Don’t Forget The Kettles!
When thinking ahead of survival food preparation, make sure you have several big kettles and 55 gallon water barrels on hand.
Remember, you will likely be heating your own water for everything from cooking and canning to bathing and laundry.
When you are looking at all the water heating, water CARRYING and cooking that you will be doing, not to mention possibly making soap, cooking huge pots of stew for your neighbors that weren’t as wise as you were, and canning your own veggies, you can never have too many kettles and 5 gallon buckets!
Same way with knives, canning jars and utensils. Keep in mind that ALL of these items will come in very handy as bartering tools as well.
Preparing Food in Emergencies:
There are several ways to prepare foods in emergencies, when there is no power for the stove or when you are stuck with NO STOVE to cook on.
- Build a Fire … and cook over a fire outdoors.
- Use a flat top wood stove… this actually works quite well indoors or out. In fact, if you come across an old wood stove with a flat top at a yard sale, pick it up and store it in the shed. You may be very glad you did someday!
- Grill.. you can use gas grills, or charcoal grills to cook as well.
Course if you have freeze dried foods, some of those are made to eat without heating them. Just add water and serve.
I prefer the idea of cooking over a fire myself.
As I have mentioned off and on, if you are not sure about the whole surviving outdoors issue, or if you have a family member that is a bit paranoid… take them on a weekend camping trip.
It works wonders to help settle the squeamies about getting stranded away from home. Anyone looking at long term survival food preparation will also be looking at canning foods, including venison and anything else that is killed for food.
Make sure you have plenty of canning jars on hand. You can pick them up at yard sales and second hand stores.
Fill a 55 gallon drum with your jars of canned food and SAWDUST. The sawdust will keep your jars from freezing and WILL HIDE THEM from hungry scavengers. Plus if you ever need to move them in a hurry, you can carry the whole barrel with you without the fear of breaking all those jars of precious canned food.
Food Storage List
This is a list of what we call survival food essentials. 
We have other survival food lists on this website, but what we have listed here is the essentials that need to be included in EVERY survival food preparation plan.
- SALT… Store up many times more salt than you will expect to use. It is a great barter item and you don’t want to EVER run out of salt!
Salt is cheap now so stock up whenever you get a chance, but it could greatly increase in price once it is not so available. - Rice.. either brown or white rice works for survival food storage. The white rice has a slightly longer shelf life, but either way, the shelf life on rice is about 8 years.
Store about 30 pounds of rice per adult per year. - Wheat… you will need to store about 200 pounds per adult per year.
Grain is a crucial survival food to add to your food storage list. Grain will keep for 30 years if stored right. ( We recommend storing it in airtight buckets)
The two main things folks will do with wheat as survival food preparation is: - Grind it with a hand grinder to make bread.
- Soak the wheat berries for about 24 hours for a nutritious breakfast.
- Oats…another great source of breakfast food. Oats keep for about 3 – 7 years depending on the method of storage.
- Fats and Oils… These are a bit harder to store because of shelf life so what we recommend is keeping a certain amount on hand and restocking it every few years.
Olive oil can be frozen so you can keep that in your freezer and then if there is a power outage your shelf life begins from the date it is thawed out! ( Store about 90 pounds of oils/fats per adult per year)
But for peanut butter and mayonaise and things like that, you will want to rotate your storage items.
Don’t worry about storing up butter. You can make butter from cream and if you don’t have a cow, you may be able to barter with someone that does have a cow and cream.
- Powdered Milk…Get the nonfat type and for best results, if you can get the nitrogen packed dry milk, it will last up to 5 years.Store about 20 pounds per adult per year)
- Canned Fruits and Vegetables..For survival food preparation it is best to can your own foods. Home canned food lasts for several years and you can just rotate it.
Makes it much easier on the grocery bill to can your own foods. 🙂 - Sugars… You can basically store what you prefer for sweeteners. Sugar, molasses,sorghum, honey, maple syrup,(If you live close to maple trees, you may be able to boil your own if need be) all last for a long time.
- Canning lids
- Vinegar
- Spices
- Baking soda
- Yeast
- Food storage bags
- Aluminum foil (LOTS of this!)
All of these items are essentials when looking at survival food preparation.
Here is an amazing Carrot Bread recipe designed with your survival food storage in mind. Click here to grab the recipe!