30 Survival Foods to Stockpile for Any Disaster
For many disasters or SHTF scenarios, we suggest that you stockpile the things for that specific disaster. However, sometimes we just don’t know what could happen. Because you never know, we have compiled a list of 30 survival foods that you can stockpile no matter what happens.
Things to Keep in Mind
As you stockpile, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Consider the following things when you are putting together your survival foods:
- Make sure you have at least a 3-day supply of non-perishable food. I would recommend much longer (at least a month). 3-days is a good starting point.
- Get foods that you know your family will eat.
- Don’t forget to accommodate special dietary needs, such as formula or baby food.
- Try to avoid foods that will make you thirsty or dehydrate you, especially if you have a limited supply of water.
- Check out my post: “How to Store your Food Storage” to ensure you properly store your survival foods.
- Don’t forget to stockpile water as well!
Related: How to Store Water for Drinking and Cooking
30 Survival Foods to Stockpile
Survival food is food that you need to survive any emergency or disaster. Here are the foods suggested by ready.gov:
- Wheat Berries: Get these in #10 cans since they store well while retaining nutrition. Your wheat berries can be turned into flour, cooked whole as a hot cereal, or be added to soups and stews.
- Salt: Salt doesn’t just season things. Preserving food was what we used to use salt for. It is still a great way to preserve your food. We also need it in our diet.
- Ready to eat canned food: These are essential, especially if something happens where you can’t cook your food. Get canned meats, fruits, and vegetables.
- Protein bars: If your meat goes bad because you have no power, this is a great way to get the protein that you need.
- Dry cereal or granola: This lasts quite a while and would be good to eat whether you can cook or not.
- Peanut butter: This is a great protein food. It lasts for 3-4 months. You can eat it even without bread.
- Dried fruit: Fruit is good for your body and dried fruit lasts much longer than fresh fruit. These provide potassium and other nutrients as well.
- Canned juices: Fruit has natural sugars and fruit juices can keep your sugar levels up if you don’t have enough food. Additionally, they are good for restoring electrolytes.
- Non-perishable milk: Canned milk or powdered milk are great sources of vitamin D. You won’t have to worry if the power goes out.
- Food for babies and infants: If you have a baby or infant, make sure to stock up on formula, baby food, and snacks for the child.
More Survival Foods to Stockpile
Here are some additional foods we recommend you stockpile:
- Canned soups and chili: These can be eaten straight out of the can and offer a variety of nutrients.
- Dry pasta: Carbs help keep you full and give you energy. Stock them since they are easy to fix and offer many meal options.
- Sports drinks: Gatorade and Powerade can help replenish electrolytes if water is scarce. Consider getting them with less sugar.
- Honey: Honey is a natural preservative, immune booster, antibacterial, and antifungal. Basically, it will help keep you healthy.
- Baking soda: It’s cheap, a great leavening agent, and can be combined with vinegar and used in place of eggs to make bread and cakes. Plus it’s good for cleaning and deodorizing.
- Dry yeast: This is essential for making many types of bread. Learn to make your own yeast starters as well.
- Popcorn: Plain popcorn kernels are easy to store and last for a long time. They make great snacks once popped, and can even be popped over a fire.
- Instant Potatoes: These last practically forever and require very little energy to cook. Just some boiling water and you have something filling in your belly.
- Crackers: Crackers are a great carb source. They make soups more filling and help you make it to the next meal.
- Beans: These are long-term survival items. They are full of protein and very filling. Additionally, they are inexpensive and easy to store and come in various types for variety in meal planning.
- Rice: Rice is similar to beans. It’s easy to store, filling, and lasts a long time.
- Lentils: Lentils cook faster than beans which require less energy to cook, but offer the same amount of protein.
- Oatmeal: Oatmeal can be stored without refrigeration. It makes a great breakfast or can be added to meats.
- Nuts: Nuts such as peanuts, almonds, pecans, and other varieties can be stored easily and are packed full of protein.
- Pasta sauce: Along with pasta, the sauce is a great way to make a quick and easy meal.
- Tea: Tea is a natural antibacterial and is good for medicinal purposes.
- Oils: It’s hard to cook anything without oil or fat. Stockpile vegetable oil, butter, coconut oil, olive oil, lard, or your preferred choice.
- Corn starch: This is great for baking and thickening.
- Pancake mix: Get one of the varieties where you only need water to make the batter.
- Eggs and powdered eggs: Eggs are a good source of protein and they are used in many recipes. Powdered eggs last longer.
Alternative Cooking Methods
Did you know that even if you can’t use your stove or grill, there are alternative cooking methods you can use? Here are just a few ways you can cook without your stove:
- Dutch Ovens with charcoal (outside)
- Butane Stoves and Butane Fuel
- Camp Chef Stove/Oven (uses propane)
- BBQ Grills
- Camp stoves
What to Do With Survival Foods with No Power Available
It is crucial that you stockpile foods that don’t need to be refrigerated. Also plan to have some foods that are refrigerated and frozen as part of your food stockpile since the power MAY not go out. Here is what you can do if you lose power:
- Keep your refrigerator and freezer closed as much as possible. Unopened, the food will stay cold for 4 hours or longer.
- Use a thermometer to check the temperature in the fridge or freezer. It needs to be at 40 degrees or lower.
- If they have been above 40 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 2 hours, you will need to dispose of it. When in doubt, cook it if still partially frozen, or throw it out.
- If you live in an area where it is cold and it is colder than 40 degrees, you could put the food outside to keep it from spoiling.
Can I Use Dry Ice?
The key to dry ice is you need to have it or know where to get it prior to a power outage. Here’s what you need to know about dry ice:
- 25 pounds of dry ice will keep a 10 cubic foot freezer below freezing for 3 to 4 days!
- If you use dry ice to keep your food cold, do not let it come into direct contact with the food.
- Be careful when using dry ice. Wear dry, heavy gloves so you don’t experience personal injury.
Final Word
When it comes to survival foods, think foods you can eat without electricity, power, or a heating source. Try to get commercial #10 cans produced and packed by professionals. Remember, luck favors the prepared. Be sure to get to the store NOW to grab these survival foods to stockpile. Don’t wait until it’s too late! May God Bless this world, Linda
Copyright Images: Emergency Food on Counter Deposit photos_377044208_s-2019
And, make sure that the canned chili you store does not contain beans. The real name for chili is “chili con carne” (chili with meat.) It is not named “chili con frijoles” (chili with beans.) LOL!!! And, by the way, my preference for canned chili is Hormel, but everyone can make their own decision on brand.
Hi Harry, you made my day! I bought the right brand, Hormel! I better change the term to chili con carne, right now! You’re the best! You always make me smile! Linda
Heh, heh, heh,
Watch your doorstep on Tuesday. Fedex is coming to see you. Now, you will have no excuse for not making Baked Beef Taquitos. LOL!!!
Hi Harry!!! Oh my gosh!! You make me giggle! I will have to post more pictures!! You make me smile!! Linda
WOW! I have all of these and then some. I’m wanting to can some of our meats in the freezer before we need to do something with it. As in lose the power for whatever reason.
One thing everyone needs to know. Walmart sells powdered peanut butter. (Just add water). We have several jars of regular peanut butter, and two jars of the powdered. I think hubby is finally on board with prepping. Yay!!!!
Hi Deborah, good to know. I bought a can of powdered peanut butter but it had such a short shelf-life it didn’t work for me. What is the shelf-life of your brand? Linda
Expiration date says 02/23/2022. Consume immediately once prepared. Keep in a cool dry place. We haven’t opened it yet. We also have some jars of peanut butter that are stored in a cool dark place.
Hi Deborah, this is awesome. So in other words, once it’s opened you need to use it quickly. I quote Legacy Foods: “Peanut Butter Powder Features –
Freeze Dried, High-Quality Ingredients
Non-GMO
Resealable Bag
Food will last up to 1 year after breaking the seal
Bag Stands Easily on a Shelf
Up to 10-15 year shelf Life
A great addition to your food storage or Perfect for Daily Use
Simple to Prepare – Just Add Water to Rehydrate”
It says use immediately after mixed. I’m thinking of after I open it to put it in vacuum sealed containers.
Popcorn can be ground to make fantastic cornmeal! The taste is richer and protein count is higher. And, as a big bonus, popcorn is the only non-GMO form of corn. Win/win!
Hi Sue, Oh I love non-GMO popcorn! And it makes the best cornbread!!! Linda
If you have a grain grinder, you can also grind popcorn to make cornmeal.
If the power goes out and you have no idea how long the outage will be, you can protect your refrigerator and freezer by piling on blankets to further insulate. Also, use the foods in the refrigerator section first, then the frozen foods. The frozen foods will keep an ambient temperature longer than the refrigerator section will. Of course, if you have a large freezer this may not work so well! I only have a refrigerator and the small freezer on top!!
Hi Leanne, a great reminder on the blankets! I love cornbread with freshly ground popcorn!!! Yummy!! Linda
Linda,
Re: canned chili. I actually LIKE chili with beans but it must have meat in it too. There’s never enough meat in them for me so I add left over meat I’ve cooked for tacos the the canned chili. Hormel chili is okay but I prefer Armour or Nalley. And even if I get chili con carne I add a can of pinto beans or chili beans to it.
Re: Salt. Be sure to stockpile iodized salt. Iodine is a micronutrient your thyroid needs. Before Iodized salt was introduced the incidence of goiters in our population was significantly higher. You can get iodine from seaweed, seafood and even eggs but it’s hard to get enough that way. Salt without iodine is fine for preserving food, or for flavoring foods–just be sure you use some iodized salt too.
Re: Freezer food. If your frozen food starts to thaw before you can get your power restored, and your range and oven work (natural gas or propane) you can cook it, make jerky from it, or, my preferred method, can it. Meat does not have to be fully thawed if you cook it in a pressure cooker–which also takes less time so you can get more loads processed faster. If you have a large pressure canner you can put up quite a lot of meat per load and a load can be cooling while you are processing another. In the kind of emergency where your power may not be restored for several days or weeks or, God forbid, never, it will be vital to preserve what you already have on hand. So, you’ll probably be frantically cooking, jerking and canning.
Hi Ray, now I need to get some of those brands of chili. I will tell you this, it’s really hard to find it in the stores right now. Is it the product or the cans, I do not know. It’s so funny, I have only bought that kind of chili for hotdogs. I smother the chili con carne over the open-faced hot dogs. It’s interesting you would talk about the freezer (power outage). Mark and I were just talking yesterday about that yesterday. The price of a generator is too expensive for our budget. We have decided we will have a BBQ and share it with neighbors that I know are not prepared in any way. God bless our country right now. Linda
Canned chili is fully stocked here in Kingman, AZ. I’m buying more canning jars and lids too, as they are still readily available but who know for how long.
RE: generators. Here’s a link you should check out about how to turn your car into a generator. You can also Google How To Turn Your Car Into A Generator and get several results. Less expensive than any reliable generator. I’ve thought about doing this as a backup to my solar system and gasoline generator. https://cargenerator.com/
With the knowledge in the following link plus an inverter you can power your necessary appliances with your car. https://jalopnik.com/how-to-power-your-home-with-your-car-5955850
And here’s a link to a decent 1000 watt inverter that will power your fridge/freezer and a few other things for less than $70. It plugs directly into your car’s cigarette lighter.
As with any generator I’d use very heavy duty extension cords (12 gauge minimum, 10 gauge even better) to run from the inverter to a power strip for my appliances and lights. I wouldn’t use it to power a TV or computer (even though they claim it will power a laptop) because they do NOT claim it is a true sine wave inverter.
An easy way to determine how many ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY items you can run on such a system is to take a photo of your electric meter reading, then go to your breaker box and turn off everything that isn’t absolutely necessary. If it’s winter, you’ll want your furnace to stay on. I’d leave my fridge and freezers plugged in as well as one room with a TV or at least a radio in it as well as the lighting for that room. After you’ve flipped ever breaker you don’t need, wait for one hour and then take another photo of your electric meter. Compare the two readings. That’s how much power you used in one hour. If the number changed by 1, you used one kilowatt of power in that hour and a Cargenerator or the Megapart inverter I provided a link to above will work for you. If it changed by more than that you’ll need to turn off more stuff. If you are building a system that you can use off-grid, size your battery bank and inverter accordingly. Hope this helps.
Hii Ray, you can get chili AND lids and canning lids???? Thanks for all this information on generators, etc. I need to print this off. I’m in the middle of making pumpkin chocolate chips bars! My house smells awesome! Thank you for sharing your expertise! Linda
Linda, in yesterday’s reply I forgot to mention one critical thing about turning your car into a generator, though your hubby probably knows this. The wiring in many 12V sockets in your car is pretty flimsy so it is much safer to hook your inverter directly to your car’s battery. (There can be a risk of fire if you don’t, due to overheating the light gauge wiring). You can do so with a battery to female cigarette lighter plug adapter like this YCIND model. It comes with ten feet of 12-gauge wire with alligator clips for the car battery on one end, a 30-amp fuse in the middle and a female cigarette lighter plug on the other end. In short, it would be perfectly acceptable.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KR5NXW7/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=rdw0a-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=88179a2dc68bd7226713a7a9b54518e5&creativeASIN=B07KR5NXW7
Sorry about the omission. I’d just written a newsletter article on how to turn your car into an emergency (or whole home) generator and this part slipped my mind.
Thank you Ray, Linda
Whoops, I forgot the link to the inverter. Here it is.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082V5TC11/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=rdw0a-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=5a1fba26b0b3402ad67747e3930e67dd&creativeASIN=B082V5TC11
Whoops again! Apparently the entire reply I posted about using your car as an emergency generator to keep your house warm and your food cold, didn’t go through so here’s a summary of that as best as I can remember.
This is an ingenious idea provided your car will start. Basically, your car generates 12V DC current. There are inverters (even pure sine wave inverters) you can plug directly into your cigarette lighter socked (or any other 12V socket your car has). Then you run a heavy duty extension cord (12-gauge minimum, 10-gauge is even better) to minimize voltage drop from the inverter to a power strip for your appliances. In my case I’d for sure be plugging in my freezer, fridge and lastly my CPAP machine when I wanted to go to sleep. You’ll probably want to plug in your furnace too, because it probably has an electronic igniter.
Here’s a link on how to turn your car into a generator, though you will need an inverter.
https://jalopnik.com/how-to-power-your-home-with-your-car-5955850
Here’s a link to an inexpensive inverter that plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter socket and provides 1000 watts of power. While it would probably be okay for your furnace, fridge/freezer and a couple of lights, I wouldn’t use it to power a computer (despite the fact they claim it will do so) because they do NOT claim it’s a pure sine wave inverter. It’s the Maxpart Power Inverter.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082V5TC11/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=rdw0a-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=7f69f5b6f49a7420a90ebcd5a636f387&creativeASIN=B082V5TC11
There are pure sine wave inverters available. Naturally, they are more expensive. The Cargenerator below is such a one.
There’s a business called Cargenerator.com, which has a pure sine wave device that costs less than any good quality generator and will provide 1000W of power to your home. It only weighs sixteen pounds and reportedly can be used to charge laptops and phones as well as to run appliances such as your refrigerator freezer, furnace, a laptop or TV and some lights.
https://cargenerator.com/
So long as the gas in your car’s tank lasts (anywhere from 50-100 hours, depending on your car) your frozen or refrigerated foods will remain cold. And if you plug your furnace in and you heat with oil, propane or natural gas, your home will stay warm. I’m sorely tempted…
Thank Ray, Linda
We have some FD foods in #10 cans but it’s very telling seeing how many companies have little to no inventory of these items right now. Scary!
Hi Amy, this is what I have heard about the FD and D foods. The # 10 cans are very hard to come by. Also, the smaller cans are hard to come by. You may have seen grocery stores slightly bare and a shortage of soda and beer. The companies cannot process their product without cans. There was a bit of a food shortage because some food had to be dumped because for many reasons from trucking to processing issues. That’s another story. Please stock what you eat and know how to cook it. We will get through this but we must be diligent. Linda