be non fat so it does not spoil easily. Store like wheat. I also rotate canned soups in a FIFO method. I’m not counting on the land for food when the SHTF. I think any four legged animal will be dead or hiding and that the land will be in a severe drought causing nothing to grow. Potable water will be extremely important to survival and each different area of the USA calls for different methods to locate a good supply. Treat all water supplies as harmful to your family or you may wake up dead the next morning.
Thanks for the comment Mike,
I appreciate all of the insight on your food storage as well as your opinions on the land situation. Living in Texas I have watched the land turn from a dry tinderbox to a swamp in a matter of hours so the land is extremely unpredictable. I look forward to hearing from you more!
Joe
Popcorn is non- gmo and will grow yrs from now if stored properly.Look for different colors
“10 TEN SURVIVAL FOODS YOU CAN GET ON YOUR NEXT GROCERY TRIP”
I tried to read the rest of the information and when I hit the link I got an ERROR 404. I would like to buy the foods in the grocery store, could you please fix the link? I am new to this and would like to have all the information I can get a hold of.
Thank you,
Maureen
Hi Maureen,
I fixed the article, not sure whats going on, it looks like a bunch of my old articles are broken 🙁
sorry for the inconvenience
Joe
I have buckets that I have obtained from a local bakery for storing rice and beans. I am assuming that because they were Icing buckets that these will suffice. I understand how to put the salt in the buckets, but I have never purchased dry ice, and did not understand how that is to be placed. could you be more specific or include a visual aid for us dummies lol? Also, I have a friend who is a morman and they are very proficient in food storage. She said to drop oxy packs into the buckets, but she was not certain how many packs to use per bucket.
Walmart usually has dry ice they keep in a separate area near the front of their stores. It comes in 1 to 5 pound bricks and you will need a cooler to safely handle it as it is nothing more than very cold carbon dioxide. Breaking it up should be done with a hammer and some old towels. Just fold a towel up and lay the dry ice on it and smack it with the hammer. I use a 3 pound short handled sledge hammer and snow goggles so it don’t blast a shard into my eye. Then take some of the pieces and place it on top of your food in the bucket and seal it. It don’t take much and it pretty much eliminates the air in the bucket which keep the food from spoiling.
Instead of dry ice you can use disposable hand warmers.They work by absorbing oxygen from the air,if in an enclosed space like an air tight bucket they will absorb the oxygen and form a vacuum seal
I live right near 2 military bases, both of which scare the daylights out of me. they are constantly under-ground bombing and testing, shaking the very core of my foundation(literally and theoretically). they own the land on which my condo stands; lease-hold property, more accurately. helicoptors and black ops planes have been flying low overhead, lately…scary s***. also the chemtrails have been stepped up, making me and others really sick, with sore throats and sinus issues. So, getting to my comment, I have some non-hybrid seeds, but am afraid to put them outside, because they will get contaminated by the airborne crap. they are also still spraying COREXIT, to keep the oil from surfacing onto the beaches. all this has me wanting ot run for the hills, but I am trapped. if anyone has any ideas for me, please bring ’em on! many thanks, suezen
Build a small plastic greenhouse,you can filter the air and water going to your plants
I like to dehydrate foods for long-term storage. They go into large glass jars and will last as long as I let them, since I usually rehydrate vegetables and herbs into soups each winter. I make my own jerkies too from the leftover meats we have when my husband cuts up whole loins for steaks. We just bought a pressure cooker so I’ll be doing home canning.
I think that it’s a good idea to stock up on things like the $20 straw that you can stick into a swamp and drink safe water through it. It’s good for something like 1000 liters, so if you buy a few per family member every few months you’re probably going to be okay. You can make your own distilled water from any liquid. I’d buy tarps for trapping dew because you can get enough in the desert with one to sustain a person each day.
Vitamins and minerals are something else to have. C, D, K and all of the B vitamins are the ones I’d want. Pink salt has minerals but regular iodized salt is needed too. All vitamins and minerals degrade over time so I say research, see what your family needs and replace when you really have to, not when the expiration date says to.
Those $20.00 straws are great, but it is my understanding that they do not remove harmful chemicals, so be careful of your water sources.
You can wrap clean rags around your calves and walk through the dewy grass and collect a fair amount of water.
Sprouting beans and seeds for salad greens are an excellent source of live vitamins.Even the seeds from melons and squash(pumpkin) are great food