Food

Start with the food you already eat. Keep at least a two-week supply at home, and choose foods that need no refrigeration, little water, and little or no cooking.⁠^[1] Then build outward, one layer at a time.

1. Everyday pantry. Canned goods, dry mixes, and staples from your own shelves. Familiar food lifts morale in a crisis. Buy a couple of extra cans of what you eat and replace each one as you use it.⁠^[1]⁠^[2]

2. Bulk staples. Rice, wheat or flour, oats, pasta, dry beans, sugar, and powdered milk are the cheap backbone of a longer supply.⁠^[2] Sealed in #10 cans and kept dry and below 75°F, white rice, wheat, and sugar are rated for 30 years, dry beans for 25, and regular oats for 20.⁠^[3]

3. Fats and protein. Rice and beans alone are not a diet. Add cooking oil, peanut butter, canned meat or fish, and dry milk. A one-year supply for one person includes about 2 gallons of cooking oil and 6 pounds of peanut butter.⁠^[2]

4. Freeze-dried meals. Light, quick, and long-lasting, but costly per calorie, and they need water to prepare. Treat them as a convenience layer, not the foundation. General guidance.

Don't forget a manual can opener, and food for pets.⁠^[4]

Plan it with numbers: the food-storage planner turns people and days into pounds and containers.

Plan on 2,000 to 2,400 calories per person per day, with adequate protein. That is what nutritionists recommend for food storage. Adjust for age, size, and hard physical work.⁠^[2]

Watch out for the "servings" trap. Kits advertised as "a 30-day supply" or "240 servings" often count small servings. Check the calories on the label, add them up, and divide by the number of people and days. That tells you how long the kit really lasts. General guidance.

Compare by calories per dollar. Divide the total calories in a package by its price. Bulk rice, beans, oats, flour, and oil almost always beat freeze-dried meals by a wide margin. General guidance: check the labels and prices you actually see.

If food runs short: healthy people who are not very active can get by on half their usual food for a long time. Food, unlike water, can be rationed safely, except for children and pregnant women.⁠^[1]

Special diets, allergies, babies, and people who are ill need their own plan. Store what they can actually eat.⁠^[1] This is general information, not medical or nutrition advice.

The #10 can is the big "institutional" can. It holds about 12 to 13⅔ cups, roughly 3 quarts, which is about seven of the familiar 15-ounce cans.⁠^[17] How much it holds by weight depends on the food:

• White rice: about 5.3 to 5.4 pounds
• Dry beans: about 5.2 to 5.6 pounds
• Rolled oats: about 2.5 to 2.8 pounds
• Sugar: about 5.6 to 5.7 pounds

These figures come from Utah State University Extension and the Home Storage Center product list.⁠^[18]⁠^[3]

Buckets. Food-grade plastic buckets with a gasket lid are cheap and easy, but oxygen seeps through the plastic over the years, so plan on about 5 years. For longer storage, seal food in foil-type (Mylar) bags with oxygen absorbers, then put the bags inside the bucket to keep out rodents.⁠^[18]

Only store dry foods this way. Vacuum-sealing moist foods can lead to botulism poisoning.⁠^[18]

Where to keep it: somewhere dark, dry, and moderately cool, between 50 and 70°F. Avoid attics and garages.⁠^[2] Keep containers off the floor, especially bare concrete.⁠^[19]

Rotate: first in, first out. Mark each item with the date you bought it. Put new items at the back and older ones in front, and use the oldest first.⁠^[1] Food you never eat is money wasted.

How long it keeps: commercially canned high-acid foods, such as tomatoes and fruit, keep their best quality up to 18 months. Low-acid foods, such as meat and vegetables, keep 2 to 5 years. Home-canned food should be used within a year.⁠^[21]

As long as the can is in good shape, the food should be safe to eat after that, though taste, texture, and nutrition fade over time.⁠^[21]

The rare but deadly danger is botulism. leaking, bulging, badly dented, or spurting⁠^[21]

Store cans in a cool, dry place. Never above the stove, under the sink, or in a damp garage or basement.⁠^[21] Do not let them freeze.⁠^[19]

After opening, move leftover high-acid foods out of the can into a covered container in the fridge. Opened canned food lasts a day to a week, depending on the food.⁠^[19]

If floodwater touched your cans, you can save undamaged commercial cans: take off the labels, wash, rinse, sanitize, and re-label them with a marker. Throw out home-canned food and any bulging, open, or damaged cans.⁠^[22]

The simplest plan is food that needs no cooking. Canned food can be eaten straight from the can. If you heat food in the can, open it and remove the label first.⁠^[1]

Cook outdoors. A charcoal grill or camp stove can be used outdoors.⁠^[1] Never burn charcoal indoors, and never use a portable gas camp stove indoors. They give off carbon monoxide, an invisible gas that can kill.⁠^[23]

• Never heat your house with a gas oven.⁠^[23]
• never inside a home or garage.⁠^[23]
• Know the warning signs: headache, dizziness, weakness, upset stomach, vomiting, chest pain, confusion⁠^[23]

Save fuel. Dry beans and whole grains take a long time to cook. A pressure cooker cuts the cooking time, and so the fuel, by a lot. General guidance. To speed up soaking beans, cover them with water, bring them to a boil, take them off the heat, and let them soak for an hour.⁠^[2]

Store fuel safely, outdoors or in a detached shed, away from living space, and rotate it. See the Power guide for fuel storage. General guidance.

Always put out open flames before leaving the room.⁠^[1]

Keep the doors closed. If they stay shut, food stays safe for 4 hours in a refrigerator, 48 hours in a full freezer, and 24 hours in a half-full freezer.⁠^[22]

Get ready before an outage: keep appliance thermometers in the fridge (40°F or below) and freezer (0°F or below). Freeze containers of water and gel packs, and have a cooler ready.⁠^[22]

Eat in this order: first the perishable food in the fridge, then the freezer, then your shelf-stable supply.⁠^[1] Post a list of what is in the freezer on its door so you open it less.⁠^[1]

After the outage:

• Never taste food to decide if it is safe. When in doubt, throw it out.⁠^[22]
• Throw out perishable fridge food (meat, fish, cut fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, leftovers) once the fridge has gone that long without power or a cold source.⁠^[22]
• You can refreeze or cook thawed food that still has ice crystals or is at 40°F or below.⁠^[22]
• Throw out food that touched floodwater or has an odd smell, color, or texture.⁠^[22]