Food for Survival

Food for survival means many things to many people. Some people seem to think that the only thing that qualifies a survival food are MRE's or other freeze dried foods. Other people think that all you need to do is to keep a lot of wheat stored up and that will do you for survival food. When I advise people on how much and what foods to keep on hand I always suggest at least a two year and up to a five year supply. I do not know about the rest of you, but I am not going to live on MRE's or wheat alone for five or even two years. I also advise that people try eating what they are storing for survival. Eat nothing but your survival stores for a month. After that you will know whether you want to change what you are storing. Try grinding and eating nothing but wheat for the next month, or try eating nothing but freeze dried meals for the next month. I do not think that you will be so willing to say that you are going to survive for five years on that type of a diet. Can a person survive on that type of a diet? Certainly, but, do you want to? To me being a survivalist is about living as good as possible after the event that causes you to need to survive. If you will look back to my starting over posts you will notice that I lived virtually all of one summer without income. I was sure glad that I had survival foods on hand to supplement what I got from the food pantry and what I caught or picked in the wild. Should you have any wheat in your survival food supply? How about MRE's or other freeze dried food? That would be a definate YES! They have a place in my food supply, albeit a very small place. Before I get into my recomendations I want to say a word or two about gathering wild plants and growing your own vegetables and fruits or hunting and fishing. For those who are knowledgeable about wild plants and animals and those who have the space and knowledge for gardening, these are excellent ways to supplement you supply. Having followed this lifestyle for more than thirty years now, I no longer keep the two or five year supply of food on hand. I still try to keep a year's supply on hand and feel that by supplementing it with my garden and wild foods, it should last at least five years. Many non-survivalists consider what I am doing and what I recommend as hoarding food. I only need to look back as far as hurricanes Katrina and Rita to give a good reason to have a supply of food on hand. Most of the people in the affected areas would not even put aside the three days supply that the government recommended. By day two they were crying that they were hungry and had no food or water. We will never know how many survivalists there were in the area because they were not complaining on TV, they were busy trying to put their life back on track. I look at my survival food storage as a savings account, an investment. You can take food out at any time without loss of interest and replace it at your convenience. If you plan and handle it right it will never go bad or lose its value. It may even increase in value due to inflation and may be worth a lot in a true survival situation. Should you not need all of it you can barter it to people who do need it and who have things that you might need. And last but not least, it is an investment that you never have to pay taxes on. How much is enough? Can you store too much? These are questions that I hope to answer in the next few posts. For people that have no food storage at all at the present time, I suggest a minimum starting point of a two week supply. While the government recommends only a three day supply, that is not enough for even an event like a major hurricane. A two week supply, per person in your household is a bare minimum as far as I am concerned.