Store It Foods

Emergency Survival Kits do require personalization, and that can include the foods you wish to include in your 72 hour kits.  The emergency food carried by firms such as Store-It Foods are generally your basic emergency rations.  They can suffice, but you may wish to go beyond the mere basics.  Packages of jerky, for instance, are popular with many.  They’re lightweight, tasty, and can certainly add protein to your emergency diet.  Your dehydrator can be your best friend for this and for other suitable dried foods such as trail mixes and dehydrated meals.  When adding these to your emergency survival kit, however, we would make two recommendations.

1. Consider the possibility of these increasing your water needs relating to your 72 hour kit.
2. To increase the shelf life of these products the vacuum sealing option may be one you would like to examine.

Food storage has often been likened to an investment in the future, meaning you are putting food aside in times of plenty in anticipation of future times of scarcity.  Food storage, then, might be used as a protective measure against food shortages caused by transportation problems, strikes, unemployment, civil unrest, crop failures, storms and other disasters.

In fact, it does do that.

Food storage has also been likened to a money saving measure.  You purchase foods in times of plenty to “put up” for the off season.  As summer turns into fall, there are plenty of fresh, plump tomatoes and other fresh fruits and vegetables that will not be so plentiful or as inexpensive as they are during the times of harvest.  Food storage, then, might allow you to benefit from those cost savings.

In fact, it does do that.

But is not a true investment something that grows in value?  Well, in these days of spiralling food costs, that might just be happening with your food storage as well.  It’s a world wide phenomenon.  In Britain the newspaper, The Telegraph, reports that between 2007 and 2008 bread prices jumped by 65%, meat prices by 59%, vegetables by an average of 63% and pasta by a whopping 85%.  In Haiti and other 3^rd World countries there have been food riots as the costs of many food staples have escalated beyond the reach of the average family. In view of all this, it might reasonably be concluded that your food storage is actually increasing in value, and doing so rather rapidly.  It might even be said that it is outperforming even some of the best performing stocks and bonds.

In fact, it does do that too.

Everyone is buzzing about green technology lately.  It seems like that word is being thrown around a lot.  Sometimes, it is better to think locally than it is to think on such epic scales.  In your own home, there are many environmentally sound options that should help, not only with your budget, but with your emissions as well. 

Vacuum sealing foods so that they can be used later, instead of all those ecological foot prints that it takes to get food to your plate is one of the ways that you can be an eco-warrior right in your own home.

Has food storage been a problem for you in the past?  Wasting food is never fun for anyone.  If you want to get the miles from your shopping list and help save money in the mean time, get a food storage system that suits your growing needs. 

Food storage is a great way to save your pocket some much needed coinage.  Find out how much you can save and how good you’ll feel because of it by checking out food storage options.

Except for the most destitute, everyone has some sort of a food storage program. It may be as simple as placing a can or two of beans in the kitchen cupboard in anticipation of an evening meal. Many will think a little further ahead than that, with boxes of cereal, a carton of milk, a bowlful of sugar, three or four packages of Kraft Dinner, and a number of other necessities making up their modest collection of foodstuffs – enough to get by for a day or two.

Many others will have at least a small freezer with a bit of ice cream, packaged pork chops, and some frozen vegetables at the ready. Selection and quantities would be dependent, of course, upon the tastes of the family, the size of that freezer, the resources available to purchase the contents, and the perceived needs of filling it. Similar criteria would come into play in regards to the filling of refrigerators or the stocking of pantry shelves.

Admittedly, there are those whose situations prevent them from planning beyond the very short term. Others, however, who have what might be described as, at best, a very modest food storage program, plan only for the short term simply by choice. With grocery stores and supermarkets so plentiful, and restaurants (fast food and otherwise) so handy, why should they bother with long term planning? That, at least, is their argument, and it seems a very valid one.

Unfortunately, the future seems to be becoming increasingly uncertain. A growing number of experts are now cautioning about what may be on the horizon. Consider the words of Doug Casey who expresses a great worry about the growing U.S. debt.

“It’s as though you borrowed a million dollars and spent it all on wine, song and high living. For a while, you’d have a high standard of living and perhaps have a lot of fun. But eventually, when you either paid the money back with interest or were forced into bankruptcy, your standard of living would take a painful drop. The U.S., in particular, has been living far above its means, burning up its own capital and trillions more borrowed from abroad.“ He sees not merely recessionary times ahead, but the very real possibility of depression, for the time will come for that debt to be repaid, and the means may not be there to pay it.With depression comes job loss, monetary crises, and hard times in general. Those restaurant meals may no longer be affordable. The grocery store prices of many foodstuffs may suddenly be out of reach.

Of course, he may be wrong. Other experts, though, worry about food shortages due to climate change, international turmoil or uncontrolled population growth. What if they are right? Our incomes might remain steady, but if the food is not there to purchase we would be just as hungry. We could arrive at the store with a wheelbarrow full of money, but if the shelves are all bare what good would it do us?

Hopefully, neither of these scenarios will come to pass, but perhaps now is the time to recapture some of those skills from the past. The ability to can or to dehydrate were skills that existed in almost all households. Hot apple pies made with your own preserves, or freshly baked bread made with your own home ground flour were once commonly found in many homes.

Today such abilities may provide ways to save money or recapture fond memories of the past. Tomorrow they might keep hunger from the door. And if we lack such skills or have failed to develop and use them in time, we might sincerely wish that we had been a little better prepared.

Food storage – it deserves more thought than many are currently giving it.

Have you ever been in the situation where you’ve been showing someone how prepared you are by having a fully stocked 72 hour kit on hand, including those emergency rations, and they’ve asked how they taste? Did you have to answer, “I dunno,” because you’ve never bothered to taste them? If that’s the case, or if you have to admit that would be the case if somebody really did ask, then you’re not alone. A lot of us are in that boat.

But does that really matter? After all, emergency rations are there for emergencies. They’re not there for tasting. Right?

Well, yes, but (and it’s a big “but”) how do you know you’ll like them? More importantly, how do you know that you can even eat them? An emergency is no time to find out that those energy bars that you’ve so carefully preserved have trace amounts of peanuts and you or someone in your family is deathly allergic to peanuts. And what happens if you find them disgustingly unpalatable, even if you don’t have any allergies to the ingredients present?

In other words, it might be wise to check out the ingredients and do a little taste testing BEFORE you come to rely 100% upon those food items.

Caution should also be taken with foods in which you already have confidence.

In our family the food dehydrator is often put to use. The most common reason? Beef jerky. It’s a family favorite. We, however, like our jerky with a little bit of flexibility left in it. That means it’s a little more chewable. On the other hand, it also means that there is more moisture remaining than in the fully dehydrated jerkies that tend to be firm and crisp and that break rather than tear apart. We also prefer to use the lean beef rather than the extra lean beef. It tends, or so we believe, to be a little more flavourful. A lot of the flavour comes from the fats in the meat, so that probably means there’s a little more fat remaining at the end of the dehydrating process.

Unfortunately, extra fats and extra moisture translates into shorter shelf life. And how long has your jerky been sitting in your food storage? If it’s time for another “I dunno” answer, then it’s also time to find out. Rancid meats do not make for a very good food storage item.

Long term food storage, of course, could and probably should extend to more than just the simple emergency survival kit. We should also be preparing for food needs related to isolation due to storms or floods, disruption in food deliveries due to weather or strikes, financial restraints brought about by sudden and unexpected unemployment, or (Heaven Forbid) actual food shortages.

A prime example of those kinds of preparations are the buckets, bags or pails of wheat that the experts recommend we have on hand so that we can make our own bread in times of need. If you have such an item on hand you are likely going to be able to answer “yes” if asked if you have a wheat grinder to go with it. It seems a natural edition.

However, what will you say if asked if you know how to use that grinder? Is the answer going to be “I dunno?”

Then what will you do with the flour that you going to produce with that grinder that you don’t know how to use? Do you know how to turn it into bread?

Another “I dunno?”

Of course you could always sprout grains. Sprouts can be a very nutritional food source. But do you know how to sprout? Were you going to buy a sprouter and learn how to use it, but “dunno” when you might get around to doing that?

There are probably many more examples of where the “dunno” factor might arise as it relates to our food storage programs. The point is we need to be both able and capable of using the food we are putting into storage. It is much easier to learn and make any necessary changes before rather than after that emergency arises.

When it comes to selecting your emergency survival kit, it is wise to pay attention to physical dimensions. They can make a difference, especially if you’re purchasing online or from a catalog, where you don’t actually have that kit in front of you to see and feel.

Consider the kits manufactured by a company such as Guardian, a firm that specializes in these kinds of items. The choices are normally either their 72 hour kits that are packaged in a durable backpack, with lots of room for your own additions, or in what is described as the Survival Pal, a “compact survival kit (that) is packed neatly into a durable waterproof cooler bag.”

Both are well made with carefully selected components, and, when viewing the pictures of the individual kits, it is natural to assume that the choice is simply between something you can slide onto your back or something you’d carry using the shoulder strap provided. In other words, which is the most sensible solution when considering your particular needs?

There is no denying it. That choice needs to be made, but if dimensions are actually taken into account and not simply skipped over, then it soon becomes apparent that one kit is significantly smaller than the other. There is nothing wrong with that, but now it becomes important to also decide between a larger emergency survival kit with lots of room for expansion, and a truly compact kit that will take up little storage space but which will lack many of those expansion possibilities.

A careful examination of the facts before purchase can eliminate regrets later on.