Survival Food Storage Tips

An organized Survival Food Storage plan for your emergency supplies that all family members know about is an essential part of your emergency preparedness plan!

(This page is written by my sister Kerry Bacon, of Healthy Diet Habits. She has a Science degree in Dietetics, and lived 5 miles from the 1994 Chatsworth CA earthquake. Read her story of the experience!

The best way to store your emergency supplies is in large bins that are labeled and easily accessible. Stack them in your garage, or back storage shed if you have one for easy access.

In the 1994 Chatsworth, CA earthquake we went through, we could not find my glasses because stuff was thrown all over our house. This was more traumatic for me than the earthquake, as stupid as that may sound. We had a hard time locating shoes, because all of our closets had emptied and shoes were buried. There was glass everywhere, and it took my husband a lot of time to locate shoes for each of us in the dark.

Now we leave shoes next to our bed for easy access, and flashlights in our night stands. Make a mental note of anything you can’t live without, like contact solution and an extra case, and have a spare stored in your emergency kit. You will be so thankful, because locating a tiny contact case in the midst of your entire bathroom mess in the dark, might put you over the edge in an emergency.

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Helpful Survival Food Storage Tips are:

• Food should be stored in a cool, dry, and dark area to avoid spoilage.

• Food boxes should be unopened and stored in large plastic sealed bags or containers.

• Store cookies, crackers, cereals, nuts, dried fruits, and other perishables in sealed containers to keep pests away.

• Label canned foods and store them together by spoilage date. Rotate foods into your house often to keep foods fresh, or donate them to the food bank before the spoilage date. Most foods last for a year. Eat your perishables, and if you do not like canned goods donate them. We store canned goods during the year, and then take much of our stored canned goods on our camping vacations. We are not really spending any extra money this way, just buying our vacation foods early to use early if we have an emergency!

• Always label the outside of your storage bins with the dates of the food inside. Oldest food items should be at the front always.

• Non-food items should be stored together also. Your goal is to locate needed items quickly. You may need to evacuate your home quickly in an emergency and grab and go bins that can be placed in your car will be a lifesaver.

• Keep a separate car emergency kit with emergency essentials in each family car. A great option for this is the Wise Foods Deluxe Survival Kits.

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The most helpful survival food storage advice, is to make sure that each person in your home knows where emergency essentials are located. If there is an earthquake and Mom is shopping, do the kids know where the emergency supplies are located?

Imagine having no phone service, damaged roads that might not allow you to reach home quickly, if at all! Can your kids make it before you get to them? Do you have an emergency preparedness plan? Do your kids know close neighbors to go to? Arrange these emergency plans before the actual emergency, and review them often.

Emergencies happen to all of us. They are traumatic, but much less so with a great emergency preparedness plan, and an organized survival food storage plan that all family members know about!