How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It - James Wesley Rawles [31]
7. Powdered Milk: Buy the nonfat variety. Store about twenty pounds per adult, per year. For the longest storage life, it is best to buy nitrogen-packed dry milk from a storage-food vendor. That type has a shelf life of five or more years.
8. Canned Fruit and Vegetables: It is most economical (and good practice) to can your own. As long as you rotate continuously, you should lay in a two-year supply per family member. Quantities will depend on the ratio of fruit and vegetables in your preferred diet.
9. Canned Meats: Again, you must rotate continuously, and don’t store more than you would use in two years. I like the DAK brand canned hams.
10. Sugars: I prefer honey (except of course for infants), but depending on your taste, you will also want to lay in a supply of sugar, molasses, sorghum, maple syrup, and various jams and jellies. The combined weight of these should be about fifty pounds per adult, per year.
Nitrogen Packing
Nitrogen packing is good for roughly eight to ten years for most foods, and much longer for whole grains. I recommend buying commercially nitrogen-packed cans only for the items that don’t store well otherwise, e.g., dehydrated peas, powdered milk, peanut-butter powder, and textured vegetable protein (TVP).
Other Musts for Your Larder
Retort-Packaged Ultrahigh-Temperature Pasteurized Milk
For a short-term supply (up to six months), UHT (ultrahigh-temperature) pasteurized retort-packaged milk makes a lot of sense. For longer term, you should store nitrogen-packed canned powdered nonfat milk from a competent and reliable vendor such as Ready Made Resources or Walton Feed (waltonfeed .com). I have found that the nonfat variety stores the best because it is the butterfat in whole milk that goes rancid, significantly shortening the shelf life.
Rice and soy “milks” store even longer than cow milk. Like any other storage food, be sure to store retort-packaged “bricks” in the coolest (but not ever below freezing) part of your house, and away from vermin. Never stack individual retort bricks horizontally more than five bricks high, or vertically more than seven bricks high. Or, if storing them in their original factory shipping cardboard cases (of vertical bricks) no more than five cases high.
Multivitamins and Other Food Supplements
You should plan to supplement your foodstuffs with a good quality double-encapsulated multivitamin, a good-quality B-complex tablet, and a five-hundred-milligram vitamin C tablet. See Vitacost .com for some of the least expensive vitamins and nutritional supplements available via the Internet. Unconsumed vitamins should be replaced at least every three years. Store them in a cool, very dark place. Light kills vitamins quickly.
Store as many vitamins as you can rotate without exceeding expiration dates (roughly three to four years’ worth, unless you have an ultracold medical freezer). My only strong proviso is to avoid overdosing any of the fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K—best mnemonically memorized with the word KADE.)
Natural Laxatives
Your diet may shift heavily toward meat, and this could cause problems. Plan ahead. Bulk Metamucil is one option.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is crucial for healing following trauma, and it minimizes trauma-induced bruising. There is little harm in megadosing vitamin C, since any excess that the body does not need is passed through the urinary tract. Cumulatively, however, if megadosing is done frequently it might be hard on the kidneys, so be careful.
Peanut Butter
There are few sources of protein that are more compact for use in a Get Out Of Dodge (G.O.O.D.) bag than peanut butter. Survival Blog reader H. Hunter mentioned, “In a 40-ounce jar (typical large jar from a grocery store) of reduced-fat peanut butter there are 6,100 calories. Of course full-fat varieties would have more (about 7,000 calories). Beans, in the same container, would contain 1,200-2,000