Modern life has led people away from their backyard gardens and well-stocked root cellars. These once farmhouse staples helped ensure that families could feed themselves no matter how long the road to town was, what the weather was like, or their economic situation.
While access to grocery stores makes it seem like there’s no need to worry about keeping food on the table, there are many potential emergencies that could happen: losing your job, blizzards, or even economic collapse. These things could leave your family without a secure food source. Even if you don’t live in a farmhouse it’s easy and wise to stockpile emergency foods.
Below you’ll find a list of 35 emergency foods you should be stockpiling. With all of these foods on hand, you’ll be eating well no matter what happens.
1. Flour/Wheat Berries
Obviously, flour is a staple of the modern diet, but there are a few things to consider before running out and buying big bags of it. First, whole wheat flour doesn’t store well. The oils have been released from the wheat berries and it can go rancid quickly. Second white flour offers little nutritional value. For these reasons, the best option may be to purchase whole wheat berries which store well while retaining their nutrition, especially those in #10 cans. Whole wheat berries can be easily turned into flour with a hand crank mill, they can be cooked whole as hot cereal, or they can be added to soups and stews. Wheat berries can also be planted.
2. Salt
Salt is so much more than a seasoning. In a survival situation it is essential to preserving food. It can be used to salt meats and pickle or can garden produce.
3. Sugar
This is another essential preservative. With sugar, it’s easy to put up fruit and jam for winter.
4. Honey
Honey is more than just a tasty treat! It’s natural preservative, immune system booster, antibacterial, and anti fungal. Make sure you get real honey and not the fake stuff.
5. Baking Soda
It’s cheap and absolutely worth stocking up on. It’s an important leavening agent in many recipes and can be combined with a little vinegar and used in place of eggs in quick breads and cake recipes. It also makes a good, natural cleaner and deodorizer. It’s just over a dollar a pound.
6. Baking Powder
Another leavening agent, baking powder is an important part of many recipes. It’s also cheap and easy to store.
7. Dry Yeast
It may be advisable to store both bread yeast as well as yeast for brewing beer or wine. Even if you have these on hand, it’s also important to learn how to make sourdough or wild yeast starters so that you could make your own bread even if your supply ran out.
8. Dehydrated Milk
It may not be as tasty as fresh milk, but dehydrated milk can add essential fats and proteins to your diet in a survival situation. It’s also important for many recipes that just wouldn’t be the same with water, plus it lasts a long time.
9. Rendered Lard
Modern recommendations are to freeze lard, but not that long in the past it was commonly just kept in canning jars or crocks and even used to preserve meat. If you’re making lard at home, make sure you render it, removing all the perishable parts.
10. Vegetable Oil (olive, coconut, etc.)
Vegetable oil can add important fats to a survival diet and is important for many dressings and sauces. It’s also great for many herbal preparations and soaps. Oil doesn’t last forever so it’s a good idea to rotate your stock or at least regularly check and make sure your oils haven’t gone rancid. I’m a big fan of Nature’s Way Coconut Oil.
11. Dried Flint/Dent Corn
Flint or dent corn are varieties that are grown to be dried, ground, and used as a grain not sweet corn. They last virtually forever and are easy to grind to make cornbread, tortillas, grits, etc. Plus you can plant some to grow more as needed.
12. Pasta
While you can always make your own pasta, having some on hand is convenient in an emergency. It offers a quick and filling meal, plus it’s fairly lightweight and easy to store.
13. Cereal
Many families are accustomed to eating cereals, but they’re also important because they’re fortified. Most cereals contain a large part of your daily vitamin requirements.
14. Popcorn
Plain popping kernels are easy to store and great for keeping spirits high. For the amount of space they take up, they offer a lot of snacks.
15. Instant Potatoes
Instant potatoes offer a lot of benefits for little cost. They’re filling, cheap, last practically forever, and are lightweight and small in storage. They also only require boiling water, so you won’t use much fuel making them.
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