How to Strategically Stockpile Food Rations

Ask any prepper, and they’ll tell you the most important things for survival are food, shelter, and water. You can’t expect to last long without having food to sustain you. After all, you’ll have no sustenance, meaning you won’t get much work done on an empty, rumbling stomach.

Preppers often go to extensive lengths to prepare their food rations and stockpile them accordingly. Let’s assume an emergency occurs tomorrow. How many days can you last with the food in your house? The answer’s probably a few. You might last a few weeks if you’ve got some canned goods in your pantry. But eventually, you’ll need to make a food run.

However, you won’t fare well going to the supermarkets in an emergency. Preppers understand this notion, which is why they ensure they strategically stockpile food rations to outlast most emergency scenarios.

Considerations When Stockpiling Food Rations

Stockpiling food rations is a skill that you must master. You’ll have to consider several things before stocking your home, including the following:

Taste: You’ll probably not be eating Michelin-starred dishes when resorting to your food rations. However, you’ll still need food that’s appetizing enough to eat for an extended period.

Cost: While food rations last a long time, they have an expiry date. You’ll have to replace them with new ones eventually. You have to ensure your food rations aren’t expensive and worth the investment.

Storage: You might fancy selecting some frozen items for stockpiling. However, you have to be cautious. What happens if you’re without electricity for an extended period? You’ll need food you can store easily without taking too much space.
Nutritional value: You have to ensure your food is rich in nutritional value. You can follow the World Health Organization’s daily nutrients requirements to follow.

Longevity: Most food products have a shelf life. You don’t want to select products with a short shelf life because they’ll likely expire before consumption.
Trade Value: If the emergency scenario persists for a long time, you’ll likely need to barter with fellow survivors. Hence, consider picking food items with an inherent trade value.

Storing and Rotating Your Food

How you store your food impacts its shelf life. Experienced preppers will often prepare a dark, cool location for storing their food, whether it’s a basement or a storage cabinet. Ideally, you’ll want to use airtight storage containers or mason jars for storing your food to prevent moisture contamination. Likewise, these containers also prevent damage from rodents and pests.

You’ll also have to rotate your food periodically. Some food items have a long shelf life, while others have a shorter lifespan. The best thing you can do is take inventory of all your food items when you first purchase them.

Keep a notebook and track crucial details like buying dates, individual items’ shelf life, rotation dates, etc. Doing so will help you manage food storage and eliminate unnecessary waste expenses.

Some Foods You Should Stockpile

Here are some foods you should consider stockpiling because of their long shelf lives and high nutritional values. They include:

Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is an American staple because it provides great value for money. It fulfills all your nutritional values – protein, fats, and carbs – at a low cost. More importantly, peanut butter has an extensive shelf life. Canned variants will usually last for five years, while powdered peanut butter has a fifteen-year shelf life if stored properly.

Coffee and Tea

Coffee and tea have great inherent trading value, particularly in collapsed economies. In addition, instant coffee usually has a shelf life of over 25 years.

Powdered Eggs

Eggs are rich in protein and amino acids. In addition, they’re a flexible ingredient you can use for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Powdered eggs have a shelf life between five to ten years.

Milk Powder

Milk is also rich in protein. The powdered variant usually has a fifteen-year shelf life.

Canned Meat

Canned meat tins provide great nutritional value at a low price. These also have variety because you can get tuna, salmon, chicken, and beef. In addition, they last five-to-ten years, depending on how you store them