Hey everyone. I'm seeking answers and advice on long term survival in an TEOTWAWKI situation. I'll be doing a series of threads on various aspects of this and all responses are welcomed and I thank you in advance for your help and guidance. This thread concerns long term food and water. I have three deluxe one year supply of long term foods in # 10 cans here at the ranch, but even supplementing with the gardens, live stock and hunting it will go fast feeding the hands and thier familes as well as my "family".
So let's switch it to a cabin with a full size basement I own in the mountains. I have 25 acres to garden, raise basic stock and bees.

Here are my questions:

Water
How much should I store per person?
How should it be treated for storage and should it be treated or filtered before consumption?
In containers I am considering powerade bottles, 2-3 liter soda bottles, 5 gallon water jugs and 55 gallon water barrels, any thoughts on this?

Food
I've never tried the long term foods but the manufacturers claim they have a 20 year shelf life.
Would they be edible beyond that time?
How do they taste and are they filling? When I looked at Weiss I think it was, a daily ration was one serving of one half a cup of food.
What about grains? What should I store, how should it be stored, and for how long?
What are your opinions on survival type gardens? Are they worth the unwanted attention they might attract?

Again, I thank you for your help. And encourage any thoughts, comments and suggestions you have, even if they are off subject.

I believe the recommendation is 1-gallon per person per day. This would allow for cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene. So a family of 4 would require almost 1,500 gallons of water for a 1-year reserve. Logistically, this is difficult to manage. Depending on your location and the threat that you envision, some method of collecting and purifying water (ground water, well, spring, rainwater) might need to be considered.


Sealed containers of water bought at retail require no treatment and, according to the CDC, have an indefinite shelf life if unopened and stored in a cool, dark location. However, the translucent containers prevalent in larger containers might start to break down after a few years.

Tap water from a public utility subject to chlorination and other purification measures theoretically, again per the CDC, require no additional treatment. But does need to be rotated every 6 months.

Well water and spring water should have 3 to 5 drops of chlorine bleach added per gallon, and be rotated every 6 months.

If maintained as per the above, no additional treatment should be required before use.


It's a battle between efficiency of space and convenience in rotation. Powerade bottles are probably too small to be effective, 55 gallon barrels might be too large to rotate. I prefer 2.5 gallon jugs of spring water and rotate them into general use, so none are usually more than 6 months old.


Probably. If you read the books by Cody Lundin you'll learn he's pushed far past what most people would consider reasonable in experimenting with "expired" food, including food that has turned rancid, been infested with insects, etc. It depends on what you consider to be "edible." I expect that taste and nutritional value would be reduced. But 20 years is a long time. If you amortize a $5k investment in long term foods over 20 years that's less than a family outing at McDonalds every month.


Some of it tastes good, some of it tastes lousy. Stock-up on spices and hot-sauce for palate variety. Whether they are filling or not is somewhat an academic question. They are more filling than doing without. As long as you're getting the necessary minimum amount of calories, vitamins and minerals, your body will eventually adjust to a reduced volume diet.


Whole rice, wheat flour, corn meal and oatmeal. Not grains, but I'd also lump dry beans, salt, sugar and yeast in my bulk preps. Sealed in opaque, oxygen-depleted containers (oxygen absorbers or nitrogen saturation) I believe these will last at least 5 years, salt and sugar forever.


I like the idea of a vegetable garden from a self-sustainability perspective, not just survival. You'll appreciate the fiber after eating all those dehydrated meals, and will need some sources for vitamin C. Also raising chickens and goats for eggs, milk, cheese and meat. Do you have a pond or cattle tank on your land? If so, maybe you can farm fish.

while I've always had a hurricane pantry good for a couple of weeks, I started "long term" storage this last year...like most,I purchased inexpensive staples like rice, pinto beans, powdered milk, potato buds, cocoa, tea, salt, sugar, pasta, and decided on vacuum food sealer bags rather than mylar bags and buckets... I reshelved my regularly eaten goods on an open shelf as it helps me in visual inventory to rotate stock....if I had seen the Wendy DeWitt video on YouTube (1hr 27min) first, I would have chosen to vacuum can in glass jars....after opening, the jars can be resealed with the original lids, not so easy to do with the plastic bags.. while it would take up a little more room, I think smaller portion size in glass jars would be more practical (store in cardboard boxed the jars are packed in in a dark place)... and probably cheaper in the long run...the rectangular vacuum food saver packs do not stack efficiently in a round bucket... if you have access to an LDS cannery, that is the best option.... I think my next purchase is a solar oven like the SOS Sport, and possibly invest in a pressure canner to put away some meat...a jar vacuum sealer is on the shopping list for sure, and will replace the bags in the future, and possibly repack those already sealed... there are a couple of vids where automotive hand vacuum pumps can be used to seal jars in case of power outage...

do you add anything to your potato buds to get any nutrition from them?

if the question was for me.. not really, just a familiar food, relatively easy to prepare... 80 calories(1/2 cup)...probably use to thicken a one pot soup or stew... only have a little flour stored at this time for bannock

Les, I'm sure the SOS Sport is a nice piece of gear, but building your own solar oven isn't difficult or expensive, and could be a fair bit more portable than the pre-built models. I haven't tried using one since scouts, but back then (when dirt was new) we were able to put together stoves from cardboard, aluminum foil and scotch tape and each baked ourselves a small cake during the course of an afternoon.

I'm concerned about home methods of preserving meat. However, I did just this week buy myself a dehydrator and picked-up some london broil cuts on-sale. Just trying to decide what marinade recipe to try out first. Chicken and salmon jerky are also in the plans, and I think there's a few pounds of venison in the deep freeze that might get the treatment once I get my formula down pat.

So, I'm out searching for ideas to marinade my first batch of homemade jerky and guess what I discover: powdered butter. Not economically attractive given the $20/pound cost (equivalent of 4 pounds regular butter). But hot dog, survival pancakes will be much tastier with some powdered butter. Hey look! Powdered maple syrup. I wonder if its possible to gain weight after TEOTWAWKI?

Who says roughing it has to be so rough? Now if I can just find a nice powdered Merlot to go with dinner.

I have seen powdered wine marketed to backpacker. At first blush it sounds gruesome but you never know.

Mark_M... played around last summer with a solar funnel cooker like the one designed at Brigham Young Univ....was really trying to make ice cream with exposure to the night sky...I built a solar water heater for Mom and Dad years ago... so probably could design one, but the one from SOS looks good... don't think I could make one without vacuum forming with a weight under 10#

there are some pretty detailed instruction on home pressure canning... I think that LDS are the "pros from Dover" as they've been at it for a long time.. I know I'm way behind the learning curve, so am just trying to look at some options

HA. I've seen that too. It would certainly make eating some foods better. And living in house dedicated to buying, "I can't believe it's not butter" or as I call it, "extra watery margarine", it'd be nice to something a little dryer to mix with. (sarcasm font)