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Survival Food Storage Tips

When storing your survival foods for the long term, you have several survival food storage options. You need to review these options and consider the pros and cons of each.

The Survival Food Storage Container types:

Food Grade HDPE Plastic Containers

You can store food in large (approxmiately 5 gallons) high-density polyethylene or HDPE plastic buckets. These buckets have tight-fitting lids.

These containers are great for bulk storage of basic survival foods like beans, rice, sugar, flour etc. I would recommend getting mylar liners if you do use this option as it will help to keep moisture and oxygen out of your food.

#10 Food Storage Cans

Most freeze dried foods purchased from major suppliers use #10 cans for their survival food.

The advantage to these cans is that you get a longer shelf life (vs pouches) of about 25 years.

The cans hold approximately 1 gallon and will have an enamel coating on the inside and outside. Many of the survival food suppliers provide a plastic lid with their supplies. If they do not I would recommend you purchase extra lids.

Mylar Bags

Mylar bags are great for lining large buckets to help prevent oxygen from leaching into your supplies and help to prevent nitrogen from leaving also.

I would strongly recommend using mylar bags if you use HDPE buckets, as oxygen can still leach into the bucket over time (even if you keep it sealed).

Another great thing with mylar bags is that you can use a hot iron to seal them, offering another barrier of protection for your food. If you do this, I would recommend you use an oxygen absorber packet before you seal your mylar survival food storage bag.

Pouches

Some survival foods like Wise Foods offer freeze dried foods in mylar pouches. The advantage to pouches is that they are in smaller serving sizes so you don't have to rush to use up an entire can.

This can help prevent food spoilage however be aware that often pouches do not have the same long shelf life as cans.

Preserving Agents:

When thinking about survival food storage your two biggest enemies are insects and oxygen. Insects you can understand, but you may be wondering 'Why oxygen?'.

Well oxygen does two things - #1 it helps many insects to survive, and #2 it also helps in oxydizing food, making it rancid over time.

By adding an agent that will remove oxygen from your survival food storage, you can increase it's longevity. Here are the three most popular types:

Nitrogen

Many survival food suppliers like Mountain House use nitrogen to flush their containers before sealing. The nitrogen (being more dense than air) pushes the air out of the container.

Using nitrogen packed cans can greatly increase the survival food storage life of any freeze dried foods. Most Nitrogen-sealed #10 cans give you about a 25 year shelf life.

Oxygen Absorbers

You've probably seen oxygen absorber packets in many dried foods that are stored in containers. The oxygen absorber is a s small packet that is used to help stop foods from changing color, oils in food from becoming rancid and slow the growth of fungi in foods.

If you open any of your food storage cans, I would recommend using an oxygen absorber when possible to help prolong the food life when possible. You can also use it in bulk food bins like sugar, flour, etc.

Dried Ice

This is one of the older methods of food storage. You can use this with many of your dried foods.

If you were to use this method with one of your HDPE buckets and a mylar bag, I would place a couple of inches of food in your mylar bag, place the dry ice (about 4 ounces per 5 gallon bucket) wrapped in a paper towel (so you don't 'burn' the food) then continue to fill the remainder of the mylar lined bucket.

Don't close the mylar bag (or seal it), place the lid loosely on the bucket (don't seal it completely) as you will want oxygen to escape as the dried ice melts inside your food storage container.

After about three hours seal the lids, but keep an eye on them every 15 minutes over the next hour or so to make sure you're not getting pressure build up.

If you do see any bulging in your containers open the container slowly and just enough to allow the excess pressure to leave your survival food storage container.

A WORD OF CAUTION. Dry ice will burn the skin by merely touching it. You should always wear protective equipment including gloves and goggles.

Also remember to use dry ice in a well ventilated area as the evaporating gas is CO2.