Survival Pantry

Beginners Guide to Food Storage and Preserving

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1–Basics of Food Storage

Chapter 2–Shelf Stable Consumables

Chapter 3–Refrigeration

Chapter 4–Dehydration

Chapter 5–Freezing

Conclusion

Introduction

Humans began preserving and storing food nearly 14,000 years ago. This allowed our ancestors to stop chasing game for sustenance and instead live in a stable location year round.

Towns and communities sprang from nomadic tribes. With the freedom such stability created the early humans began to develop laws, culture and commerce.

Cultures capable of preserving food would survive harsh winters. Less advanced tribes would be weakened and die off. Much like fire, food preservation was foundational to the development of human civilization.

But in the modern era, with automated supply chains, mechanized food production and thirty minutes or less pizza delivery, does food preservation and storage actually matter anymore? To a growing number of individuals, that answer is a resounding yes.

Modern day food preservers are responding to the growth of two lifestyle movements. The first is a more paleo or primal diet that eschews unnatural preservatives and processed foods that are highly shelf stable. As a result, paleo and primal dieters have had cause to seek the ancient wisdom of food preservation and storage.

They are joined by another lifestyle group. Individuals focused on preparing for disasters, whether man-made or naturally occurring, commit significant time to food storage. It is understood that to survive earthquakes, floods or acts of terror on a grand scale that disrupt the normal functioning of society, a stable source of food is non-optional.

I wrote this book to provide the insight needed to allow you to use modern methods to preserve food for weeks, months, even years. Food storage allows the modern hunter gatherer to buy and prepare food in bulk. This results in significant cost as well as time savings.

This book will cover food storage and preservation for both practical everyday purposes, as well as disaster preparedness. Food preservation can be overwhelming. I want to help unfog some of the confusion that surrounds the nutritional requirements as well as best means to attain long-lasting consumable food that tastes good, too.

The first most basic method of food preservation is with modern shelf stable foodstuffs. The king of preserved food is the MRE common to most survivalist food preps. MREs will not last indefinitely though and should an emergency strike, the production of future MREs would be compromised.

As such it is necessary to understand the fundamentals of food preservation so no matter what you want or need to store, you will be able to. To begin I will share why you would want to preserve food, how you can go about it and means by which you can secure your preps against pests, rot or theft.

After that, the focus will turn to the three methods of food preservation in this book. We will examine the usefulness of storing food via refrigeration, dehydration and freezing.

In addition to the how-to aspect we will also review the ways that you can ensure continued access to refrigeration and freezing, in the event of a disaster that disrupts electrical power.

What good are these preparations if they are rendered moot without current technology?

In addition to the methods I share in this book, there are many other ways to preserve meat, vegetables, fruits, even grains. I have prepared an Advanced Survival Pantry that explores other traditional means of preserving food and water.

If you find this guide helpful, the tips and techniques I share in the subsequent book will be useful to you as well.

In the conclusion of this book I give a quick overview of the topics we cover in the advanced guide.

Chapter 1

Basics of Food Storage

Food preservation has existed for many thousands of years. It is fair to describe food storage as a foundation of modern civilization. Nomadic hunter gatherers chased game across massive swaths of territory, feeding on fresh kills.

This type of society lacked the time to develop advanced concepts of civilized society. With a re-emphasis on primal/paleo diets and a heightened awareness of survival and disaster preparedness, these do-it-yourself techniques are being taught to new generations.

In many ways this reflects the same factors that drove food preservation thousands of years ago. Preserving food is associated with having enough in lean times.

Modern day food preservers also realize significant cost savings through preservation techniques. Buying food in bulk, preparing it more efficiently and preserving it for consumption later requires less time, less effort and less money than preparing each meal individually.

Food preservation requires a few basics to get started. First are the proper receptacles to store the food itself. Secondly is a room or other pantry – I’m fond of the old-fashioned word larder, myself – where your food preps can be safely stored.

If you are preparing with a disaster in mind, safety and security of your food preps are of paramount importance.

Food cannot be stored in any type of container. It is necessary to invest in food grade storage vessels. Buckets used to store loose grains, legumes or other consumables need to be cleaned thoroughly prior to storage.

A solution of water mixed with a small amount of bleach will cleanse the interior of the container to remove remnants of food and lingering odors. Most plastic buckets will retain smells quite well. If you have ever stored a strong smelling cheese in a plastic container, you are familiar with this effect.

Wash the surface with a mild soap then rinse. Avoid using more harsh chemical cleansers. The mixture of water to bleach should be one quart of water to a tablespoon of bleach. Then wipe with the mild bleach solution and let stand for at least five minutes to kill any bacteria, fungi, viruses and insect eggs present on the surface. Then rinse and air dry.

At this point, you can use the bucket to store grains, beans, or pastas that will keep well when stored in airtight containers. Before sealing the bucket, be sure to include an oxygen absorbing desiccant packet in the bucket.

The goal of the desiccant is to eliminate the presence of oxygen from your food. If properly secured, the container will be inhospitable to any life form, whether microbe or insect.

The other important food grade storage vessels we will look at for this book are the ubiquitous zip top bags. We will be making use of both the standard storage bags as well as the extra ply freezer style bags for preservation preps.

I prefer not to recommend a particular brand. I will just say that when it comes to food preservation you are best served buying superior quality. This is food you plan to eat. Is it worth it to save a few nickels on the vessels in which you store it, only to discover the top broke and allowed air or worse to compromise the food?

Next to consider is the storage location. If you are storing for regular consumption, you may be okay with a fairly large pantry. If you are planning for the zombie apocalypse, you will want to devote space in a secure part of your home. Try to avoid basements that flood, attics that get too hot and rooms where kids or animals can easily disrupt the storage vessels.

Ideally you have a wine or root cellar that stays dry and cool. This is near perfect for storing a variety of shelf-stable food preps, not to mention wine preps. Who wants to face the zombie apocalypse without a nice bottle of quality pinot noir?

Keep in mind, the process of building a stable food supply is best undertaken gradually. Your preps are not indefinite. Getting started all at once, will require you to replace, consume or destroy many foods at the same time. The objective is a steady, stable supply of food. Having everything go bad on the same day is failure.

Chapter 2

Shelf Stable

Consumables

Many modern foods as shelf stable for long periods of time. Check out a box of breakfast cereal. Often the better if used by date is eighteen months to two years into the future. Likewise canned goods picked up in the grocery store will last for several months if not a couple of years.

Using these pre-prepared, pre-packaged options will not create an ideal paleo/primal diet. They will however stock your shelves with calories that can easily be consumed in the event of a disaster that disrupts your local grocery store’s supply chain.

The first shelf stable food to consider is nature’s own shelf stable sweetener – honey. Properly stored and protected from bugs, beasts and other contaminants, honey will last indefinitely. It’s a simple source of energy and should be bought in bulk to get the best possible per ounce price.

Shelf stability is generally created through excessive processing of foods in the manufacturing process. Food manufacturers are highly motivated to create products that will store easily and for extended periods of time. This ensures a longer window for the products to be purchased and consumed. In turn, that allows greater revenues for the company.

Companies will use a number of different preservations to boost the shelf life of their products. They are using mass production mechanisms to accomplish the same objectives that we the humble at home food preserver have. Kill all the nasty critters inside the food we eat so they cannot make us sick or spoil our food.

So making use of their efforts is a logical first step in building up our survival pantry. Consider how the big food producers use an understanding of basic chemistry to keep food safe and edible longer.

Saturated fats resist oxidation far better than mono and polyunsaturated fats. This is why butter can be stored at room temperature for a reasonable amount of time.

Other fats such as palm kernel oil are both highly saturated and semi-solid at room temperature making them ideal for soft textured baked goods, like chewy pre-packaged cookies and brownies.

Decreasing the amount of water within some food stuff will also ensure it lasts longer on the shelf. This is why taco seasoning packets or meal helpers are in powder form and require the cook to reconstitute them with water, milk or both at cook time.

The aforementioned desiccants preserve food by removing oxygen from the packaging and suffocating any microbe or insect life form. This is why pillow packs of pepperoni include one of those do not eat packets in them.

Amplified acidity of the food product will make it inhospitable to any potential germ or virus. This is what allows salad dressings to sit on shelves for months at a time, undisturbed. In fact salad dressings may have two protectants. Lots of acidic vinegar and saturated fat will make the dressing taste delicious to our palettes but lethal to harmful bacteria.

Irradiation is less common, but highly effective at killing germs without altering the taste of the food. Ground beef and eggs have been irradiated previously to give them a longer shelf life.

Speaking of eggs, you may have heard that oiling eggs is a means of extending their shelf life. This is true, but it is necessary to only oil freshly laid eggs. If you have your own chickens you can select eggs without any blemishes or cracks.

Make sure your oil is sanitary by heating it to kill off any nasties that may be residing within it. Once the oil has reached 180 degrees, you can dip the eggs and set them aside to dry.

This will buy you a few months of storage time for your eggs. But if you have a steady supply of fresh chicken eggs from hens you raise, the taste and freshness of those eggs will so far surpass your oiled eggs, you will wonder why you bothered?

The king of the shelf stable consumables is the venerable Meal, Ready-to-Eat or MRE. MREs are designed as sustenance for soldiers in the field, unable to return to the mess tent or chow hall. No food is more closely regulated than the MRE for content, packaging and storage.

MREs are designed to remain edible if stored properly for up to 3 years. They are designed to be easily stored and consumed. They are in many ways the gold standard of disaster preparedness.

They are not without their drawbacks. MREs are not meant to be eaten consecutively for more than three weeks. Buying several years’ worth of MREs will not excuse you from other effective preps. Furthermore, the US Congress and Department of Defense have sought to ensure MREs reach soldiers rather than survivalists.

While civilians can obtain MREs – most commonly on eBay and other such sites – the buyer ought to be wary of the exact expiry date. Without a proper supply chain, it is impossible to determine whether the MRE has been exposed to extreme temperatures that would potentially spoil the meal.

Our goal is to create sustainable food sources. MREs may be a great complement, they cannot supplement a ready supply of properly prepared and preserved provisions. For those we will need to learn how to correctly store refrigerated, frozen and dehydrated food products.

Chapter 3

Refrigeration

Within your home you have the single most important technological advance in food preservation. Your refrigerator allows the preservation of food within your home for extended periods of time. Refrigeration literally made it possible to eat more vegetables, fruits and fresh meats without fear of contamination.

The cold relatively dry air of the refrigerator slows the growth of bacteria, enzymes and other nasty critters that damage the quality and taste of food. While this is not a long term storage option, it does create an extended window for the consumption of perishable produce and meat.

The use of refrigeration both in store and in transit has enabled supermarkets to fill their shelves with both out of season and exotic fruits and vegetables. Refrigeration also permitted dairy and meat products to be safely stored for longer periods of time. In addition, use of refrigeration has increased the nutritional density of meals consumed.

Refrigeration is our first means of food storage and preservation. Properly contained meats will last between one to two days for ground up to three to five days for whole cuts.

Opened milk will store for at least one week. Other dairy products can last anywhere from a couple of weeks (butter) to a month (cheeses). For fresh fruits, refrigeration will often double the shelf life of non-refrigerated fruits. Most vegetables will store well for at least a week in the refrigerator.

While the shelf life for refrigerated foods is still measured in days or at best weeks, the use of refrigeration in stocking your survival pantry cannot be discounted. Paleo/primal diets require quality refrigeration of almost all the staple foods consumed.

Likewise, when preparing for disasters, refrigeration is a vital component of maintaining a healthful diet. To consider how refrigeration comes into play for disaster preppers, we need to look at how refrigeration came about.

Modern refrigeration is the outgrowth of a simple technique that can still be practiced today to provide refrigeration without electricity. In the winter months, people would harvest ice from nearby lakes and other bodies of water. This ice would be stored in individual or community ice house for year round refrigeration of food supplies.

Ice harvested in colder climates like New England was shipped to more tropical destinations like Havana and ports in the southeastern US to stock icehouses.

Concurrent with these developments, ice boxes became a common appliance in many homes. The forerunner of the modern electrically powered refrigerator, iceboxes held a block of ice, delivered regularly from the ice monger, in one chamber. The ice cooled the remainder of the box keeping food at a safe temperature.

While we have modern refrigeration, preparing for a worst case scenario will ensure continued access to cool temperatures to store food. Among the easiest worst case scenarios is one I alluded to before. A root and/or wine cellar is an excellent mechanism to store vegetables and other hardy consumables.

A root cellar was a common feature in many homes or homesteads in earlier years. If freestanding, a root cellar was partially submerged with a small structure atop it. Access was granted through a door in the small structure.

The root cellar maintains steady temperatures and humidity while preventing freezing in the winter months. Within the cellar potatoes and other root vegetables are stored.

Additionally, tree fruits like apples can hang out in the root cellar, as can onions. Bottled beverages like wine and beer as well as jarred and canned foods can also be stored happily within a root cellar.

The root cellar is the easy version of outdoor cold storage. If we really want to go old school, we have to build an icehouse. In this instance we need to engage in some engineering, some construction and some foresight. Your planning and preparedness will be rewarded with a means of storing and cooling fresh meats, fruits and vegetables when others must go without.

Creating a modern icehouse is not nearly as challenging as it was in the 19th Century. For this prep we require the use of a free-standing, well-insulated but easily opened structure. It should be bigger than a tool shed or your root cellar and smaller than a barn. A single story structure will work better for this purpose.

If you are building from scratch, choose a shady spot on your property. The exterior should be painted white to reflect light and heat away. That includes the roof.

The structure should be large enough to be well-insulated. Typically you want at least six to ten inches of fiberglass insulation. More is better. That insulation will go between the exterior wall and the interior wall.

Insulation will also fill the space between the roof and the ceiling. For the entry way you can build a chamber that lets you close the door to the summer heat before you open the door to your icy interior.

Within this structure, shelves line the walls. On those shelves sit the food items that need to be stored. You can store frozen items as they will serve to keep the icehouse colder. You can let ice do the heavy lifting. I suggest a mix of ice and other frozen commodities.

During the winter, add ice and snow you harvest yourself as well as commercially created blocks. The ice will keep food cold and the temperature regulated year round. Packing your ice blocks with sawdust will further insulate them from the warm summer weather.

Inside the temperatures stay cool despite the summer heat wave outside. And all of this is done without batteries, generators or electricity off the main power grid. You now have year-round storage for perishable food supplies that sustains itself. The more you pack it with cold and frozen food, the colder it stays.

Before filling your icehouse with food, set up a thermometer and measure how hot it gets during the summer months. As you do better keeping the temperature under control and below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, you can start to fill the structure with food.

The cost to construct an icehouse is fairly minor as long as you can build it yourself. Add it to your project list and reap the benefits of increased storage for chilled items without an increase in your electric bill.

Most people think refrigeration is solely a modern convenience. It’s not. With planning and a little effort, you can enjoy the benefits of cool temperatures year round.

Chapter 4

Dehydration

Dating back nearly 14,000 years, dehydration is the oldest known means of preserving foods. Early settlements would preserve meat through air, sun or wind drying. The process would cause water to evaporate and thereby inhibit the growth of bacteria, yeasts and mold.

Smoking is often considered a form of dehydration, but it is distinct in several senses. Primarily the infusion of hard wood smoke will chemically alter the food being smoked, in addition to evaporating the water within. Smoking is covered in depth in the advanced guide.

Drying meat was the best method to preserve protein for many centuries. Dried fish, hams or beef stored in a cool dry location will resist bacteria for years. Likewise most dried fruits will last at least six months and in many instances up to a year.

Dried fruits are an ideal snack choice snacking for hikers and campers. Trail mixes combine dried fruits and nuts to give a balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates. They make a great addition to the survival pantry as well.

Vegetables can be dried. Though the two most commonly dried vegetables are technically fruits. Chili peppers can be dried to produce more intense and complex flavors. It also allows them to be stored longer. Tomatoes are frequently sundried for both preservation and taste reasons as well. Both are actually berries, rather than vegetables.

Fresh herbs are frequently dried as well to encourage a longer shelf life. As are teas, which are dried twice during their processing. First to whither the leaves and secondly to halt the process of oxidization. Some teas, like Japanese Matcha, are first dried and then ground to produce a fine powder.

Additionally processed foods can be dried for a longer shelf life. This includes instant soups and noodles, powdered milk and eggs and breakfast foods like oatmeal and coffee.

These fit more with the shelf stable foods, as it is difficult to dry any of these at home. Still stocking them on your shelf is an excellent way to have greater variety of food options in an emergency.

Drying fruits is a relatively simple process. Whole berries such as cranberries, blueberries and grapes and stone fruits like cherries, plums, peaches and apricots can be dried. Other fruits, such as apples and bananas are sliced into thin strips before being dried.

The fruit is stored in a sunny, well-ventilated space. Steady sun, dry air and free airflow are critical to get the fruit dried swiftly. Antioxidants are applied to the surface of the fruit to prevent it from browning as it dries.

Sulfur dioxide is a common antioxidant used in commercial drying processes and can be obtained for at home dehydration. Additionally, natural antioxidants, such as lemon juice, will prevent browning while the fruit dries.

Dried fruit is among the safest food products available. The low moisture content makes fruit completely inhospitable to bacteria.

Dehydrating meats and fish follows a similar process. Fish can be dried in the open air and sun to quickly remove the water content from the fish and preserve it. Fish can be preserved fresh or salted.

The most common fish that is preserved in such a fashion is cod. The traditional means of preparing salt cod began by surrounding a filet of cod in salt. After two days, the fish was removed from the salt, rinsed, patted dry and set out to dry in the sun and wind.

For meats the process was similar. Thin strips of beef can be treated with salt on both sides and then set out to dry to make jerky. Marinating the beef strips will infuse the meat with different flavors.

Pork can also be dried in this fashion, but generally, pork was preserved through curing, smoking and salting. You know this better as ham, and we’ll go in depth on how to make your own country style ham in the advanced guide.

Traditional methods are important to learn. If technology is unavailable, the skills will be invaluable. But if technology is available, using it can save time and produce a more consistent product.

If you invest in a food dehydrator, look for the following features:

Fans to circulate air

Top-mounted heating elements

Time controls

Round trays

These four features offer the best combination of even results and ease of use. Of course, why buy it when you can build it, right?

If you live in a dry climate you can get great results by just mounting a fan to an open cabinet with wooden racks. The cabinet goes in the sun, the fan is set to low and the fruits or meats are swiftly dried.

More advanced do it yourself food dehydrators can be constructed, but it is as simple as getting consistent airflow over sun drenched food.

Making your jerky outside requires one final, critical consideration. The aroma of meat drying in the open air is a natural draw for hungry carnivores. Setting your dehydration rig in a secure location will help prevent the meat from getting poached by your woodland neighbors.

Dehydration is simple enough even a caveman can learn how to do it. They were the ones who invented it, after all. Stocking your pantry with fruits and meats preserved using this ancient method will ensure your survival in disaster situations.

Chapter 5

Freezing

Freezing food allows for the safest and surest means of microbial containment. Flash frozen fruits and vegetables also retain the majority of nutrients found in the fresh varieties. The end result is a consistent and stable product that resists spoiling and lasts for months.

It is not without flaws. Storing frozen food requires subzero conditions. For people in less wintry locales, a freezer will keep your food solid without challenge. Freezers do require power, so if you are looking to prep for a disaster scenario where electricity is unavailable, you will need to source an alternate means of keeping frozen items on ice.

One consideration is our icehouse from the refrigeration chapter. Temperature inconsistencies in summer months make an icehouse somewhat impractical for year round freezer storage. But in densely packed sections of ice, you can maintain temperatures cold enough to store frozen food.

If you live in a location with cold winters, the icehouse will work great. As will any structure without heat. This method has been employed for hundreds of years and depending on the duration and intensity of your winter, can provide several months of deep freeze conditions.

The best means to keep your food frozen, though is a freezer. If the power is out, you will need to use alternate power sources. Generators and battery backups will provide temporary power. Solar and wind power are naturally self-sustaining. A combination of both will help ensure you have the energy you need to keep your food frozen when disaster strikes.

At home freezing will add months of storage time for your meals. The common times for frozen vegetables, fruits and meats is three to four months. Prepared foods will also store frozen for at least that long.

Maintaining food quality requires freezing food as quickly as possible. For at home freezing, store the food you want to freeze in the coldest part of your refrigerator to get its internal temperature as low as possible before moving it to the freezer.

This step will help minimize the size of the ice crystals that form in the food as it freezes. Large ice crystals will make fruits and vegetables soggy when they thaw. They will also cause meats to be drier and tougher when cooked. You may know this condition better as freezer burn.

The best means to eliminate large ice crystals is through flash freezing. When flash frozen, ice crystals are typically contained within the nucleus of the food cells.

This prevents the puncture of cell walls by the crystals, maintaining taste and product quality. Flash freezing commonly uses liquid nitrogen making it dangerous for unskilled people to attempt at home. A variation using dry ice and ethanol can also be used.

Freezing foods is the most power dependent means of preserving foods, but it also maintains the highest quality over the longest period of time. As such, the well-stocked survival pantry needs to have a contingency for frozen foods.

Conclusion

Preserving food can contribute to a healthier and more sustainable diet. It can also cut the costs per meal you pay dramatically. The techniques discussed in this book only scratch the surface of means to preserve food for extended periods of time.

How you apply these techniques is up to you. Building your own icehouse may be impractical. But obtaining extra means of storing chilled, dried or frozen foods provides you with more dietary options.

For disaster preparation, your base should be shelf stable foods that can be easily and simply prepared. You will want to have around 1500 calories of shelf stable foods per person per day. For a family of four looking to hold up for 30 days, that works out to 180,000 calories.

In addition to the shelf stable supplies, if you have consistent alternative power supplies and can store frozen meats, in general, 3 ounces of protein per person per meal. That works out to over 60 pounds of meat for a month for a family of four. You can substitute eggs for some of the meat as well.

Because freezing is so power dependent, long term storage of fruits and vegetables will require some kind of power source. Dried fruits can provide alternate snacking options, as can roasted nuts and seeds.

Taking these steps to ensure you have the food you need to match your dietary requirements is literally looking after yourself. But as noted, we have lots more techniques to cover and for that we have a second book. In it I cover the more advanced techniques of preserving foods. Most of which you can do yourself at home.

Among the topics covered:

Food curing – This includes salting, pickling, and fermenting.

Smoking – including a do it yourself smokehouse.

Sugar preservation and jellies – because dried fruit, as good as it is, loses some nutrient content in the preservation process.

Canning – proper steps to can or jar up your food preps for extended storage.

Water purification – of greatest importance in a survival scenario is access to clean, safe water for drinking and food preparation.

One of the best aspects of storing and preserving food is that it becomes an opportunity to pass on valuable skills to a new generation. In an emergency situation, the person with such skills can endure and help others do so as well.

Our reliance on technology and progress has blunted our appreciation for lessons of the past. We have forgotten the value of preparedness and being able to take care of ourselves. During disaster scenarios like hurricane Katrina or Sandy, proper planning could mean the difference between life and death.

I wrote this book and its companion to give you the necessary skills to help you survive any situation you encounter.