Long-Term Emergency Food Storage

The information collected here comes from the USDA, Brigham Young University's Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science, the Utah State University Cooperative Extension, and the Church of Latter Day Saints website on 'provident living'. Those crazy Mormons, they're really into food storage, and they're nice enough to share their knowledge with Pagans like me. I also learned quite a lot from a professor in the Food Science Department at Utah State, whom I contacted with some questions and who was very patient and helpful.

Long-term emergency storage foods are meant to keep you alive if you had almost nothing else to eat. That means water, wheat and other grains, legumes, salt, honey or sugar, powdered milk, baking soda and cooking oil.

According to the US gov, the average American man is 5'9" and weighs 190 pounds. The average woman is 5'4" and weighs 164 pounds. We average 37 years old, and eat 2,700 calories per day, which translates to 1996 pounds of food per year, including:

85 fats and oils

273 fruit

24 coffee

415 vegetables

56 corn

198 sweeteners

200 flour

32 eggs

16 fish

74 chicken

110 red meat

600 dairy products other than cheese

181 milk

30 french fries

23 pizza

24 ice cream

31 cheese

3 salt

In some places, the Mormons (who as I said above have made a very serious study of food storage) publish the following recommended amounts per adult per year:

Rice/wheat/corn: 180 kg (397 lbs)
Sugar or Honey: 30kg (66 lbs)
Salt: 4.5kg (10 lbs)
Dry Beans: 36kg (80 lbs)
Powdered Milk: 27kg (60 lbs)
Olive Oil: 10 liters ("extra virgin", i.e. unrefined. Shelf-life of about 2 years) and/or

Coconut Oil: ("virgin", i.e. unrefined. Shelf-life of about 5 years)

In other places, the Mormons recommend putting away 5 pounds of beans and 25 pounds of grains per person per month (that would be 60 pounds and 300 pounds per year, respectively).

For our family's planning purposes, we have settled on 5 pounds of legumes, 25 pounds of grains, 1/4 pound of salt, and 1/8 pound of baking soda per person per month. (Per year, that's 60 pounds of legumes, 300 pounds of grains, 3 pounds of salt, and 1.5 pounds of baking soda.) (Baking soda is necessary for cooking tough old beans and making sourdough bread, and is also useful for cleaning, brushing teeth, etc.)

We don't store a lot of sweeteners because we have our own beehives. We don't store water because we live on a clean lake - although we do have containers in case we anticipate the water becoming fouled.

We also stock up on necessities that require high technology and have a long shelf-life, like razor blades, medicines, soap, shampoo, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

Probably the most effective and still practical long-term food-storage packaging method is with oxygen absorbers and metallized plastic (Mylar) pouches.

PETE bottles are more permeable to oxygen and moisture than metallized plastic, but still provide a good barrier and are recommended by the Mormon food storage people. PETE bottles are clear plastic made of polyethylene terephthalate. They will have a “1” in the triangular recycling symbol on the bottom, and will probably have the letters "PET" or "PETE" as well. Bottles made of other plastics, such as HDPE, are not suitable.

Mylar pouches and PETE bottles can be used with oxygen absorbers to store food that is dry (less than 10% moisture) and low in fat. PETE bottles that were made for liquids such as juice or soda will have proper tops for this purpose. They will screw on, and have plastic seals, not paper or foam. The oxygen absorbers will prevent insect infestations, and help preserve nutritional qualities. Oxygen absorbers are small packets that contain an iron powder. As the iron oxidizes, it absorbs the oxygen in the bottle, leaving the nitrogen behind and forming a partial vacuum.

1. Place a fresh oxygen absorber packet in each bottle or pouch. (Oxygen absorbers begin working as soon as they are exposed to air, so it's important to use them within about a half hour of taking them out of their original packaging.)

2. Fill with bulk dry products that are low in moisture and oil content.

3. Seal.

4. Label and date.

5. Store in a fairly cool, dry, dark place that is safe from rodents.

Storage at temperatures below 60°F is optimum, but usually impractical. Do what you can. Concrete floors will wick moisture to containers, so set them on something that allows air circulation underneath them.

Foods that are reported to last for 30+ years when stored in this manner:

Wheat

White rice, not brown.

Oatmeal

Lentils

Split peas

Dry beans

Pasta made without eggs (read the ingredients)

Corn

Non-fat powdered milk will allegedly last for 20+ years packaged with oxygen absorbers.

White sugar may harden when packed with oxygen absorbers, but can be bottled without the absorbers and will last indefinitely.

Ditto for baking soda, which is an important ingredient for preparing old, tough beans.

Salt will last forever without oxygen absorbers.

Foods that are NOT suitable for long-term storage:

Brown rice

Pearled Barley

Sesame seeds

Flax seeds

Nuts

Brown sugar

Milled grains other than oatmeal

What stored foods tend to lack is vitamin C. The good news is that we're literally surrounded by vitamin C, mostly in the form of things tea can be made from. Wintergreen, pine needles, hemlock needles, rose hips, etc.

Another thing that might be handy to know about PETE bottles is that they can be used for solar water disinfection by ultraviolet radiation. It's as simple as filling them with water and setting them out in the sun for a few hours. Not even glass can be used for that, since although it's transparent to visible light, it's opaque to ultraviolet radiation.

Shelf life is one thing, palatability is another. Thirty-year-old food could keep you alive, but you might have to be some kind of hungry to eat it. According to the aforementioned professor, properly packaged dry foods will remain nutritionally stable (except for vitamins) for "dozens of years", but begin to be unpleasant to eat after about the decade mark.

Our current tentative plan is to store salt, sugar and baking soda in PETE bottles without oxygen absorbers. They should last, for our purposes, forever.

Wheat does not need to be stored in a low-oxygen environment, but a couple weeks of such an atmosphere will ensure that no bugs are present. We store it in PETE bottles with oxygen absorbers. ("Hawaiian Punch" gallon bottles are our favorite containers. We don't drink it, but the folks at our local recycling center save them for us.)

Everything else is probably best in Mylar pouches with oxygen absorbers.

We also stock up on necessities that require high technology and have a long shelf-life, like razor blades, medicines, soap, shampoo, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.

After about ten years, we plan on using our stores - converting them to fresh eggs by feeding them to our chickens if nothing else - and replenishing them with fresh stock.

We'll probably never need to use them 'for real', but I'm glad we have them every time I see someone in the aftermath of a hurricane or earthquake shouting "Even if we have money there's no food to buy!" at a TV camera.

Live debt-free, have food put away, plant a garden and some fruit trees and bushes, assure access to water, reduce dependence on oil, have a bicycle and a patch kit, learn to forage, build good will with your neighbors, get healthy. It's just common sense, which isn't very common.