You’re ready to crank up the food storage, and build out your year supply. Fantastic! Building up a well-fortified pantry is an important undertaking.
It’s important to remember however, that stocking up on emergency food supplies is a 2-fronted battle:
- Stocking up on things that you will actually eat, and
- Learning how to actually cook and eat the things that you stockpile.
In other words, don’t just stock up on 100 pounds of rice or dry beans if you don’t really know how to cook rice or beans. And at the same, you should learn how to actually cook and prepare rice and beans in some tasty ways that you like.
For many of us, #2 is probably a harder task. Compared to generations gone before, most of us are really far removed from cooking, especially cooking with the kind of raw, bulk ingredients that typically store really well. For that reason, I recommend collecting a handful of easy to prepare survival recipes, so that a “bucket o’ beans” isn’t just some weird thing in the pantry that we’ll figure out when we absolutely have to (bad idea).
- The Complete Survival Food Storage List for 1 Year
- Quick and Easy Meals (see items 1-5 above)
- Grains and Starches (see items 6-11 above)
- Proteins (see items 12-25 above)
- Soups (see items 26-32 above)
- Fruits (see items 33-35 above)
- Vegetables (see items 36-46 above)
- Sauces, Oils, and Condiments (see items 47-59 above)
- Shelf Stable Dairy (see items 60-65 above)
- Should Snacks and Luxuries (see items 66-78 above)
- Juices and Other Beverages (see items 79-83 above)
- Bulk Staples (see items 84-88 above)
- Freeze Dried Emergency Foods (see items 89-91 above)
- Baking Ingredients (see items 92-108 above)
- Vitamins and Supplements
- Animal and Pet Food Storage
- Criteria for Choosing Your Emergency Food Supplies
- Survival Food Storage and Preservation Supplies
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Ready to Get Going?
The Complete Survival Food Storage List for 1 Year
This guide provides you with our complete survival food list, our recommendations on supplies for creating and preserving your own long term foods, criteria to look for when you’re building your food storage, and answers to the most frequently asked questions.
To begin, here is the complete long term food storage list to compile your 1 year supply:
- Waffle/Pancake Mixes
- Stovetop Meals and Stuffing
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Potatoes Au Gratin
- Canned Spaghetti, Ravioli and similar products (think Chef Boyardee)
- Bulk Pastas and Noodles – spaghetti, macaroni, fettuccine, linguini
- Couscous
- Bulk Instant Potatoes
- Cereals: In particular, think about stuff like shredded wheat (some decent nutritional value)
- Oatmeal
- Instant Rice Mixes
- Canned Beans – You can get these much cheaper in dry bulk, but they will require a lengthy cooking process. We recommend having at least a small supply of canned beans that are ready to open and eat right awayBlack Beans
- Refried Beans
- Pinto Beans
- Garbanzo Beans (also called chickpeas)
- Baked Beans
- White Beans
- Kidney Beans
- Butter Beans
- Peanut Butter and Other Nut Butters.
- Almond Butter
- Cashew Butter
- Sunbutter (from sunflower seeds)
- Dehydrated Peanut Butter (even longer shelf life)
- Protein Bars
- Protein Powder and Shake Mixes
- Canned Beef
- Canned Turkey
- Canned Chicken
- Tuna
- Salmon
- Spam
- Vienna Sausages
- Hot Dogs and Cured Sausages
- Dehydrated eggs
- Boxed Tofu
- Canned Soups
- Dried Soup Mixes
- Make your own Rice and Bean Survival Soups (or “Garbage Soup”)
- Ramen Noodles
- Canned Chili
- Stews
- Chowders
- Dried Fruits and Fruit Leathers
- Canned Fruits
- Jams, Jellies, and PreservesStrawberry
- V8 and similar vegetable juices
- Canned Tomatoes
- Canned Pumpkin
- Carrots
- Green Beans
- Corn
- Beets
- Peas
- Asparagus
- Mixed Vegetables
- Potatoes
- Salad Dressings
- BBQ Sauce
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Mayonnaise
- Relish
- Soy Sauce
- Tabasco
- Olive Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Lard
- Organic Shortening
- Syrup
- Evaporated Milk or Sweetened Condensed Milk (key difference is that, like the name says, condensed milk is usually sweetened).
- Powdered Milk
- Powdered Whey
- Shelf Stable Butter
- Ghee
- Shelf Stable Cheeses
- Granola Bars
- Popcorn
- Beef Jerky
- Pemmican
- Crackers
- Cookies
- Trail mix
- Hard Cheeses Encased in Wax (can keep up to 25 years!)
- Pickles (if you’re able to find varieties in a can, less potential for glass breaking)
- Hard Candy
- Nuts: because of the amount of fat in nuts, they are not shelf stable for extremely long periods of time
- Chocolate or Chocolate Chips – If you have the other bases covered, stash away a little something to help the morale (usually only last about a year).
- Salsa
- Sports Drinks and Powdered Drink Mixes
- Coffee
- Teas
- Hot Chocolate
- Ovaltine
- Dry Beans
- Hard Grains – These grains have a hard protective shell, enabling them to be stored upwards of 25 years.
- Soft Grains – Like the name would suggest, these grains have a softer shell, and if stored properly, can have a shelf life of 8 years or more.
- Legumes
- Rice – one important thing to note is that even though brown rice is more nutritious, the shelf last is far less than white, Basmati, or Jasmine rice, making them better for long term storage.
- Freeze dried fruit: Great source of fiber and anti-oxidants. Pick up the bulk fruit bucket, or choose individual fruits, such as:
- Freeze dried vegetables
- Freeze dried meat
- Flour (preferably Whole Wheat Flour). Storing some actual wheat is also a great idea if you have a grinder (see bulk staples above).
- Cornmeal
- Grits
- Sugar
- Molasses
- Iodized Salt
- Spices and Seasonings
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Leavening – Remember, this is what brings life to all of your dry storage for baking.
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Yeast (live culture, difficult to store)
- Bread Mixes
- Coconut Milk or Coconut Milk Powder
- Bullion Cubes
- Vegetable, Beef, or Chicken Stock
- Bread Crumbs
- Cornstarch or Potato Flour – thickening agent, also great for breading fish, vegetables, and other baked and fried items.
- Honey: Local is better if you can find it, but honey makes a great sugar substitute, and has several anti-bacterial and immunity properties.
- Cocoa Powder
Quick and Easy Meals (see items 1-5 above)
The first thing that you’ll want to consider when you’re assembling your food storage items is a supply of some easy to make, good-tasting, box and can entrees. Soups can also fall into this category.
No these aren’t usually “healthy” by any stretch of the imagination, but they are quick, foolproof, and delicious. When things are hectic and falling apart, you don’t want to be soaking black beans for 3 hours or worrying about baking bread from scratch.
The name of the game with these meals is throwing something together to easily fill the family’s stomachs, so you can regroup and figure out your next move.
Grains and Starches (see items 6-11 above)
Only a small step removed from the “Quick and Easy Meals” category above, grains and starches are incredibly long lasting, and typically easier cooking than lots of other things.
They are inexpensive and should ultimately be the backbone of your long term storage. They are usually carb heavy and a good source of quick energy, although better if they can be coupled with proteins, sauces, and veggies to make them more tasty and nutritious.
Proteins (see items 12-25 above)
Proteins are the building blocks you need to create and repair cells. While it is definitely possible to get protein from plant sources such as beans, nuts and grains, the largest and most prevalent sources of proteins stem from animals.
Canned meats offer an inexpensive and long lasting way to incorporate some protein into your long term food storage. Jerky is a tasty but expensive and less shelf stable source of protein (making it more of a snack or luxury item than a staple).
Over the last couple of decades, protein shakes and bars have become increasingly popular, and also provide a quick and easy way to get some protein on the go.
Soups (see items 26-32 above)
Soups are a time-honored way of filling up stomachs. Need to feed a couple more people on the fly? Easy! Just add more liquid and water it down.
Historically, soup has been the food of people in extreme poverty, people trying to extend wartime rations, or otherwise down on their luck. Today however, there are a lot of options to stock delicious and satisfying soups. Soup is also an awesome survival food, because it’s easy to prepare, and in most cases, very shelf stable.
Fruits (see items 33-35 above)
Fruits add a little punch of sugar that makes everything taste better. You can add fruits to oatmeal in the morning, eat them as snacks, or couple them with proteins (think peanut butter and jelly, trail mixes, even combos like turkey and cranberry or applesauce and ham).
In addition to being great-tasting, fruits add legit dietary value–vitamin C, potassium, iron, fiber, vitamin A, antioxidants and others (although some nutrients can be lost in preservation). The ideal fruit situation is to have access to fruit trees. That way, it really doesn’t matter if there is an emergency or not. But if you don’t, there are dried and canned varieties you can easily stock up on.
Keep in mind, dried fruits don’t have near the shelf life that anything canned will. Also, if you do have access to your own fresh fruit, drying and canning are 2 very easy ways to preserve (see preservation supplies below).
Vegetables (see items 36-46 above)
Vegetables offer fiber and micronutrients, but depending on what you store they can also be a decent source of calories as well.
Focus on pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and other root crops for the highest calories. Although these are less common for lots of westerners to regularly eat, with the right preparation and seasonings, they are delicious and filling.
Sauces, Oils, and Condiments (see items 47-59 above)
The sauce and condiment family offers flavors and variety to an otherwise boring long term emergency food supply. Oils will provide you with energy, are loaded with calories, and essential in baking and cooking.
The key issue here is shelf stability. Coconut oil is actually one of the longer storing oils, lasting roughly 2 years on the shelf. Bottom line–be sure you know how long each item will last, label clearly, and remember to rotate.
Shelf Stable Dairy (see items 60-65 above)
If you’re a hardcore homesteader, you may have a goat or cow that you can milk, but for the rest of us, a few dairy staples can go a long way. Powdered milk (or “whole milk powder”) can be used for drinking. It can also be used for baking, as can powdered eggs, evaporated milk, and whey (the lighter part of the milk that separates from the curds in processing…awesome protein, with virtually no fat).
Shelf stable cheeses are further out on the luxury spectrum, but can add some punch and pizzazz if you have the money and space for them. These include things like powdered Parmesan cheese, as well as hard cheeses encased in wax. Depending on what kind of cheese it is, and how well the processing is done, cheese preserved in this way can last 10-25 years.
Should Snacks and Luxuries (see items 66-78 above)
While snacks often aren’t quite as nutritive or healthy, they are comforting, and a nice little bit of energy in between meals. They fall lower in the survival food priority list, but if you have most of your other bases covered, it’s still not a bad idea to incorporate a couple into your preps if you can.
A word about “pemmican”: don’t buy the stupid prepper course floating around out there about how to make your own pemmican. The goal is to put together reliable food storage that will serve you well, meet your nutritional needs, be affordable, and be as simple as possible. The pemmican course is an expensive marketing offering detailing a complicated DIY project. Don’t get distracted by this–stay the course.
Juices and Other Beverages (see items 79-83 above)
Drinks can provide some variety and nutritional value to your food storage diet, but they are also just tasty. Think about how nice that steaming hot cup of hot chocolate is on a cold wintery day. Or for many folks, coffee and tea are a comforting part of a daily routine.
Drinks also offer a hit of energy and/or nutrition on the go. Think of this section as an “additional” layer that you can add to your preps, but not life or death.
Bulk Staples (see items 84-88 above)
At long last, we reach the “textbook” survival foods. Rice and beans. Hard wheat berries that last 25 years. Grains you’ve never heard of and have no idea how to pronounce.
Bulk staples are in the intersection of the cheapest and longest lasting long term food storage. Beans in particular, are high calorie, versatile to use, and can even be sprouted for a little fresh nutrition or the survival garden.
But the tradeoff is that they take a little while to learn how to cook and prepare. And even once you know, they can be the most time-consuming and involved to cook and prepared. Many beans need to pre-soak for a few hours, and then still cook for an hour or more. Unless you are using a rice cooker, rice can take quite a while to cook as well.
Freeze Dried Emergency Foods (see items 89-91 above)
Freeze-dried foods are lighter, more compact, and better tasting than their canned food counterparts.
They can be made shelf-stable for several years (sometimes decades), oftentimes with much of the nutritional value preserved. They also typically taste better!
However, they are more expensive, and take longer to prepare (reconstitute and cook vs. open a can). Freeze dried fruits are a notable exception, and popular because you really don’t need to reconstitute them to enjoy. You can snack on a handful here and there.
Baking Ingredients (see items 92-108 above)
While these fall lower on the list, having the ability to bake some fresh food gives you better taste, and the ability to store food infinitely longer than you would’ve been able to in its “already baked” form.
Vitamins and Supplements
When you’re on a diet with very few fresh/living foods, vitamin supplements can help. A good multivitamin is a nice start. Remember that there are specific multivitamins for men and women.
Vitamin D and Calcium are great for helping your body fight infections. Magnesium helps to counteract the wear that ongoing adrenaline and stress puts on your body. Other vitamins help your body to more effectively absorb nutrients, replenish itself and more.
Animal and Pet Food Storage
Don’t forget about the critters in your life! For many of us, our 4-footed friends are every bit as much family members as everybody else. Accordingly, ramping up on food storage for your animals is critical to think about ahead of time.
The expense here will vary greatly between cats, large dogs, and livestock. It’s also important to note that because of included proteins, many cat and dog foods are not shelf stable for longer than a few months.
Criteria for Choosing Your Emergency Food Supplies
Survival Food Should Be Easy To Prepare
Think about how involved. How much cooking? How much fuel will this take? How much water will you need to prepare it? What if you don’t have access to a modern kitchen? Can you cook and prepare your foods using alternative methods, like a wood burning cookstove, solar oven, or campfire? This is one reason why canned foods are such all stars–open and eat!
It Needs To Have a Long Shelf Life
If your food doesn’t last long enough to be of value when you actually need it, what’s the point?
While it’s important to remember your food storage enough to be rotating it, for it to truly be “survival food”, it should be something that can give you years–decades if possible.
It Should Be Affordable
Food storage isn’t supposed to be gourmet, and neither should it be expensive. Food storage is supposed to keep you and your family alive during lean times when you might otherwise starve.
It should be affordable enough that you can build up a decent quantity over time without breaking the bank. In the list above, some items are more “critical” than others (like the “Snacks and Luxuries” section for instance). Be mindful of this as you stock up.
Long Term Food Storage Should Be As Nutritionally Dense As Possible
Architects often talk about the “function” vs. “form” of a building. With food, nutrition is the “function”, and taste is the “form.”
While usually there is some middle ground, it’s particularly important to prioritize nutrition for food that you may be eating in a survival situation. As much as possible, the goal is to stock up foods that will actual give you fuel and keep you going.
Think About The Overall “Storability” of Your Food Storage
Although it’s low on the list, it’s an important consideration nonetheless. Storability has to do with the size, weight, and shape of certain foods.
Avoid glass jars whenever possible (obviously not possible when you are canning your own food, but something you can get around when you are buying store bought food). Glass jars present the added risk of breaking and damaging your food, the broken glass is dangerous to humans and pets, and glass bottles and jars are also easier to become contaminated in hurricane and flooding situations than their can counterparts.
Survival Food Storage and Preservation Supplies
If you are trying to build up the best emergency food storage possible, there are a handful of supplies that can assist enormously in the process:
Food Storage Buckets
Food storage buckets are a no-brainer, but there are some important things to keep in mind. First of all, the buckets must be “food grade”, to ensure that there is no leaching of the plastic or toxins. Then, remember that the more waterproof and airtight you can keep your buckets, the better and quality and longer time you will be able to preserve your food.
Finally, the bigger your buckets are, the heavier they will end up being. There are 6-gallon food storage buckets on the market, but obviously one of these that’s filled to the brim is going to be much heavier than a 5-gallon.
Likewise, you can find smaller buckets that will be even lighter. You can usually find buckets around town, or you can score them on Amazon here.
Gamma Seal Lids
You may have heard of Gamma seal lids before. These are the best lids for your food grade buckets. They make buckets both waterproof and airtight, to ensure the absolute longest possible shelf life for your food.
You can find Gamma lids at Lowes, Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, and several other places. You can also get them shipped directly to your house by purchasing them from online.
Mylar Food Storage Bags
While the shelf life of food stored in mylar food storage bags isn’t quite as long as food in buckets or #10 cans, it is excellent for situations where you want a little more flexibility. It’s also a lighter container, so food stored this way can be a little more portable if you need to box it up or throw it in suitcases.
Some folks that really want to ensure food preservation quality, will even store food in mylar bags, that they then put inside of 5 gallon buckets.
See the lowest prices on these bags here.
Dried Long Term Food Storage Containers
There are a variety of dried food storage containers that you can use to extend the shelf life of your food. 5-gallon buckets are obviously one of the most common, because of their sturdiness, versatility, and large capacity. But as mentioned before, mylar bags and #10 cans are also popular.
Above and beyond that, it’s obviously possible to store food in any container you want. The major factors are that the containers are: food grade, waterproof, and airtight. The more that your long term food storage containers meet this criteria, the longer your food will keep. Here is a selection of some of the most popular choices for containers to keep your long term food storage in.
Pressure Canners
A solid pressure canner is a must for anybody that is serious about preserving their own food. While hot water bath canning is excellent for fruit, tomatoes, and other foods with higher acidity, pressure canning allows you to preserve foods like meat, soup, and vegetables.
The process is slightly more involved and involves extreme temps, but the outcome is that you will be able to shelf a much bigger variety of high quality food with a pressure canner.
Food Dehydrators
As the name implies, a food dehydrator works by eliminating the moisture from your food, so that it can be stored for longer periods of time without spoiling. It can also make some foods more transportable and easy to eat.
Think about it–it would be a little difficult to throw a steak in your backpack to eat for lunch, but with food dehydrators it’s easy to make some beef jerky. The same is true of many foods.
Dehydrators are particularly awesome for making jerky and dried fruit. Once dehydrated, your food can be stored for months or years, particularly if you have a means of vacuum sealing it, or otherwise keeping it air tight. Later, you can enjoy your food in it’s dried form, or if you want, you can rehydrated it with water (usually for things you will be using in cooking).
The Excalibur is the gold standard of food dehydrators. Although they are not cheap, they are seriously high quality, and the company stands behind their products with a fantastic warranty.
Vacuum Sealers
A vacuum sealer allows you to package up the food that you are planning to store in a water-tight, air-tight container. They are great for meats and veggies that will be kept in the freezer. They are also good for dry ingredients that need a more durable or air-tight seal than the packaging that they were sold in. These machines look kind of like a laminator, and work similar too.
Check out the best sealers for food storage here.
Wheat Grinders and Grain Mills
If you will be storing whole wheat and other grains, a wheat grinder allows you to process them into flour, for cooking. People have been turning grains into flour since the beginning of time, so it’s fair to say that there are a bunch out there on the market today. The absolute best however, is the Country Living Grain Mill.
I have had one of these since 2012, and it is awesome. For starters, it can be used as either a hand-cranked grinder, or you can power it with a small motor. There’s even a belt attachment to hook it up with a bicycle, so the grinder is cranked as you pedal! This flexibility is great for emergency situations, because you might not actually have electricity when you want to use it.
The construction is also really heavy duty. They are American-made of solid, aircraft aluminum. The bearings that turn the crank are industrial level, and the cutters inside are made of high-quality, high-carbon steel (so they won’t dull quickly). The powder coatings are all FDA approved to be food safe. I also really like that it has the options to temporarily clamp it to your kitchen counter, or permanently bolt it in.
These suckers aren’t cheap (like, several hundred bucks not cheap), but they are hands down, the best, and will last throughout generations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What plans should I make for water on my survival food list?
Simply put, water is liquid life. Having it will keep you alive longer than any food, and conversely, not having it will kill you quicker than starvation. Another really important thing to consider is that you will use a significant amount of water in cooking (especially if you will be reconstituting anything dehydrated). If you really want to make sure you have this base covered, you need to have some water stored (multiple sized containers), a means of resupplying (rainwater collection, well, stream, nearby pond, lake, etc), and reliable means of purification (I recommend the Lifestraw or Aquamira Frontier Pro for your bug out bag, and the Berkey for your home). If possible, a bathtub water storage bladder like a WaterBob gives you the capacity to store 100 extra gallons, although you do need a few minutes notice to get it out and set up.
How much rice should I have on my food storage list?
Rice is one of the better foods to store because of its low cost and long shelf life. Families should store at least 300 pounds of grains per person, of which 25-60 pounds should be rice. This provides a solid staple food store that can be built around.
How do you store survival food for a disaster?
Long term food storage should be shelf stable for the long term (as long as 25 years in some cases). It is best stored in air-tight, water-tight containers in cool, dark places. Some of the most effective and convenient ways to store bulk staples (such as rice, pasta, and other grains) are in sealed number 10 cans, or plastic 5-gallon buckets. The amount of light and heat in the storage area has a direct relationship to the time it takes for food stores to break down and/or spoil.
How do I stock up on food storage without breaking the bank?
There’s a few different ways to build up a year’s supply of food. You can:
- Piece together your long term food supply a little bit at a time, stocking cans and freeze-dried items from a survival food list (little by little or bulk sale)
- For the people that are really ambitious, you can preserve your own long term food storage through canning, dehydrating, and more.
- Buy some commercially manufactured, pre-packaged “survival food.” Convenient, tasty, and well thought out, but also more expensive.
Most people don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars to plunk down on food storage all at once, so the best way to get cheap survival food is to assemble it a little at a time, when there are case lot sales, or other specials.
We recommend a layered, combination approach. Lots of “little by little” grocery store food, some of your own preservation, and at least a small assortment of the expensive, freeze-dried pouch meals (these are awesome in bug out bags also).
What are the best canned foods to store for survival?
This is a great question. The best canned foods to store are meats (see the protein section above) and vegetables. The reasons why are simple. These are the hardest kinds of food to get otherwise.
Unlike pasta, rice, and other carbs, meats and vegetables are much more expensive in their freeze-dried or dehydrated forms. Our advice is to incorporate them in their canned form as part of a well rounded long term food supply.
There are also plenty of soups, pastas, and other convenience foods, but remember, many of these can be had cheaper and lighter in a dehydrated form. Lastly, don’t forget a can opener!
Ready to Get Going?
Good! We’re excited to be with you on the journey of helping your family be more prepared.
Feeding a family is a big responsibility, so it’s good to be thinking about it. Like you know, there are a number of things that could happen to disrupt the food supply of grocery stores and distributors that service your area–floods, fires, earthquakes, or economic crises.
But there are also “personal disasters” that can affect you and your family, whether or not anybody else ever even knows about them. These are things like job losses, illnesses, injuries, car accidents, or death in the family. During these times, having the best survival food supply possible is a wonderful blessing. Even 1-2 weeks’ worth of food can really ease the financial pressure of the moment. Having several months or year’s worth of food on hand–even better!
So before you get started however, a couple of final reminders:
First, if it’s possible, it’s great to have your stored food be a balance of:
- True “emergency” food – think food bars, MREs, Mountain House meals, and other freeze-dried pouch meals. Things you can be eating in less than 5 minutes.
- Short term “regular” food – things that can be eaten easily in the short term (cans, box dinners, and other things that you would normally get at a grocery store)
- Hardcore “long term” food storage – This is your dry bulk food, stuff like 25 pounds of beans, or “hard red wheat berries” that provides shelf-stable calories for decades if needed.
And second, remember that nobody else has a perfect “formula” for YOUR family.
Because so many people get intimidated out of taking any action, we recommend that you do a little of everything. In reality, storing food is less about following some specific recipe, and more about heading in a general direction. And at the end of the day, the goal is to do it in the way that best fits you and your family.
This is sooo Brilliant MsKYprepper!
It should be in everyone’s Survival Binder!
Bev :)
MsKY – well done!
I realize this is a “yes, you can prep!” and really intended as a “just get started” directive. I believe it is very well done for that purpose. I would encourage people who have not yet made sufficient (or even, “any”) preps to start here, but, don’t stop here. This is not exactly “healthy” eating, and eating in an unhealthy way will produce new health problems, or exacerbate existing ones, when SHTF. So, yes, do this – it’s an EXCELLENT starting place – then add healthy choices to the mix, as time and resources permit.
The bouillon is likely to contain as a primary ingredient – salt – so keep that in mind when cooking with it.
One caution about the beans: they need to be soaked for several hours and the soak water poured off; then rinse thoroughly, then add fresh water before cooking.
All beans contain this chemical, but red kidney are the worst offenders. Lima beans also contain a chemical (another name) that requires soaking off for the same reason.
Here is an excerpt from livestrong.com that may help someone:
Even though red kidney beans are extremely nutritious, they contain a chemical known as phytohemagglutinin. Red kidney beans have the highest content of this chemical of all of the types of beans. This toxin is a type of lectin, or a protein that has an affinity for binding to certain types of sugars. Symptoms of its toxicity include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. These symptoms can occur within an hour or two after consumption, and the effects last for several hours. Call your doctor if you experience these symptoms.
Proper Preparation
Raw kidney beans are high in phytohemagglutinin, but the compound is almost completely degraded when the beans are cooked properly. It only takes 10 minutes in boiling water to degrade the toxin, which is much less time than it takes to fully cook the beans. Be careful when you prepare kidney beans in a slow cooker, because the temperature does not get high enough to fully degrade the toxin. Though you can cook most other beans in a slow cooker, it is best to cook kidney beans in boiling water.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/478846-are-raw-kidney-beans-toxic/#ixzz2L4Ju4alO
On another subject altogether, I understand Libtard Ashley Judd is running for office in Kaintuck. Hope she gets disappointed at the polls.
From frat parties to garden parties, Judd-jokes make people laugh, around here.
I don’t reckon you can post those here. Dang. Too bad. :Smile:
Good suggestions MsKYprepper! I’m like you, got to have some cornmeal in that 8th bucket for cornbread.
We have a lot of pinto beans stored the same way. You could substitute pintos for kidney beans, depending on your taste.
One other suggestion you might want in that 8th bucket, is store some hard candy, peppermint, etc. in small 1-2 Mylar bags, sealed with oxygen absorbers. We have a 5 gal bucket of small bags filled with different hard candies.
cornmeal makes great bread, grits, and “polenta” (corn meal mush), as well! Fried polenta is excellent with everything, IMHO! Oh, yeah….get yourself an oil press (about $150 to $200) so you can press nuts, etc., and make oil when SHTF!
You are absolutely on the right track. Your method of sealing buckets in impeccable. You have a pretty good ratio of grains (112 pounds) to legumes (55 pounds). But I fear you are woefully short on the quantity you need. You are going to need four times as much for just one adult. The minimum recommended amount of salt is 5 pounds per person per year. I about gagged when I first read that but after a year of eating only “from scratch”, I realized just how much salt we get from processed foods. When planning for the long term, children should be considered adults just in case they are adults when you need to use it.
well, if using the “out of the bucket” recipe, you also have to remember that the grocery-store boullion is about 90% salt – that works into the equation, as well.
You DO need plain ol’ iodized salt from the grocery store, unless you are fishing in the ocean for a lot of your food. If it’s for making it palatable, as opposed to just a ‘nutrition delivery system'( you need salt, or you’ll die) , also consider storing a bunch of Kosher salt and or some natural sea salt (and some real, fermented soy sauce) in the preps. I find that if takes a little more than half the “salt”, because it just works better, if your are worried about sodium-issues and health. (The Kosher salt also works a LOT better for curing meat)
I think you’re exactly right, Wyzyrd, and that was exactly the point – to get everyone who thinks they can’t afford it, who doesn’t know where to begin TO BEGIN. And it is a very good beginning!
This article was well-written–organized and clearly stated.
PLEASE READ!!!
The calories this provides is NOWHERE near enough for a single adult for a year. In fact at only 2000 calories a day it’s not even enough for THREE MONTHS for a SINGLE adult. And if you’re doing any kind of physical labor which is going to be very likely in a situation where you might need this, you’ll need 2400-3500 calories a day depending on exertion levels. The minimum average just to sustain health is 1500 calories a day at low physical output.
Beans and legumes are very low in calories. Typically only 600-900 per lb. The rice is your best calorie source in this at 1400 calories a pound but is almost pure starches.
If you stockpile this thinking it’s going to last one person 4 years or 4 people 1 year you’re going to die from hunger and malnutrition very quickly
Also the requirement for 5 lbs of IODIZED salt a year isn’t jsut for the sodium, it’s for the iodine content. Unless you’re eating a lot of fish or seaweeds you need iodine from some source or you’re going to develop iodine deficiency which isn’t a good thing.
As far as nutrition goes, the above ingredients, do not provide all the vitamins, minerals and micro nutrients you need to maintain good health.
I’m in agreement, Oldschool, regarding the potential health problems, but I think MsKY is trying to offer a way for those who scream, “I can’t afford this”, or, “I don’t know what to do!”, to get off their excuses and get started. This is why I have suggested it’s an excellent way to get started, but then you need to add more nutritious food supply. You gotta start somewhere, for those who just need a starting place.
Another way to get people “started” however, is to ask them to make a list of what they would need to eat and drink and survive for three (3) days. Help them acquire that EXTRA 3 DAYS – that doesn’t mean “pay for” – it means, walk with them as they git’erdone – even hold them “accountable”, if necessary – over and above what they would normally need, of course, since this is for storage, not use. When they have 3 days stored, help them (walk them through) expanding it to 7 days, then two (2) weeks, then…..this is usually a cheap, easy way to get people started in prepping.
I have been reading the comments with interest. When I read this article, I read it as not a complete diet, but a wonderful place to start your long term storage preps!
I can’t imagine a family of four sitting around doing nothing but depending on this source of food. I don’t see this as “bunker rations”. I see it as a realistic way to put by some “life assurance” at a reasonable price.
Now add wild edibles from foraging, fresh garden vegetables in the growing season, supplement with some trapped or fished protein, even edible insects (acceptable in most of the world), and now you have adequate calories. Add a few bottls of vitamins and you really don’t have any great nutrition worries for a year.
Considering that MOST people in the United States have only a week or two of food in their home. And most people do not have a budget to put by a quantity of food in long term storage, even if they are truly concerned about food security. I still consider this an Absolutely Brilliant addition to your survival preps! I will be adding this article to MY Survival Binder and I will be adding some of these foods to my long term storage which already includes a lot of these.
Along with my pantry foods storage, gardening, small stock raising, and wild edibles forage books, already stockpiled vitamins and medicines, I think this will round out my storage where I feel comfortable to proceed into the level of “comfort prepping”.
Bev :)
AWESOME STARTER KIT BUT I AGREE IT SHOULD NOT STOP THERE. GREAT INFO
I agree, with foraging you could possibly stretch this to 6 months for four people but that is a LOT of foraging.
Rather than poking holes in your plan let me suggest:
Fill 1 bucket with table salt probably about $12
1 bucket sugar $22 (honey would be optimal $125)
These 2 buckets combined with any normal spices you have in your cupboard will allow you to forage anything edible and improve the taste below gag factor.
5 pounds of pool shock $20 (make sure no algicides)
Your plan calls for a lot of water, might as well make it potable
A book “Edible wild plants” for your area $15
A .22 rifle and 1000 rounds of ammo $200
Varmints, dogs, birds and other tasties.
A good selection of heirloom seeds $50
Now you might make it a year if you live outside a city.
If you can find 1000 rounds of ammo (or, anywhere close to that amount), please let us know where.
Seriously I went to 4 places in the last week and 2 walmarts and they were sold out of .22 & 12 gauge rounds
This is a great starter list but I agree that its not good alone. Something is better than nothing but you can still starve from appetite fatique
I think everyone needs to see that this is a very, very good starter list, especially for family members who tell you “I can’t afford a Burt Gummer bunker and supplies”. Maybe, not perfect, but a dang good start for new preppers.
If I had to starve to death, “Not soup again..” sounds like a better way to go than “I tried cooking my boots last night, and that didn’t work…”
Wyzyrd –
If I had to starve to death, “Not soup again..” sounds like a better way to go than “I tried cooking my boots last night, and that didn’t work…”
The way you state truth cracks me up!!
:) There are SO many sites that tend to scream “Do it exactly THIS way, or you’ll die a horrible death with zombies eating your brain!”.
SCP shows lots of possibilities. If the readers laugh, too, maybe they’ll remember what they read :)
This reminds me of a great picture I have I’d love to share, but, I don’t think I can post it; I’ll send it to Bev – you’ll understand when you see it, Wyzyrd!
wonderful, servantheart :)
contact me i can hook you up
!!!!IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!!!
I did a nutritional analysis on this recipe:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/services/referral?messageKey=e42f52cdf9f9a98b014f9af24b42cc19
If you do not add any other meats, vegetables, potatoes or seasonings and do as the direction say (split this amongst four people and stretch it to two days), you get about 200 calories per person, per day. If an adult is completely sedentary he will still burn around 2,100 calories every day. And if the balloon goes up, he’ll burn much more; He’s doing lots of walking, lifting, digging, etc.
And that’s only considering calories. In my nutritional analysis, you’ll see that other nutrients (more than just B12) are sorely missing.
So yes, as it was said above, “use this as your starting point.” You _must_ store *significantly* more if you want a year’s worth of food. Definitely expect to add many more meats, vegetables, potatoes and seasonings. Especially meats, potatoes and fats.
Alternatively, you can consider this a three week supply. At the end of three weeks you’ll start to need some nutrients. Can those be added with a multivitamin? Perhaps. You’ll need to read its label and do the math.
DON’T GET ME WRONG! It’s a great recipe! Just needs _much_ more. You can use that website for free; You don’t even need to register. I’ve never found a more comprehensive yet free nutritional analysis tool.
Wow! Great info, CdeV! Thank you.
The Germans starved the Jews to death in the Warsaw Ghetto by allotting them only 250 calories per day from their “ration cards”.
This is a terrific article, thanks!
But I wonder about the recipe. I’m going to test it on a small batch before I invest in all of the food.
Won’t cooking white rice for two hours turn it into a mush?
I see there is no other answer, so, the best I can say is, I would think cooking white rice that long WOULD turn it into “mush”. One way to find out.
I DO stock white rice, but I don’t use a lot of it. I prefer brown rice, which does not keep as long, but it keeps much longer if you vacuum seal it and then drop it down in an airtight container, such as a metal food tin. I buy these in yard sales and resale shops. I bought an old metal tin bread keeper box yesterday for $5. Still good and airtight, even though it’s 1980’s blue with the duck design! Doesn’t matter.
You could also extend storage life by dropping original bag of rice down inside a mylar bag, throw in at least one 500cc OA (oxygen absorber) and seal (use a thin wooden rod and the tip of your iron to seal mylar). Use a marker to write contents and “best by” date on outside of mylar bag. These can be reused later.
I also stock a lot of wild rice, which I buy mostly at the Whole Foods Grocery, ONLY because it’s actually cheaper there than online, or from the “regular” grocery.
I mix 2 parts brown rice to 1 part white rice to 1/2 part wild rice for ALL rice recipes. The white rice “stretches” it a bit, but the brown and wild add serious nutritional value. Example: 2 cups brown rice + 1 cup white rice + 1/2 cup wild rice = 3 1/2 cups dry; cook with 7 cups water or liquid (rice cooking: 2 parts liquid to 1 part rice); this will feed a family of 4-6, depending on what you’re doing with it.
But I do have plenty of white rice. When SHTF, it will be one of the first things I start giving away to those who did nothing to prepare, along with beans, and whatever else I can spare, of course.
BTW, this may be an error in your storage numbers — the recipe calls for the rice/barley/peas proportions to be 8/2/1, and they’re actually 8/2/0.5 (ie. storage of split green peas and chickpeas should be 11lbs each and not 5.5lbs, right?). Either that or the recipe is wrong.
Absolutly , so what’s wrong ? recipe or storage ?
i want to be sure before buy this famous list as soon as possible !
like you i think is 11lbs each and not 5.5lbs.
11 lbs of split green peas = 1.75 gal
11 lbs of chickpeas = 2.25 gal (~)
4 five gal ans the last one for salt and bouillon
http://pages.infinit.net/pagesweb/equivalences/ing.htm
Confirmed ?
Great article, but as others have pointed out, WAY short on calories. If you just analyze the staples (not counting calories in boullion) this yields only 280,000 calories, or about 770 calories per day for one year. No way you can feed one person for a year on this let alone four. To get to the number needed for working adults (well maybe not all winter) of 3,000/day and 2 kids at 2,000/day, you would need to increase this by a factor of 13 or so. But, this recipe would make a GREAT meal in a bag. Just dump in the rice 20 minutes before the beans are done.
BTW- anyone figured out how to soften 10 year old stored legumes???
Have you tried soaking them for long periods (several hours)? Perhaps even overnight, depending on the bean? Be sure to pour this water off, rinse thoroughly, and use fresh water before cooking.
I experimented with this problem over several months. Fed a lot of beans to the chickens. Here’s my final solution: Start with the ‘quick soak’ method where you bring them to a boil then turn it off and let them soak. Leave them alone for 24 hours. Rinse and cook on low (woodstove or crockpot works great) for 8+ hours. Rinse again and Drain. Fill quart canning jars half way with beans, top to 1/2 inch with boiling water, add 1/4 teaspoon of canning salt. Process at 10 pounds for 90 minutes in a pressure canner.
Jars opened in 3 months were better than jars opened in 3 weeks. Obviously, cook them again in your recipe.
THANKS!!! Many many preppers are going to need this advice when they open up those sealed bins of beans that have been sitting there for years.
Will those OLD beans sprout? I’ve found that sprouting red beans before they are cooked (takes about 5 days) makes them cook a lot faster.
I don’t know about sprouting before you cook, but it probably is NOT wise to sprout red kidney beans, at all. There are many varieties and legumes that are safe to sprout, but, red kidney beans are not one of them. Red kidney beans need to be soaked for several hours, water poured off, rinsed thoroughly, and fresh water added; bring to a boil and boil a minimum of 10 minutes.
Here’s why:
Even though red kidney beans are extremely nutritious, they contain a chemical known as phytohemagglutinin. Red kidney beans have the highest content of this chemical of all of the types of beans. This toxin is a type of lectin, or a protein that has an affinity for binding to certain types of sugars. Symptoms of its toxicity include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. These symptoms can occur within an hour or two after consumption, and the effects last for several hours. Call your doctor if you experience these symptoms.
Raw kidney beans are high in phytohemagglutinin, but the compound is almost completely degraded when the beans are cooked properly. It only takes 10 minutes in boiling water to degrade the toxin, which is much less time than it takes to fully cook the beans. Be careful when you prepare kidney beans in a slow cooker, because the temperature does not get high enough to fully degrade the toxin. Though you can cook most other beans in a slow cooker, it is best to cook kidney beans in boiling water.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/478846-are-raw-kidney-beans-toxic/#ixzz2L4Ju4alO
Lima beans also contain a toxin (a different chemical) and should be treated in pretty much the same way as red kidney beans.
I’m not suggesting that we eat raw sprouted kidney beans; I can’t imagine they would taste very good. BUT there ARE how-to websites out there on bean sprouting (http://www.ehow.com/how_5649239_sprout-kidney-beans.html) You say that this dangerous phyto-chemical is degraded when cooked. The idea was to sprout the beans first, then cook them–they are actually more nutritious that way because sprouting activates vitamin and enzyme production in the seed. My question was whether OLD beans would sprout (like 30-year-old wheat does). If so, it might be a solution to the “hard bean” problem.
Pressure cook them after soaking a day, probably 20 minutes at 12 lbs
MsKYprepper – Congratulations on the interest, thought provocation and exchange you’ve created here! You have done a magnificent job churning the brain juice.
I agree Pam. Great job MsKYprepper!!!
Rourke
I agree with Pam and Rourke, what a WONDERFUL article to get people thinking and sharing!
SHARING is what SCP is All About! AND respecting other people’s opinions and experiences. Preparedness is SO Individual! It is about YOU and YOUR Family. What will work for you and what won’t. And as Wyzyrd said (paraphrased) soup from boots just doesn’t sound as appetizing!
This article is also Not meant to address self-defense, medicine, etc. Just a good, inexpensive, basic starting point for long term food storage to assure that you have something to sustain you while coping with a SHTF event.
Bev :)
in the recipe : the rice/barley/peas proportions are 8/2/1 BUT
in the storage they’re actually 8/2/0.5
so what’s wrong ? recipe or storage ?
There are ways to make this last a bit longer by spouting and scavenging, but in my family this would be about a 2 to 4 months supply and not a very good one.
I was invited to share after Rourke asked some of us to, well, let me quote:
“Though the math may not add up – the articles premise is correct and is a STARTING PLACE. The trolls that have a feeding frenzy on other peoples hard work and efforts to help the sheeple ought to join the cause. Go to the site – leave some comments to HELP – rather than ridicule. Maybe even offer up an article or 12 to pass on your knowledge and expertise.”
Rourke’
Please take this the right way. If you follow the premise in this article, you will starve to death. Period! Despite what the article claims, it is void of not only calories but,fundamental nutrition.
For those of you that think this is a brilliant,”pack it and forget it” plan are not seeing the big picture. The article is full of erroneous info. This is NOT even close to complete nutrition, for four, for a year.
Yeah, I have heard the “starting point” premise but, that is not what the article states. It states that this soup mix is all you need outside of some dairy and B-12. Hogwash. Want to run some numbers? I didn’t think so but, here goes anyway:
Summary, per month for one person:
.875 lbs rice
1/2 lb kidney beans
1/2 lb barley
1/2 lb yellow lentils
1.8 oz split peas
1.8 oz garbanzo beans
1/3 oz salt
a bit of bouillon
Tell me that is enough, want more? Good.
Per day servings, COOKED volume: NOTE: not per meal, but per DAY
1/4 cup rice
1/5 cup beans
1 2/3 teaspoons oatmeal
3/4 teaspoon meat
2 2/3 jelly beans
Sure, this may be a starting point for some. But, the article is misleading and its assumptions are erroneous at best and dangerous otherwise. I do not want anyone to take this article as a base for prepping. If you follow what it says and leave it at that, you will be in very rough shape when it is called upon. I think it irresponsible to let an article to appear in this format. I would suggest the author or site owner edit it….considerably. Lest someone take it at face value and think they are OK as long as they have this soup blend.
With all respect,
MTShawn
PS. I lived a year on preps with 0 income. One thing I know…is storing food.
Yet, in light of some hard numbers and pretty solid evidence that one cannot live on this blend, no matter how much B12 and Dairy is added; The original Blog article stands as written. Why? Someone Googles and finds this article and preps accordingly. With this soup blend and a bucket of powdered milk and a few jars of B12, they WILL die. I think it is a fair question. You and I both know that people don’t read all comments. There is no disclaimer or correction to the article.
It is a fair question.
MTShawn –
Answer – I am a busy guy. Check again.
Rourke
So, MTShawn, are you writing your suggestions for a better way to do this yet? I’m really anxious to hear your suggestions and recommendations. Maybe even a detailed “how to”?
Thanks Rourke, not for me but, for those that read this site. :) People HAVE to know that. I know you are busy as am I.