Simple Rules For Making The Best Emergency Food Kit

Many people find it daunting to begin assembling a survival food bag. What meals should be included in the kit to ensure the greatest nutrition? How long does the meal stay fresh? Once I've assembled the kit, how should I preserve it? These are just a few of the questions you may be asking yourself, and the reason for this is because you are accustomed to just purchasing foods that you enjoy and only enough to last you for the upcoming week or so when you visit the grocery store. Creating a survival food kit doesn't have to be difficult if you approach the task step by step.

Choose a purpose for your emergency food supply

Determine the major application for your food kit first and foremost by asking yourself a few questions. Are you preparing the food kit for instances where you'll need to take it, get in your car, and go, or for emergencies or circumstances that force you to stay at home? Will the kit be made to stay in the car when you're driving away from home and need it for emergencies? Will you and your family be required to eat from the kit for a few days, a few weeks, or possibly a few months?

Choose a location to keep your emergency food supply kit

Once you've established what your food kit will be used for, you need to pick where in your house or car you'll keep it. Since this will restrict your alternatives for storage space, you'll need to bear in mind the planned amount of the food supply, which is directly based on how long the food should be able to sustain you and your family. A 6-month supply of food won't likely fit in your car because it has a limited amount of room, and you definitely don't need to keep that much food in your car anyhow.

The shelf life or lifespan of the food in your survival food pack can be significantly impacted by where you keep it. To ensure that your food is safe to consume for as long as possible, store it in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. Find a location in your home that meets these requirements, and make sure it has enough space for the quantity of food or the kit's total size.

For your survival food pack, collect or buy food

Remember that you should generally preserve food that you have already eaten. If you and your family don't even enjoy eating tuna fish, there is no purpose in keeping a lot of cans of it. Choose foods that you and your family currently eat in their "fresh" state, even if you have the extra money to purchase long-term freeze-dried storable items. Keep eating what you enjoy, but strive to round out your diet with a variety of nutrients.

Having saying that, there are some foods that can never be preserved properly. Foods with significant fat or moisture content typically don't keep well in storage. If stored in the correct airtight containers and storage environments, dried pastas, (white) rice, flour, sugar, and oatmeal all keep extremely well. Although canned items normally keep well, you might want to choose dry beans over canned ones since they have a longer shelf life and are lighter.

Various ingredients, including milk, eggs, butter, and even peanut butter, are available as powdered substitutes. Even after being reconstituted, powdered, dried foods are never precisely the same as their fresh equivalents, but they can still work well in many recipes.

If required, repack food products for extended storage

A lot of foods may be repackaged to extend their shelf lives. All of your dry food products will keep well in a straightforward sealed container, but for moisture management, you may also put them in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and/or desiccant packs. The mylar bags may then be vacuum-sealed to provide the best possible protection for the meals in your kit. It is typically not essential to repackage long-term freeze-dried storable meals because they are typically already packaged similarly for maximum lifespan.

Consume and rotate the food in your emergency food supply

Remembering to cycle out food that has reached or exceeded its expiration date and replace it with new replenishment is one of the essential components of your survival food kit. The simplest approach to achieve this is to just sometimes consume items from your kit and replace it right afterwards. Again, this is the reason you should only include things that you and your family would enjoy eating in your kit.

To maintain optimal rotation, always consume the food items in the kit that are the oldest first. You might be tempted to select an item from the kit based on what you're "in the mood" for, but you should resist this temptation and pick the item or items that are most near their expiration date first.

For added convenience, especially if your kit will be grab-and-go, you might want to include goods like can openers, spice or seasoning packets, fire starting and cooking utensils, etc. in your survival food kit. Having these supplies in your kit at all times can save time and improve the experience of whatever emergency or circumstance led to the need to use your food kit in the first place.