Home Survival Supplies Part 3
More Articles Related to PreparednessHow Much Survival Food do You Need?
Many real survival experts recommend having enough survival gear and supplies on hand to live at least one month without restocking. For a typical family this is not as much you might think since should a situation occur you will be living a bare-bones lifestyle.
As discussed in the last Survival Topic on home survival supplies, food will likely be a primary consideration during a long term situation. Although a months worth of survival food is certainly a good start, I advise that people really need to store at least enough survival supplies for one year.
Why have enough survival food for a year? Because if this years harvest is not taken in by the nation’s farmers or the distribution system is interrupted, it will take a full year before the general food supply can be replenished. Once the grocery stores and home food reserves are depleted, which will happen very quickly, there will be very little else to eat until the next year’s crop is planted, harvested, and distributed. And even that may be too little too late – if it comes at all.
Survival Food Considerations
There are many types of survival food on the market including pemmican, dehydrated foods, Meals Ready to Eat, etc. However there is no need to go through the bother and expense of obtaining these ready made survival foods. In fact, I believe acquiring a large supply of Meals Ready to Eat and other items typically dubbed “Survival Food” is a mistake.
The best long term survival foods are the same foods that you eat on a regular basis. There are several very important reasons for this:
- When a long-term survival emergency occurs, your body and mind will be stressed a great deal. A sudden change of diet will be an additional stressor, potentially leading to a variety of gastric problems as your body adjusts to a new diet.
- You already know you like to eat this food and that it is life sustaining because you consume it on a regular basis.
- You already know how to store and prepare this food for consumption. This includes having a variety of your favorite recopies.
- If your survival food stock is composed mainly of food you eat anyway, you can cycle through it so that the edibles always remain fresh. You do not want to face a long term emergency survival situation with old survival food that turns out to be no longer viable.
Of course your survival food must be
- Nutritious
- Storable for long periods of time without spoilage.
You may need to adjust the kinds of foods you typical consume in order to bring it more in line with that which you are storing. An added benefit to making this change is that you may very well find yourself eating better and more cheaply than you ever have before.
Cycle through Your Survival Food
I recommend continually adding to your survival supply stock. Every time you go shopping for yourself or family, add a few extra items you can put into your cache. A full year’s worth of survival supplies can eventually be accumulated in this manner with only a little inconvenience to time and budget.
It is important that you continually cycle through the items in survival supply so that they remain fresh and viable. For example, have regular meals of beans and rice and purchase more as survival supplies to replace those you have used.
Cycling through your survival food store in this way will cost you little more than your typical grocery bill. In fact, many of the survival foods outlined in the next Survival Topics article make for inexpensive meals during normal non-emergency-survival times. You may very well discover your food budget is decreasing!
In the next Survival Topic we will discuss the best survival foods you can store for long term survival preparedness.
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North Dakota
Ron- I agree with your comments re: excessive use of MRE's and related survival foods. These are meant for short term use. Prolonged use promotes diarrhea and related GI problems. Diet calculations are critical. New foods can have dire consequences for many folks. "You are what you eat."