Companies manufacture and sell a wide variety of freeze-dried canned foods that are designed for long-term storage.

The best known of these is Mountain House…

Their foods are cooked and then freeze-dried before canning…

“Freeze-drying” is a unique process that provides product characteristics that cannot be achieved with other processing methods. Fresh or cooked foods are flash frozen and then placed in vacuum chambers that are as cold as -50 F. As low level heat is applied, the ice evaporates without going back through the liquid phase, and removes approximately 98% of the product’s moisture.

This freeze-dried food is then packed in airtight #10 size cans. #10 cans are a little smaller than a gallon.  The filled cans are then nitrogen packed (the air has been replaced by nitrogen). The inside of each can is coated with a protective enamel, including the lid. This enamel helps protect the can from deteriorating elements.

As long as the can is not opened or punctured, the food inside have the longest shelf life available…up to 30 years!

After opening, they recommend using the contents with 2 to 3 weeks for best results and taste; using the convenient resealable plastic lid between uses. Treat any leftover cooked food as you would fresh food.

Some of their popular items include:

Entrees like Beef Stroganoff, Rice & Chicken, and Lasagna with Meat sauce (each can has about 30 servings)
Breakfast Items like Scrambled Eggs and Bacon
Canned Meats like cooked hamburger, turkey, chicken, diced beef
Fruits and Vegetables
Dessert Items like Blueberry Cheesecake, and others.

They also manufacture these foods in pouches which have 1-4 servings and which have a shelf life of 5-7 years.  These are very popular with backpackers…

These pouches make excellent additions to your 72 Hour Emergency Kits…

A reader asks (somewhat jokingly) about wine and how to incorporate this into our survival preparation… so I will take the bait and post this frivolous post in return…

Here is a new product – dehydrated wine with 8.2% alcohol

Mountaineering gourmets no longer have to forgo a glass of red wine after conquering a peak. Trek‘n Eat has now launched a new red wine in the form of a powder. The beverage powder that comes in convenient portions packed in pouches has an alcoholic content of 8,2%, which is similar to a light bottled wine. A matching mulled wine has also been developed for expeditions in snow and the cold – for celebrating the special moment at night camp.

There is also a company marketing backpacking beer…Pat’s Backcountry Beer

Whiskey is also considered a potentially valuable barter item in the event of a major disaster, along with cigarettes. Some survivalists recommend putting a case or two of whiskey, bourbon, gin, etc. into long-term storage to trade for other items…

After your initial stored water runs out, you will need to be able to use open water sources (streams, ponds, rainwater runoff) to get the water your family needs. This water needs to be purified before it can be drank…

And since there might not be any power, the system should be able to operate without external power.-

One system that is highly recommended is from British Berkefeld and they have been making these units a long time. They use “ceramic” filter elements come in two types- white (Sterasyl) and black (called Black Berkey) and both do an excellent job of filtering out impurities. The white units have been used for over 100 years with little modification and they are good for about 3000 gallons each. (a set will keep a family of 4 in pure water for years)…

Here is a video that shows one of these systems… they come in various sizes. The Big Berkey is good for 3-4 people and the Royal Berkey for 5-6 people.

Over the weekend, I am going to be building my own Berkey clone using their filter elements and I will share that with you in the near future. That could enable you to save a lot of money versus buying one of these stainless steel models… Like 60% cheaper for the same end result.

We can only survive about three days without drinking water (as compared with 3 weeks without food) so Water is a crucial part of emergency preparedness.

A few days ago, we looked at the per capita consumption of water in the home as about 25 gallons a day per person… This included drinking, cooking, cleaning, and toilet flushing…

Most water systems in the US are dependent on the electric power grid to operate.  So, no power = no water pretty quickly…

In a survival situation, the bare minimum is 1 gallon per person per day.  This would be used mainly for drinking and cooking.  Cleaning and toilet flushing would need to be curtailed to the least possible usage. 

In an emergency situation, you could possibly need up to 7 days supply.  This is a good start.  So, take the number of people you need to provide for and multiply by 7 and this will give you the number of gallons you need to get by.  Just to be safe, you should probably double this number since it is likely that it will take a few days to really start conserving this precious resource.

As an example, for a family of 5 you would need 35 gallons, and doubling it would give you 70 gallons that you should store.

Storing water in empty 2 liter soda bottle is a great idea because it is portable and relatively earthquake proof. If you needed to “Bug Out” and leave your home, you could bring some water with you as part of your 72 Hour Bag (to be discussed in greater detail soon)…

Places in your house where you can get water– your hot water heater holds usually 40 gallons.  And the tank portion of your toilets has water that can be used for some non-drinking/cooking purposes.  And your downspouts can be a great place to collect water.  1 inch of rain on a 1000 square foot roof = over 699 gallons of fresh water…

Lastly, you can fill up sinks and bathtubs ahead of time if you have any warning that you might lose the water supply.

In future posts, we will discuss how you would prepare to provide an on-going supply of clean drinkable water for your family in a longer-term emergency…

Start filling

Very simple one today…

Locate a copy of your water bills for the past month or two and see how much water you currently use…

For my family, we average about 3600 gallons per month, and there are 5 of us, so this is 3600/5 = 720 gallons per person per month.

Dividing by 30 days in a month, this gives us a “per capita” amount used of 24 gallons per person per day.

This includes drinking, cooking, showers and toothbrushing and facecleaning, flushing toilets, rinsing dishes, running the dishwasher, washing clothes, watering plants, etc.

Check it out for your family and keep track of all the times you use water today…

Lisa asked about per capita averages for water use so I have included this information from: Water Usage Information

Daily indoor per capita water use in the typical single family home is 69.3 gallons. Here is how it breaks down:

Howdy…

The previous discussion of our survival pantry included a base of some carbohydrates that will provide some inexpensive calories and that store pretty well.

But your body also needs protein especially if you want to keep your muscles working and your brain thinking.

Here are some easy ways to store protein in your survival pantry (this is not a complete list, just a few ideas):

canned meat (Spam, corned beef, beef stew…)
canned fish (tuna, salmon…)
canned chicken
protein bars/meal replacement bars
protein powders 
peanut butter
almonds
Pork and beans
dried meats (jerky, pemmican) – short shelf life, rotate
Slim Jim-type smoked packaged items

If you could plan to have 600 calories per day of these items for each person in your family that would be a good start.  About 3 servings a day.  So, for 30 days you would need 90 servings per person…

In a prolonged emergency, some of you could also use some of your rice, flour, etc. as bait to attract locally available “live protein” (squirrels, raccoons, birds, etc) to your yard where your .22 could add them to your stew.

If you are a vegetarian, you will know what proteins you eat and can plan accordingly.  You are used to making such decisions in a meat-dominated world…

This is all going to be covered in greater depth in the my forthcoming eBook “Stocking Your Survival Pantry” available soon!

What's For Dinner?

First of all, assume that you have no electricity.

Also, assume that you have no gas if your cooktop or oven runs on natural gas.

What’s that smell?

The contents of your freezer and your refrigerator are going to be soon worthless (unless you have a generator). You will want to start out the first few days eating the refrigerated food and then the frozen food since it is going to be worthless after about 3 days. So, you are not going to be eating a lot of meat unless it is canned. 

TIP: You can keep your freezer and refrigerator cold the longest by keeping the door closed.  Get in and out very quick.  Also, get all the ice from your ice maker and put in coolers and put some refrigerated items in the cooler.  If it is cold outside, put the cooler outside…

After this initial period, you will be relying on the food stored in your survival pantry. As a start, you should try to prepare for at least one month where you can be 100% self-sufficient. Consider any close family or friends who may be less prepared and who might decide to come stay with you to weather the disaster.

(I’ll discuss Cooking in a post soon, for how we can still cook our food in an emergency situation without electricity or natural gas…)

One month is not really that long and many people could make it that long with almost nothing to eat as long as they had water. But we are planning in advance so we can be reasonably comfortable.

How Much Food Do You Need?

If you assume 2,000 calories per day per person x 30 days, this means you need about 60,000 calories per person for a month’s supply.

Items like rice, pasta, instant potatoes, pancakes, cereal, beans can supply a bunch of these calories fairly easily. Figure that about 60% of the calories will come from these items (1200 calories per day per person)

2 pound box of pasta has 1200 calories (about $2)
3.25 pound box of dry mashed potatoed contains 5000 calories (About $5)
5 pound bag of rice has 8000 calories (about $5)
2 pound box Complete pancake mix has 3200 calories (about $2)

There are of course many other options which are covered in Stocking Your Survival Pantry (available late Sept 2009) which will eliminate all of the mystery…
So, if you are setting up for thirty days, you need for each person…

4 boxes Complete pancake mix ($10)
10 pounds rice ($10)
10 pounds assorted pasta ($10)
2 large boxes instant potatoes ($12)

then you are 60% towards your food needs for thirty days for under $50 a person… just buy things in sizes you will be able to use. Not army-sized cans…

This is carbs and calories mainly, we discuss proteins, fats and other important items in a later post and in our Survival Pantry ebook (available soon)…

Since most of the things you are storing will eventually go bad in some way– you need to use your supplies in your daily life and then periodically replenish them with fresh stock.  You should have very few things in your supplies that  you don’t already use in your daily life.  Choose to stock things that you use and you will be way ahead of the game.

If you don’t eat rice, then don’t plan to survive on rice in an emergency and stock something else that you will eat (pasta, beans, flour, instant potatoes, wheat, etc.)  Some survival supplies are freeze-dried and then canned and these will last for twenty or more years.  These are also very expensive compared to “normal” food.  There is a purpose for long shelf-life these items but stocking your 30 day survival pantry is NOT the proper use. 

So, your 30 day supply should consist of things you use already, And you should use the items from your stock making sure to use the oldest items first and replenish with new items periodically,  If course you might use some of these items much less frequently than you would in a survival situation and it might take you a year in your regular life to use up your whole thirty day supply.  THis is fine– the key is that when disaster strikes you need to have 30 days worth of supplies that haven’t gone bad and become useless to you.