Category Archives: Emergency Food

Why You Should Store (and Eat) More Beans

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Perhaps you’ve come across the idea that it doesn’t matter what emergency food you store, as long as you have something put away. The idea is something along the lines of You’ll eat anything if you’re hungry enough. The primary qualifications many require of their food storage are that it is cheap and that it has a long shelf life. While finding emergency food that fits within your budget and has a long shelf life are vital, don’t neglect to examine an equally vital quality of food storage food: nutrition.

Survival situations are tough times—tough on bodies and tough on minds. During these tough times, the source of all your nourishment and sustenance will be your food supply. Therefore, when you are preparing a survival food supply, it makes sense to gather foods that are nutrient-dense and able to nourish and sustain while also being long-lasting. One of these nutrient-rich foods that can be prepared to store for long periods of time is beans. Today we’ll look at why beans are a superfood, something you should consume on a regular basis, and, more specifically, why they are a super food storage food.

Beans: Food Storage Superfood

1. Beans are famously high in fiber. Just one half-cup serving of beans typically has about 10 grams, an excellent amount for a single food. This high fiber amount combined with the high water content found in beans helps fill you up faster and keeps you full longer, making beans an ideal survival food. What more could you want in an emergency situation than an ingredient that is going to stretch your meal longer through the day?

2. Beans are a good source of complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are digested more slowly by our bodies and are one of the best sources our bodies have of sustained energy. The complex carbohydrates found in beans can supply you with the vital energy you need to handle the assortment of challenges you might face in a survival situation.

3. Beans offer healthy protein. At around 7 to 10 grams of protein per half-cup serving, beans are an excellent source of this vital macro-nutrient. Protein is involved in many of the most essential functions of the body, from cell repair to bone health. When you combine beans with whole grains like brown rice, you get a complete protein just like you would get from any meat source. Best of all, this protein source does not also slip in sneaky unhealthy fats, like saturated fat found in most meat products.

4. Beans make for a healthy heart. In a study conducted at the University of Arizona, participants who ate ½ cup of beans daily lowered their cholesterol by 8%. In addition, because beans are a good source of potassium, they can lower sodium levels in the body, in turn lowering blood pressure.

5. Beans help fight cancer. Because beans are a good source of antioxidants, the magical phytochemicals that fight free radicals, if you make beans a part of your diet, you increase the antioxidants flowing through your system and curb the spread of cancer-linked free-radicals.

6. Beans are nutrient-dense. They are a good source of calcium, Vitamin D, iron, magnesium, folate, and Vitamin B6. With a fact sheet like that, it’s hard to leave them off a list of superfoods.

Knowing how fantastic beans are for so many aspects of health, here’s some good news. Five of Legacy Premium’s food storage entrees feature beans. These delicious entrees include enchilada beans and rice, chili mac, southwestern soup, classic chili, and white bean chili. We also offer a side dish of refried beans, which is simply pinto beans and salt—no lard or other unhealthy ingredients. Including beans in your emergency food menu is a great way to add calories and nutrients to your survival diet.

Today’s lesson: The ingredients that make up your emergency food are important. They will play an important role in your physical and mental state during survival situations. Store food that is full of nutrition and will give your body what it needs to last. In other words, don’t forget the beans.

Preparing Pets for Emergencies

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If you have a pet who holds a special place in your heart, you probably take pretty good care of that pet—feed him, groom him, take him for walks, maybe even buy him fancy clothes or gourmet treats from a pet bakery. Today I’m here to remind you of one aspect of pet care that otherwise good pet owners too often forget: preparing your pet for emergency situations.

In the world of emergency preparedness, we are constantly making lists of supplies we need to gather in order to be prepared for every eventuality of a disaster. If you are a pet owner, as you make your list of supplies to store away, don’t forget to equip your pet along the way as well. Usually, in an emergency situation, pets will need most of the same things humans do: food, water, shelter, and plenty of reassurance. And just like people, animals will benefit from having a few comfort items stored away too. Here, for your convenience, is a list we’ve put together of pet survival supplies that will make your life and your pet’s life a lot easier in the event of a disaster.

What to Include in Your Pet’s Emergency Preparedness Kit

1. Water. As you store water for your family for survival situations, don’t forget to calculate the amount of water your pet will need and add it into the mix. Be sure to store enough to allow your pet to stay well hydrated, and if you care about cleanliness in emergencies, store enough for pet hygiene too!

2. Food. Stock up on as much pet food as you can afford to store. Start with enough to feed your pet for a month, then three months, then six, and so on. Through Legacy Premium, PrepareWise now offers the first pet food that’s made for long-term storage. It boasts a 10-year shelf life and comes in the dog variety and the cat variety. If you are looking for serious pet food storage, this is an excellent option for you.

3. Portable food containers. Many emergency situations involve evacuation of your home. If this happens to be your case, you will want to have a way to carry your pet’s food and water on the go.

4. Manual can opener if your pet eats canned food.

4. Medications if necessary.

5. First aid supplies. Pet first aid supplies and people first aid supplies are mostly the same, but you might also consider having some extra large bandages, gauze, and medical tape along with everything else.

6. Hygiene Supplies. Remember things like a pet brush, shampoo, blanket or towel, kitty litter if applicable, and whatever else your pet needs to be well-cared for and clean.

7. Pet carrier or leash. It’s vital to have a way to keep pets contained during emergency situations as even the most docile and sweet animals can become anxious and combative in tense situations. Having a leash or carrier handy will help you keep your pet close and calm until situations settle.

8. Proper identification and records. If you and your pet get separated during an emergency or if your pet needs to have medical attention, it will be vital that his records and IDs are handy. Make sure you have a copy of your pet’s medical records and a collar with an ID tag, a license tag, and a vaccination tag.

9. Picture of you and your pet together. If you and your pet get separated during an emergency, a picture of your pet will allow others to help you locate him. If that picture also includes you in it, it will be a good proof of your ownership of your pet.

10. Emergency contact list. Make a list now of all the numbers you might need for your pet in an emergency situation. Possible numbers include the local animal shelter, an emergency medical center for pets, the local kennel, and your pet’s veterinarian.

11. Items purely for comfort. It’s important to have some treats stored for your pet along with his typical pet food. Treats make tense, abnormal situations seem more normal and controlled and help pets to relax. In addition to treats, make sure to have any of your pet’s favorite toys or sleeping pillows on hand. Comfort items will go a long way in easing the stress of an emergency situation for your pet.

In addition to putting together a survival kit for your pet, there are a few other considerations you may want to make before a disaster happens. One of these is to make a plan for what you will do with your pet if you have to evacuate your home. If your plan is to go to an out-of-town family member’s house, make sure that person is willing to house your pet too. If not, you will need to make arrangements beforehand either with a local animal shelter or kennel. Some shelters and kennels do not house animals in emergencies, so call now to find out which ones will and make a plan to take your pet there.

If you absolutely have no other options and have to leave your pet behind (not recommended), leave him in the house with plenty of food and water available to him. Also leave a note on the outside of the house that tells rescuers there is a pet inside, what kind, his name, and a contact number you can be reached at. Leaving pets at home gives them much lower chances for survival, so avoid this option if at all possible.

In emergency situations, pets will probably be feeling many of the same emotions you are. They will be tired and fretful and anxious and will need all the love and patience you can give them. Expect them to be more needy and less obedient than they usually are. If you keep them close to you and attend to their needs, they will make it through the emergency situation as well as you. Being prepared with a good pet survival kit and making emergency plans in advance can go a long way in making the situation bearable for everyone.

Boil the Perfect Egg with a Sunshade: A Solar Cooking Experiment

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A few months ago, I posted about solar ovens as a useful survival cooking method. You can read that post here. At the time, I wanted to try to make my own solar oven and cook with it, but I didn’t because it was the middle of January in a cold Utah winter,not really the ideal time or place to harness the power of the sun. Now that it is nearly spring and we’ve had a few nice sunny days, I decided it was time to give it a try. Here is a chronicle of my first ever solar cooking attempt.

My biggest resource in this endeavor was solarcooking.org. This site has a variety of different plans for making your own solar oven for less than $5. It also has recipes and expert tips. Reading through all the suggestions before starting was very helpful in choosing the right time of day and the best place to get cooking.

After browsing different solar oven plans, I decided that I would go with what looked like the easiest: a solar cooker made out of a car sunshade. Pretty awesome, right? Here is how to do it if you’d like to try (and I think you should).

Gather Supplies

Pictured here is everything you need to try out this simple and awesome solar oven: a reflective accordion-folding car sunshade, a black pot, a bucket or box, an oven cooking bag, a cooking rack, and some Velcro (or duct tape, as I ended up using). I was able to find most of these items at the dollar store.

Find a Sunny Spot and Choose Your Menu

After gathering my supplies, I had to decide what to cook and figure out the sunniest place near my house. I found that the parking lot in back of my building was especially lit up from about 10 to 2. Solarcooking.org recommends trying something simple for your first time, like solar tea or rice or beans. I decided to start with boiled eggs. According to the site, boiled eggs should take about 3 to 4 hours in a solar cooker.

Construct Your Oven

The tutorial I followed used strips of Velcro along the two bottom edges of the sunshade and then wrapped it up and attached the sides together to form a funnel shape. I realized that I had gotten sew-on Velcro, so I ended up just duct taping the sides together. Here you can see the sunshade held together with duct tape. Notice the back view and how it looks like a cone.

 

Next, I filled my black pot with water and the eggs and put an oven bag around it.  I placed my sunshade on top of a tupperware container (you could use a box or bucket too), put the rack inside, and put my pan in the oven. When I first put mine together, I was a little worried because of how flimsy it looked. Here’s a photo:

Regardless, I took it to a sunny spot and left it there to do its magic.It was a sunny day but only about 10 in the morning and March, so it was still a chilly 45 degrees outside.

 

By 11:00, after one hour, condensation began building up on the inside of the bag.



By 12:00, it had warmed up to 50 degrees outside. The pot felt so hot that I had a difficult time moving it. I moved the oven to face the sun a little bit more. There was no boiling yet, and this made me worry a little.

At 1:30, after 3 ½ hours, I went out to check on the eggs. The water had still not appeared to boil that I could see, but I decided to open up the bag and get an egg out. It was very hot in the bag, so hot, actually, that I burned my fingers a little. I took an egg out and cracked it open and was pleasantly surprised to find it not only done, but perfectly cooked.

These eggs were delicious. They were completely done inside, as you can see, but every part of the egg was tender in just the right way. The slow cooking must have something to do with this.

These eggs may have tasted so great because I knew I had cooked them without any heat source except what’s free and outside all the time. Seriously, that is really awesome, isn’t it? Also, the whole process was very easy and made me excited about experimenting with more difficult foods.

What I take away from this experience is that if you have a five-dollar sunshade lying around and plenty of sunny weather outside, you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to cook your food in a survival situation. Add in some delicious food storage, and you’re set. If you haven’t experimented with solar cooking yet, I strongly suggest you give it a try. Let me know how it goes!

Why Beekeeping Should Be Your Next Hobby

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Have you ever considered becoming a beekeeper? If not, maybe you should. Having a hive of productive honeybees is an excellent asset in a survival situation. With free honey being produced at regular intervals, you can sweeten and vary your survival food, use honey for medicinal purposes, and always have a great bartering item on hand.

Beyond the survival reasons, unless you are allergic to bee stings or have a phobia of buzzing insects, raising bees can simply be a delicious and fascinating pastime. Bees create tasty, healthful, and extremely useful substances (i.e. honey and wax), and keeping bees also increases pollination of other food you have growing. Following is an exploration of the benefits of beekeeping and some basic information on how to get started.

Why keep bees, Reason #1: HONEY

The most obvious reason to keep bees is to have free access to fresh honey, which is not only supremely tasty but also tops the charts of many health experts’ recommended food lists. Read recent health articles and you’ll see that raw local honey has health benefits worth buzzing about. Raw honey is full of good bacteria (probiotics), which can promote healthy digestion and support the immune system. It’s also an excellent natural energy booster—both short-term energy (thanks to glucose) and more sustained long-term energy (thanks to fructose). In addition, honey is proven in laboratory studies to have antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Honey is also good for smaller health complaints, like soothing cuts and burns and easing sore throats, and it is a fantastic skin and hair conditioner.

With all of these health benefits, you can see why honey is a good thing to have around, especially in a survival situation. Did you know that one bee can produce up to 1 ½ teaspoons of honey in its brief six-week life span? With tens of thousands of bees typically in one hive, raising a hive of bees can mean a whole lot of free, sweet honey for you.

Why keep bees, Reason #2: WAX

When bees fill honeycombs with honey, they top them off with a bit of wax that they secrete from glands on their abdomen. This beeswax is an extraordinarily versatile and useful substance—two qualities that make an item great to have in a survival situation. You can use beeswax to make homemade candles that burn longer and cleaner than other candles, lip balm, hand cream, soap, skin salve, and furniture polish. You can use it to strengthen bow strings, lubricate screws,  and waterproof almost anything. For a good read about beeswax product ideas along with detailed recipes and instructions, check out the following site: http://chickensintheroad.com/house/crafts/things-to-do-with-beeswax/

Why keep bees reason #3: POLLINATION OF YOUR CROPS

According to the USDA, “About one mouthful in three in our diet directly or indirectly benefits from honeybee pollination.” Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and berries all need to be pollinated to be fruitful, and bees are the best pollinators around. Bee pollination makes the harvest of your gardening greater and the quality of your crops higher. When you have a beehive near your crops, the bees will pollinate them and make you a happier gardener.

With free supplies of honey and beeswax and free pollination of your crops, how could you not want to start this exciting hobby? Now that you know why beekeeping is a worthwhile endeavour, let’s talk about how you can get started.

First things first: gather supplies. Many beekeeping experts estimate that it takes anywhere from $400  to $1000 to supply yourself with everything you need to start a hive. The most basic supplies you will need are a jumpsuit or other full-body clothing to protect you from stings, a cap and veil to protect your face and neck, gloves that go up the forearm, a hive (you can buy one or make your own using an online tutorial), a smoker, and bees. It’s also frequently recommended that you have a bee brush, a tool to break up wax, a bee feeder, an extractor, and various supplies that simply make beekeeping more convenient. For an extensive list of beekeeping supplies, check out the beesource website.

Most expert beekeepers recommend taking a live beekeeping class to get some hands-on experience, taste what it’s like to work with bees, and meet local beekeepers. It’s also an excellent idea to join your local beekeeping association and find a mentor.

If you are interested in getting started on beekeeping, here are a few good resources to start your study and lead you in the right direction:

www.betterbee.com
http://www.sustainlife.org/blog/tag/beekeeping
www.beesource.com
www.beemaster.com
www.honeybeesonline.com

If you talk to someone who has been beekeeping for years, chances are they’ll talk about their hobby with a starry-eyed smile. For not only does beekeeping offer honey, beeswax, pollination of crops, and all the survival benefits that come with these, it also puts the diligent keeper of bees in close contact with nature’s processes. This all adds up to what might just be the perfect hobby.

How to Prepare Better: Five Pieces of Preparedness Advice from Disaster Survivors

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When preparing for a future event—whether it’s retirement, a trip to Disneyland, or a disaster situation—it helps to get advice from people who have already been there, done that. Specifically, it’s nice to know what those people wish they knew before they went through the situation and what they would do differently if they went through it again.

With this in mind, a few months ago, I began to keep track of advice in blogs, news articles, and discussion boards from people who had lived through Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters. Slowly, I made a list of lessons these survivors learned from their experiences and advice they would give to others preparing for a crisis. Interestingly, most of the advice falls under a handful of basic principles. Here you will find these principles and a few singularly helpful ideas related to each. If you think of any you’d like to add as you are reading through, share them with us in the comments box below.

 

1. Some disaster supplies never outlive their usefulness. In other words, you’ll never have too much. A few commonly mentioned items are water, food, batteries, matches, and wet wipes.

WATER: In many types of natural disasters, water lines can become contaminated and access to water can be shut off altogether. This is why it’s so important to to have water and emergency water supplies stored (think water purifiers and containers to hold water). But how much water? The best answer, according to disaster survivors, is as much as you can fathom storing in your home. It’s impossible to store too much water because you will use it for everything: drinking, cooking with, washing dishes, flushing the toilet, washing hands, bathing, and showering.

FOOD: Just as with water, you will never think to yourself that you have overdone it on the food storage. In times of high stress or absolute boredom (survival situations usually alternate between these two extremes), we tend to eat more than usual. If you have kids, this will be especially true. Just think of how much food you go through when your kids are on a vacation from school. The bottom line is to store more food than you think you need.

MATCHES AND BATTERIES: People who have survived emergency situations often express surprise at how quickly their supply of batteries and matches ran out. Matches are useful for everything from lighting candles and starting fires to igniting cooking stoves. Similarly, you’ll quickly realize how many of your survival supplies require batteries. Just like with food and water, store more batteries and matches than you can imagine ever using. Alternately, invest in rechargeable batteries with solar chargers.

WET WIPES: If you have ever had a child, you know the miracle that is baby wipes. Baby wipes are excellent in an emergency for washing hands, refreshing worn-out faces, and cleaning up messes. Basically, wet wipes help you function without using so much of your precious water resources. Again, it’s hard to have too many of this item stored for an emergency.

2. If you haven’t thought about getting a generator, you probably should.  Power is precious, and most natural disaster situations involve the power going out at some point. Generators allow you to rely on yourself for power while you are waiting for the government to step in and repair things. People who have survived natural disasters (especially Hurricane Sandy) have a lot to say about generators. Here are a few good tips:

  • Some household appliances are power hogs, and if you are using a generator, you will want to be wise about your use of these items: microwaves, toasters, freezers, refrigerators, and hot plates.
  • Generators require a lot of fuel to operate. Read your owner’s manual to find out what kind and how much fuel your generator needs, then store accordingly. Also find out how often your generator requires a filter change.
  • To save fuel, turn your generator off every night and back on in the morning.
  • IMPORTANT: Store a carbon monoxide detector to use with your generator. Did you know that there were nine reported deaths during Hurricane Sandy just from carbon monoxide poisoning from improper generator use? Use your generator safely.

3. Don’t neglect to stock up on treats. What does a treat mean for you? For me, it’s dark chocolate after dinner or a bowl of buttery popcorn while watching a movie with my best friend. But it can also be listening to Iron and Wine tunes after a long day or lying on the couch and reading a book. Many people who have survived disaster situations say that having treats around was sanity-saving.

The term “treat” is misleading because it implies that these things are bonuses and not necessary for long-term survival. In fact, this is not the case. Treats are crucial for their morale-boosting power. Human beings are not machines, and we cannot flourish in any kind of extended survival situation without comfort items. Comfort items help us feel calm and semi-normal in very abnormal circumstances.

As you gather your food storage and emergency supplies, don’t forget about comfort items. Whether it’s coffee, a favorite cereal, art supplies, or games, make sure you have a way to wind down and maintain normalcy.

4. Be a team player. One of the pieces of advice that surprised me by its frequency in different discussion boards is to make sure you work together with your neighbors. Sometimes in emergency preparedness, we are very self-focused as we work toward becoming self-reliant and being able to support our families without needing anyone else. At some point in a disaster situation, you have to be able to make a shift and look at how you can work with the larger community to restore order. Everyone will have different skills and knowledge to offer the situation, and working together means more gets done. A few great ideas were having a neighborhood potluck to use up food that was near its expiration date, making trades with others for labor or supplies, and getting together as a community to play music, watch movies, or tell stories.

5. Sharpen your survival skills. Plenty of people who have survived extended natural disaster situations say that the person who knows how to make a delicious meal with a camp stove and food storage supplies or who knows how to wire a generator quickly becomes a huge asset when disaster strikes. If you don’t have very many survival skills, get educated. Learn how to build better fires, purify water in any situation, or use solar cooking. Anything you learn now will save you later.

The Magic Amount: How Much Food You Should Store

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Have you ever kept a list of all the food you eat in a day? I once did this as a little experiment to see if what I thought I ate was similar to what I actually ate. When I looked at my list at the end of the day, I was surprised to see that I had eaten much more than I remembered. It reminded me a little of those diagrams of food that show how much the average person eats in a year with astronomical numbers like 30 pounds of cheese. The overwhelming amount of food a person consumes is precisely why it can be daunting to think of supplying a whole family with enough emergency food to last them for an extended period of time.

One of the most common questions people have when preparing for emergencies is how much food they need to have stored. If you are one of the many wondering how much food to stock away, here are some helpful tips.

Store something!

First and foremost, remember this: Storing something is always better than storing nothing. Often people are so intimidated by the enormity of the task of getting food storage for their family that they put it off and end up doing nothing at all. If you only gather enough food initially to feed your family for three days, that’s three days you wouldn’t have been able to feed them for previously. It’s okay to start small and add more food storage when you can. The important thing is that you start now, doing whatever you can afford and then adding more as you have more time and money.

Once you have three days’ worth, start to store up a month’s worth for each person, then three months, then six months, and so on. One year’s worth of emergency food for every person in your family should be your ultimate goal (or even more if you have the means). It might sound unreachable right now, but storing a year’s worth of food is entirely possible if you tackle it by small steps.

Figure out How Many Servings You Need

As you seek out emergency food, you will find that most food storage suppliers will quantify their food by the number of servings it provides. For example, you might see an offer along the lines of, “You pay x for y amount of servings.” One good place to start when deciding how much food to store is to use our long-term food storage calculator, which you can access here. This chart is pretty straightforward and will help you figure out how many servings you need to collect to feed your family for a specific amount of time.

To use our chart, first decide how many months you would like to get supplied for, then go down the chart to find the number of people in your family. For example, if you would like to start out by getting supplied for one month and you have four people in your family, find both of those numbers on the chart and then locate their intersection. For four people for one month, you’re looking at 360 servings. (This is assuming each person will eat three servings a day.) You can then go out and collect 360 servings’ worth of emergency food.

Caveat about Serving Size

There is one important principle to remember when you use this method to figure out how much food to store. It is this: All food storage companies have different definitions for the term “serving.” For one company, a measly 150 or 200 calories might constitute a serving. For another, a serving might have a more reasonable 400 or 500 calories. Be aware that three servings a day of only 200 calories each is only going to give you 600 calories for a day, not enough to sustain a child-sized body, let alone an average adult one. Most adults need somewhere between 1500-3000 calories to maintain their current state, so buying these “handy” food storage kits could leave you starving.

To avoid finding yourself with too little food, before you buy pre-packaged servings, find out how many calories are in each serving. Look for emergency food that has between 300 and 500 calories per serving. Otherwise your food storage kit that was advertised as being all-in-one and super convenient will not truly feed you for the time it claims. Legacy Premium serving sizes are always large (Most are around 325-400 calories), and they also offer plenty of nutritious, calorie-dense sides to help you fill in extra calories if you choose.

Store More Food Than You Think You Need

Ask anyone who has been in a situation in which they had to rely on their food storage and they’ll tell you the same thing. There is no such thing as too much emergency food. In emergency situations more than any other time, we need sufficient nourishment to keep us alert, positive, strong, and healthy. In addition, emergency situations often involve a lot of waiting around and worrying—waiting for news on the state of the disaster, worrying about loved ones not with us, or waiting around for power to come back on. In any kind of stressful or tedious atmosphere, most people tend to eat more than they normally would. Food is important in keeping the situation calm and positive. You will never regret that you had more food stored than you actually needed (if this is even possible).

As you can see, the title of this post is a bit misleading; there is no magic amount when it comes to storing emergency food. Start right now with storing whatever you can, and work up to storing at least a year’s worth. Use our food storage calculator to figure out how many servings you need to feed your family for your desired length of time, but also keep an eye on serving size and calories as you do this to make sure you are getting a sufficient amount. Most importantly, remember that you can never store too much emergency food.

 

Photo credit: Diliff / Foter / CC BY-SA

Buying Emergency Food That Lasts: An Overview of Food Storage Shelf Life (Part II)

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We talked last week about the importance of having food stored that is not going to go bad after only a few years of shelf time. Specifically, we tried to stress the importance of having emergency food that would last 25 years or more, not only for your safety and peace of mind but also for the convenience of storing foods that you won’t have to frequently rotate and replace.

This week, we’d like to talk about how you can be sure that emergency food is going to last as long as it is advertised to last. In order to do this, you need to be equipped with some basic knowledge about what affects the shelf life of any food. There are four main players in this game: food type, preservation method, packaging, and storage conditions.

Type of Food

My sixth-grade science experiment was to put milk in a pie tin and let it sit on the counter for weeks and then see what happened. I don’t think I have to tell you the results of that experiment. Suffice it to say that it’s a simple fact of nature—some foods have the ability to last a long time, and some do not. It’s important to keep this in mind as you build up your store of emergency food and be aware of the ingredients that are inside.

Researchers at Brigham Young University have been busy conducting testing on food storage that has been stored for long periods of time and examining which types of foods are still edible and have nutritional value. Their findings up to this point are that salt, baking soda, and granulated sugar have no known shelf life when stored in their original containers. Wheat and rice, when stored in cans, foil pouches, or buckets, can last 30 or more years. Powdered milk, oats, instant potatoes, beans, dried apples, and macaroni, when stored in a can or foil pouch with oxygen absorber, can last 15-30 years and still be edible and sustaining.

Other foods do not last as long, even when stored under ideal conditions. Wet-pack canned foods, for example, are only good for a few years, especially if they contain acidic foods like tomatoes, which can cause the cans to corrode and go bad much more quickly. Yeast and cooking oil only last 1 ½ years, and powdered eggs only 1 year.

The most important thing to remember is not to take food storage companies’ shelf life claims at face value. Doing your own bit of research and finding out what is in the emergency food and how long it will last will be worth it when the time comes to eat your food.

Type of Food Storage and Packaging

Not all methods of food storage are equal in their ability to keep a food good for a long time. As mentioned in the last section, wet-packed canned foods typically do not last as long as other types of food storage (usually five years at most, and this is an optimistic estimate). Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs) have grown in popularity recently as a food storage method, but typically they have a shelf life of only around three years. In contrast, canned dry foods like bulk grains tend to be a long-lasting food storage type, and freeze-dried and dehydrated foods similarly have the potential for a very lengthy shelf life.

Of course, we are a little biased toward the freeze-drying and dehydrating process when it comes to preserving long-term food, but only because we have done our research and know what works. The process of freeze drying is particularly suited for long-term food because by manipulating the surrounding pressure of a food as is done in freeze-drying, an incredible amount of water can be removed from the food, leaving it in a condition that will not allow microorganisms to grow. Dehydration similarly removes moisture from the food by putting it through an intensive low-temperature drying chamber to remove water. Both of these methods enable food to last for a very long time.

Packaging is another important factor in the shelf life of emergency foods. Just like moisture, oxygen causes microorganisms to grow. If emergency food is not packaged correctly, oxygen will get in and spoil the food. It’s crucial that residual oxygen levels be below 2%. Nitrogen flushing and the use of oxygen absorbers are key to achieve this goal. If your food storage is not packaged in these ideal conditions, your food is going to spoil long before those 25 years are up.

Storage Conditions

Perhaps one of the greatest influences on the shelf life of your food storage is its storage conditions. When considering where to store your food storage, keep in mind the four environmental necessities for a long shelf life: low temperature, low moisture, low oxygen, and low light. Exposure to too much of any of these can spoil foods or result in off-flavors and loss of nutrients.

Low moisture, oxygen, and light levels should be taken care of if your emergency food is packaged correctly. Temperature is the factor that is completely within your control. For maximum shelf life, food needs to be stored in a consistently cool place (at least below room temperature.) Temperatures over room temperature can cause proteins to deteriorate and can spoil the food more quickly. High temperatures can reduce the shelf life of different foods by as much as a decade. For this reason, it’s not a great idea to store food storage in the garage or attic. Basements or pantries are a much better option because of their consistent temperatures. As Oscar Pike, lead researcher of BYU’s Long-Term Food Storage Research team put it, “If you ever have to eat your food storage, you’ll wish you had stored the food in the house and the furniture in the garage.”

There you have it—the rules for food longevity. Knowing what you know now, you can go out and judge emergency food suppliers’ shelf life claims for yourself. We hope we’ve convinced you that there’s no reason to settle for anything less than emergency food that will last 25 years. And we think you’ll find that Legacy Premium’s shelf-life guarantee is much more than just a marketing scheme. We know our stuff—and now so do you.

Buying Emergency Food that Lasts: An Overview of Food Storage Shelf Life (Part I)

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Imagine a possible future scene with me for a moment. An emergency situation has shown up at your doorstep. Your family is hungry, and you have reached the end of the food in your cupboards. You are now faced with opening that food storage that you have had stashed away in the basement for years, forgotten and dusty. Do you really want to be nervously sniffing that can of food and crossing your fingers that it’s not going to make you all horribly sick? Unless you get your kicks out of risky and possibly quite disgusting experiences, I don’t think you do. This, my friends, is why the shelf life of your food storage matters. When that emergency situation comes, you don’t want to be questioning the shelf life of the food you and your family are now meant to survive on. You want to be able to rest assured that you have made a good purchase. Having emergency food stored that is designed to last a very long time—25 years or more—offers a peace of mind that cannot be overstated.

I think we all know someone who is unflinchingly fearless when it comes to eating food that’s gone over its expiration date. When I was in high school, I had a friend who loved—I might even say obsessed over—canned mandarin oranges. One day, I was at her house and she pulled out a can of oranges and offered me some. As she did, I noticed that the expiration date on the can was about six months in the past. I pointed this out to her, and she shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to open and devour the entire can. I thought she was crazy and told her as much, but she assured me the oranges tasted good, so she finished her can and we forgot about it…for about an hour. At that point, she started to look really pale, and she told me in a weak voice that she didn’t feel so good. She proceeded to throw up all over the place, and I later found out that’s what she did for the rest of the night and the next few days. Luckily, the spoiled food didn’t cause her more harm than temporary discomfort, but from that time on, she could never stomach mandarin oranges again.

I tell this little story because I think of that friend every time I go to open something that has been in my cupboards for a longer time than I think it should have been. I know plenty of die-hard people who test the limits of expiration dates and are just fine (my husband is particularly gutsy in this area), but this memory of my mandarin-orange-loving friend has kept me extremely suspicious of any food that has been around for a long time. For me to be able to eat my food storage, I have to know that it is still going to be good when the time comes to use it. This is my biggest motivator in having emergency food like Legacy Premium food that is made to last up to 25 years.

Not only does having food storage with a 25-year-shelf life protect you from unpleasant and dangerous conditions, it also makes your life in the interim between now and a disaster situation a whole lot easier. If you buy food storage items that are only going to last a few years, you are going to have to be very organized and worry about rotating things out frequently and replacing them with new items. If you are like me, you probably don’t have much room on your to-do list, and this is not a very appealing prospect. Also, having to rotate and replace emergency food can become an expensive habit. In contrast, if you invest in food that will last a quarter of a century, you will only have to worry about replacement a few times in your life.

I hope I’ve convinced you that the shelf life of food storage is a crucial consideration to make when you are buying emergency food, and there is simply no reason to settle for food that has a shelf life of less than 25 years. Be aware, though, that as you go out in search of long-term food storage, you are going to find that the food storage industry is filled with companies who make big claims they cannot back up. Many food storage companies claim their food has a shelf life of 25 years or more, but often their claims are simply fancy words to put on their label and make them look good. Some emergency food companies have simply not done their research when it comes to ingredients that keep, and they include ingredients in their emergency food that spoil after a short amount of time. Uneducated food buyers then end up with a worthless product after just a few years.

Through extensive research and years of experience, Legacy Premium has designed its emergency food to last 25 years. Because of our freeze-drying process, our meticulous oxygen-removal system, and our knowledge about the most effective ways to package and store emergency food, we are confident in our claim of a 25-year shelf life. But we don’t want you to just take our word for it. As consumers, it’s important that you know the factors that affect the shelf life of emergency food so that you can make informed decisions when you are building up your food store. In next week’s post, we’ll talk about these factors in detail, so stay tuned, and be prepared to learn a little more about what makes emergency food last and why Legacy Premium foods are the ultimate in long-term food storage.

Why Be GMO-Free?

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Perhaps you saw our recent groundbreaking announcement that Legacy Premium emergency foods are now 100% CERTIFIED GMO-free. If not, you can read the announcement right here. Legacy Premium is now the only company in the emergency food industry that can legitimately say we are certified GMO-free, and it’s a fact (in case you couldn’t tell) that we are very proud of. But why is this such a big deal? What’s all the fuss about genetically modified organisms? In case you don’t know, we’d like to offer an overview of genetic modification and its risks.

Genetically modified organisms are organisms that have been engineered by biotechnologists to have a unique genetic makeup not found in nature. Usually this means inserting genes from other organisms or deleting genes in the organism itself. Scientists have used genetic modification to create beneficial traits in plants that the plants do not have naturally, like resistance to pests, resistance to harsh environmental conditions like drought and frost, longer shelf lives, and better nutritional content. This is why packaged foods, and especially food that is meant to last a long time like emergency food, commonly contain genetically modified ingredients.

While genetically modifying foods to meet our needs may sound like a miracle human invention, genetic modification is not necessarily the wonder process it is made out to be by the big corporations who run it. Most importantly, there are concerns about whether or not genetically modified foods are safe and whether or not there is adequate testing and regulation of their use in modern food. In addition to safety concerns, genetic modification presents problems ecologically and economically for the farmers of the world.

The biggest people have about genetically modified foods is whether or not GMOs are safe. Some studies done have found that animals fed GMO-containing foods showed toxic and allergenic effects. Even if not all scientists agree on the effects GMOs can have, most of them agree that there is simply not enough research on the effects of GM food, and the testing that has been done has been insufficient. Testing and research right now lies primarily in the hands of the GM companies themselves because they hold the patents on their foods, and they, of course, motivated by money, tightly control the results that are shared with the public. The bottom line is that we don’t know enough, and it seems foolish and dangerous to jump headlong into incorporating genetically modified foods into everything we eat, which is what is happening in the U.S. right now, without knowing more.

In 2010, researchers from the University of Arkansas found genetically modified Franken-canola flowers that had spread all over the wild in North Dakota. In many cases, these human-created superweeds were resistant to herbicides. This was a scary finding because it suggested that genetically modified crops have the power to spread, meaning they could potentially overtake natural crops. Genetically modified crops taking over natural crops could be extremely detrimental for farmers, to say nothing of the disruption of the ecosystem and the reduction of biodiversity. The possibilities are also scary if these human-engineered plants cross-pollinated with other crops, which is bound to happen and already has been found happening, because they could result in new plants that we have no control over. It sounds a little like something out of Frankenstein—our human experiment getting out of our hands—but there are just too many unknowns with genetic modification.

There are also economic reasons to say no to genetically modified foods. In many parts of the world, farmers are suffering economically because of their growing dependence on GM seeds. Only a handful of large companies control the seed market, and in the U.S. it has been reported that those companies have limited selections of non-GMO seeds available and then raised the prices steeply on their GM seeds. Some farmers believe that GM seeds often produce a smaller yield and require more pesticide use, so the expenses add up quickly. It can be a dangerous game when large corporations have the power to patent and control the world’s food supply.

Genetic modification in foods is extremely common today, yet in the U.S., there is no requirement that GM foods be labeled as such, so we have no way of knowing what we are really eating. To avoid any possible harmful effects GMOs could cause to our bodies and to support farmers and the delicate ecological balance, the only safe practice is to buy foods that are labeled as certified GMO-free. No other company in the emergency food industry can say what we can: that they are certified free of genetically modified ingredients. You know that what goes into your food matters. If you want to protect your family by building up an emergency food supply, truly protect them with emergency food that is safe and nourishing, food whose origins you know.

Happy Customers, Prepared for Life

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It’s always exciting to receive customer feedback, especially when it’s customer feedback that confirms everything we’ve been saying about PrepareWise’s superiority to other emergency food for so long. Admittedly, we are a little biased. But you, as people simply trying to find the best quality and value in emergency food, are pretty fair-minded. So when you tell us our product is good, it has to be true.

Here is some feedback we received recently from Mark, an experienced prepper and happy buyer of PrepareWise emergency foods:

 

We received our PrepareWise food order on Monday morning. The shipping was free and the delivery time faster than several other vendors we have used in the past. We decided to try it right away for lunch because our morning was full of work.

As we began to prepare lunch, we looked at the buckets and realized several very innovative features: the bucket tops are designed to mate with the bottom of other buckets, creating a more stable stack, and the lids do not come off all the way, creating a better seal and no chance for damaging or misplacing the lid. All the foods are immaculately packaged in thick mylar, contain oxygen absorbers, and are vacuum-sealed.

The ingredients are clearly listed on each package, and to our amazement we can pronounce the names of all the ingredients. We have yet to find a label with an artificial or unhealthy ingredient.

Preparation was easy: Bring water to a boil, pour in food, and cook for 15-18 minutes, stirring occasionally.

We tried the fettuccini alfredo. I can tell you that I have had several other competing brands’ fettuccini alfredo and was sorely disappointed. Frankly, yours was delicious. We are now trying to unload some of the other companies’ food so we can buy more PrepareWise. My children, mother-in-law, and wife all commented on the deep flavor and great seasoning. We tried it plain without the addition of any seasoning or meat and it was great. My eight-year-old son suggested that we add chicken so we opened a can of white chicken meat, and it was filling and delicious. It was one of the quietest lunches we have ever had. The kids were too busy eating to talk. We liked it so much we had dinner last night and breakfast this morning from our PrepareWise foods inventory. We want to eat the food now so when we have no choice later it is familiar and expected.

Thanks for developing a relationship with Legacy Foods. We have already told several friends about the food and will be purchasing more next month. Not only is the food delicious, but PrepareWise is the best value for the dollar I have found the past five years of prepping.

Thanks,

Mark and the LoneStar Posse

Thank you, Mark, for the thumbs-up. We work hard to offer the highest quality ingredients and create the best-tasting emergency food available. We also think it’s vital that food storage be easy to prepare and convenient to store. It validates everything we do here when we hear from customers that we are fulfilling our mission and helping you in your efforts to provide well for your family.

We can talk forever about PrepareWise food storage and tout its superiority, but it’s never going to mean the same thing to you as when you hear it from a fellow customer.  Trust Mark—Once you try it, you’re going to have a hard time saving it for later.