Seems we have already covered honey, peanut butter and powdered milk in other posts.
Any other foods that can last up to a year with proper storage?
I keep lots of boxes of those pre-made and cooked boil-in-bag, high-protein Indian micro-meals. They are mostly vegetarian and come in silver bags and taste about the same cold or hot and – I believe – will last for YEARS…
I bought some MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) from a place called emergency essentials. They have no known expiration date when stored in a freezer. I tried some and they don’t taste too bad.
Rice and dry beans, of course.
MRE’s? Bit of a stretch calling them food.
Canned foods have long shelf life and do not require cooking or water.
I think the important thing is to buy food for your long-term storage that you actually like to eat (rather than some sort of vile emergency food that you can’t stand to eat, except in dire emergency) and then you should rotate out the stock periodically. (That is, periodically buy replacements for the existing supply and consume the oldest.) That said, I’d imagine that any canned food would last a year under proper circumstances.
Canned chili and baked beans are good for this because you can use them in your regular rotation of foods, they taste good, and they’re good protein. I can’t stand canned stews or hash, but if you like them, they’d be good, too.
Pancake and other flour premixes like Bisquick would be good to have around for a number of uses. Instant potatos and other dried potato entrees like scalloped potato mix will keep just fine.
**It is important for long term storage to keep these sorts of things, along with your rice and dried beans, in sealable plastic containers like Tupperware type. Little kitchen weevils seem to develop out of thin air or may even come with the food when you buy it. They will bore through cardboard boxes and the inner plastic liners. You don’t want to be forced to eat pancakes with little brown crunchies in them.
And of course you need at least a couple 50 lb bags of salt. It is cheap and you can always use it to thaw your driveway if nothing else. It will come in handy for curing meat, canning, pickling, sausage making, etc. if your crisis is long term.
Also a supply of sugar. And a shelf stable supply of fat, like Crisco or other canned lards.
If you have a good supply of flour, salt, sugar, and fat you really don’t need much else. Well, you need to know how to cook.
Canned dogfood is the old standby for survival food.
I’m completely serious. You won’t ever be tempted to eat it like you would a yummy granola bar, and thus you’ll actually have it in an emergency. You won’t think it is gross when you’re starving to death.
See previous posters on making it part of your regular rotation of canned goods. Really long term gets into dehydrated and the like, but for a year just about anything will do. For cheap eats, find a sale on ramen and stock up. But canned chili, beans and stew will do just as well, and don’t require heating to eat. Add a variety of canned veggies and you’re set.
I always find it amusing when people talk about foods lasting for a year as being long-term. There’s plenty of vegetables (especially ones that grow underground) that’ll last that long even without any preservation at all. Long-term storage is more like 20 years, and even there, most canned foods will do fine.
How do you think people survived before the age of canning and refrigeration? You harvest most of your food at one time of the year, and then you live off of it until the next harvest.
Lutefisk. I don’t think it can get worse than it is no matter how long you store it.
I’d vacuum seal some powdered spices. It shouldn’t cost much or take much space, and it will brighten up the circumstances that left you eating your emergency food. And some chocolate.
Whole spices. Powdered are oxidizing as we type.
I like Clif Bars. High energy, no preparation required, and they even taste decent.
Long term storage is a bit too vague.
Do you want some items to stash in your mountain cabin, and come back much later and eat? Canned foods stored in a styrofoam ice chest (no ice) will remain edible and non toxic for most of your life. Especially if you go to the effort of getting newly canned items, with their entire shelf life ahead of them. Most of these will have water included. In an emergency that can be a life saver.
Hermeticaly sealed (ball mason) jars will keep flour, sugar, oil, nuts, honey, dried meats, and fish, dehydraeted onions, and many other foods quite edible for several years. They have the additional merit of being re-usable for long term “emergencies.”
With extensive long term planning, a family can routinely have two years of highly palatable food on hand, using it on a first in, first out basis. Buying whole wheat grains, and a mill, purchasing in sealed reusable containers, and maintaining an active inventory can create such a system over the course of two or three years, and after that, it costs less than regular grocery shopping.
Emergencies serious enough to require that sort of forethought will also require a source of clean water, routine medical supplies, major wound first aid supplies, and all the other aspects of survivalism.
Avoid high tech solutions. You can continue to can and store after the emergency with minimal external assistance.
Tris
A Southeast Asian friend and I were recently discussing “poverty/unemployment” foods that we’d gone through. I mentioned having once lived off of rice and ketchup for weeks (well, and beer - there are priorities). His response was “hell, rice lasts forever… I think. When I lived with my parents we’d go through 25 pounds of it a day, so I guess I never really tested shelf life…”
The only addition I’d make to the above would be a new jar of basic vitamins. You don’t need 5,000% the RDA of Vitamin b or anything, just get something with the basics, especially vitamin “C”. You’ll have a huge advantage if you’re getting your nutrients in.
If you’ve got vitamin supplements, dried rice, and lentils, you’ve got a long-term plan for basic survival. If I could only spend $20 on long term storage those are the three things I’d buy. With $25 I’d add cooking oil, as anecdotal evidence says that’s the first thing stores run out of. Fish oil supplements would also be a really good idea,then canned tomatoes.
When I’m planning stores though, I’m not assuming that I’ll stay in one place, so I’m looking for the very basics that I could carry easily in the car. I also include seeds in my store, though, just in case I settle in somewhere.
While dried beans and rice could be helpful long term if a person has a source of cooking, I favor items that can be eaten without preparation. This would include nuts and oats or wheat flakes. It could include dried fruit and vegetables shrink wrapped. Canned tuna is great for protein. These would keep for years.
The OP needs to define the nature of the emergency they are preparing for. Is this “total breakdown of society due to asteroid impact” or is it “the Amish are rioting so there are no grocery deliveries for a week?” Makes a big difference in planning. For up to a month of “no food, no power, but remaining home” all you need to do is amplify your regular shopping. For “running from the zombie hordes” you need lightweight freeze-drieds.