I think this is the approach that makes the most sense. If you stock up on "survival food" that the family won't eat every day, you end up throwing a lot of it away after a couple of years. Buy extra cans of what you like, and as you eat them, rotate in new supplies.

On the beans and rice issue: these are staples in countries that don't have an abundance of cooking fuel. Efficient means to pre-soak and cook them have been mentioned already.

OK, I'm a little biased, because I have a weakness for red beans and rice, New Orleans style.

Frank2135

Seems like grains,beans and pasta are all dry goods.
I can't seem to find any why out of the trade off between difficult to prepare,water required and long shelf life.
Are most of you planning on a mix of dry and canned goods ?

Many of the old folks from the turn of the century I talked to as a kid, mentioned 100 lbs of rice, 25 pounds of flour,50 lbs of sugar 50 lbs of beans etc. as standard starter house stocks.

Pasta is bland but last forever.
Still you need to cook all of these, for me the trouble is ready food (canned,tinned) have about a five year shelf life.

Vitamins have yet to be proven as well absorbed without a person consuming sufficient calories.

Mostly the stuff I have is not likely to be eaten UNLESS there is no choice.

My impression is that there is no one right way and that most ways are right sometimes and wrong others. Hence, being prepared means having different things on hand.

My assumption is that I will have no refrigeration. So having a can of chili opened means I have to eat it all at one sitting or lose it. Same with any canned food. So my thinking is pop-open single-serving cans of tuna, chicken, spam, whatever. Small cans of vegetables.

As I understand from this thread, having dried grains means I have to have lots of water to soak, then cook briefly; or having lots of fuel and water to cook for hours; or not eating it. I have to have big pots for soaking; pots for cooking. A place to soak and cook. I do think I'll have plenty of water from a nearby stream, and I have a supply of microfilters and a container for filtered, presumably potable water. I'm not sure I'll have fuel for long cooking. Maybe not even for short cooking. I have a camp stove that burns unleaded gas, so as long as I have abandoned cars nearby, I should have fuel, but not if there is a flood that contaminates all the gas. If I cook single serving portions, I don't have to worry about spoilage of cooked food if I have no refrigeration. But I think I have to cook more often and consume more fuel.

Then I get to ability. If I'm injured, I may not be able to carry water for filtering and cooking. I may not be able to handle pots and water for soaking. I may not be able to gather fuel. It depends on the injury. If I'm injured, I'll be happy to have a supply of pop-open single-serving cans I can eat out of. Maybe some self-heating MREs, assuming I can get them open.

But there's no way to know ahead of time what my situation will be, so I try to include enough variety not only of food but of containers and preparation methods that I'll at least have something to eat in most survival situations. There are too many variables in my situation to limit myself to flour, beans, rice, and the like, even taking into account rotating the goods so that they remain edible. Additionally, I don't assume I'll have my house and its stove and refrigerator and walls and roof. I may be in my tent or in a patio under a tarp.

What about dehydrated fruits?

If your talking about drying them yourself, you can’t get the low moisture content required for long term storage, somewhere around three and a half percent. Some of the commercially prepared products have lower moisture content and then can be stored long term. Most home units still have about twenty five percent moisture, which would keep for short term.

2 quick fixes for this is to 1-add a incandesent bulb to the unit to add a small amount of hear repeat small amount it you go much past 150F your cooking it instead of drying.2-increase drying time I found 4-5 hours past the manufactures recomended times usually work, but you may have to experiment some for your area. Using one or both of these fixes I have stored fruit for up to 5 months in zip lock bags. If you add vacume packing it should extend the storage time.

I have 3 months of mountain house for 2 people. Just add water
25 3600 Cal Maydays in my BoB.

Rest is just usally pantry rotation of canned/dried fruit etc.

Again, not necessarily. Do a search on wood-gas stoves and/or bio-gas stoves, you'll be surprised at some of the innovative stove designs people have come up with for 3rd world countries where fuel is scarce/endangered/expensive. Some of the designs even produce charcoal for later use or sale while cooking meals.

ie:Hybrid Stove Making Charcoal

Another solution is to prepare dehydrated meals and store those in ziplock freezer or vacuum sealed bags. Place the bag in an insulating cozy, add boiling water to the bag, reseal it and in 15 minutes or so you are ready to eat. A search of backpacking sites will give loads of info on this. I find dehydrating food an interesting hobby and it allows for an amazing variety of storable emergency foods. Basically, anything you find in the frozen vegetable section at the grocery store can be dehydrated and then vacuum sealed in canning jars for storage.



Vitamin and mineral supplements can be helpful but most vitamins don’t have much of a shelf life so planning balanced meals is very important. The internal organs of wild and domestic animals are a rich source of vitamins that are rarely used anymore but may be a life saver in a long term emergency situation. Mineral supplements (colloidal minerals are the best) can be stored for a year or more with little or no loss of effectiveness. Colloidal minerals can also be added to hardtack for long term storage by replacing some of the water in the recipe with the minerals and then vacuum sealing the hardtack. While hardtack may be a boring bread to eat, it’s a whole lot better than no bread at all and it can be stored for years if properly prepared and kept dry.

A couple of tricks I've used for cooking beans using very little fuel:

Solar Cooker - Soak the beans overnight. I had a gas cooker so I would bring the beans to a boil then shut off the gas. Then I'd put the beans into the solar cooker. This gets the beans up to temperature very quickly so they can cook for a long time in the solar cooker, whereas it would take a while to heat up if you put them in cold.

Thermos - This is the "fireless cooker" method. Soak the beans overnight. I'd bring them to a boil like before, then pour them into a large thermos. I made sure to fill the thermos all the way with water. I'd let it sit for about 8 hours or so. This didn't work as well as the solar cooker, but it's an option if there's no sun.

Hey Blast,
I've always heard cooking beans in the soak water will increase the BLAST effect that occurs soon after eating said beans.