Five Key Foods For Survival

Five  Key Foods For Survival

If you had to focus on just 5 key foods for survival, what would they be?

Why even discuss this type of question?  My website’s focus on how to organize things in 5 key dimensions.  The rational is the number “5″ is an optimal number to manage against.   A list of 4 or fewer items doesn’t provide sufficient coverage and details.  Six or more items start to become unmanageable.  Despite our modern thinking and use of electronics to conduct multi-tasking, the human brain works very well when focused on once subject at time.   This is true for men in general.  If my wife asks me what I’m thinking, the response will be commonly, “nothing”.  This is hard for women to accept, but men are often think about nothing.  It’s not because men are dense, stupid or simple.  It’s just that men will periodically give their brains short rest, then return to the task at hand.  If you ask me to focus on one thing at a time, the task will be completed with strong quality.  Ask me to concurrently juggle 5 things at a time, all five will get finished with poor quality.

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But if given a list 5 things to do today, I’ll knock them out one at a time.   Less than 5 accomplishment in a day makes me feel unproductive.  More than 5 task on my to-do list, then the day starts to get overwhelming.  Thus I like the number 5 as a balance to getting a lot of work done.  It is particular point of view, but it works for me.  Everyone can form their own judgment about how to be effective in their work of the day.

If you could focus on 5 key foods as preparations for disasters and survival, what would they be?   I’ll offer a perspective here.

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For food storage programs (especially in the suburbs and cities):

1. Milk – Powdered and shelf-stablized milk provides a lot of nutrition.  Nitrogen packed low-fat milk from a reliable provider will last for 10 years.   Shelf-stablized milk in the non-refrigerated sections of the grocery store can last for 6 months to a year.   Regular, boxed-packed powdered milk will last for 1 or 2 years.   Milk is especially important for children and women, who need the calcium for growth and bone preservation.  Milk should be one of your key and first priorities for food storage.
2. Spam luncheon meat or canned tuna – Take your choice.  Tuna will be a bit healthier.  Spam will be more calorie dense.  Needed dietary fats are hard to store for a long periods of time. Of any food components, fats go bad first.  Then proteins.  Then complex carbohydrates. And then simple sugars.   Spam and canned tuna will store for up to 5 years.
3. Spaghetti pasta – Pasta is inexpensive, easy to store, and stores well for a couple of years.  Pasta is a great way to fill a stomach and provide a lot of calories.  In the spaghetti form, pasta takes very little space.  You can fit 4 one pound bags of spaghetti into one box of rigatoni.
4. Mixed Vegetables in cans – To get a broad range of vitamins and mineral, an effective catch-all are cans of mixed vegetables.  It can be cans of peas and carrots.  Or the generic cans of mixed vegetables with beans, carrots, peas, potatoes, whatever is mixed in.  One of the best ways to provide a hot meal in a disaster / WROL situation is the one-pot meals.  Soups or stews of combined foods is a very effective way to provide a balanced, diverse, and easy to prepare meal.   A big pot of soup or stew can feed a big family.
5. Peanut butter – Peanut butter is a super food.  It is among the most calorie dense food you can find.   Peanut butter has a shelf life of about one year, so it must be rotated.   There are some providers of long-term stored foods who offer wet peanut butter which stores longer than a year.  And dried, powdered peanut butter is very available.   If peanut butter doesn’t appeal to you, then substitute cans of beans.

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With just these five foods above, you and your family can survival for a long time with good health and energy.

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For homesteaders and food producers

1. Potatoes – Potatoes are relatively easy to grow, store well over a winter, grows in cooler climates, and is very calorie dense.   Potatoes are easy to digest for young children and those adults with digestion problems.  A small patch of potatoes can produce a lot of calories.
2. Chickens – For meat, eggs, and garden fertilizer, chickens are low-input, high-output food source.  Chickens eat just about anything, including bugs, garden scraps, table scraps, and grasses.   Chickens and their eggs provide a fantastic source of protein and needed fats.   Chickens reproduce naturally, but better with some control with the separation of the rosters and hens.  Back in the 1st Great Depression of the 1930′s, the hen-house kept many people out of the poor house.
3. Root vegetables – Like potatoes, other root vegetables provide a lot of calories and vitamins within just a small growing space.   Carrots are my family’s favorite vegetable – cooked, raw, in soups, and stews.   Please refer to my past write-up on root vegetables: Root Vegetables – The most important items in your garden
4. Milk – From cows, goats, sheep, and even camels, milk is a valuable resource.  From milk, can make cheese, yogurt, sour cream, ice cream, and as an ingredient for many cooking and baking recipes.
5. Beans – Bean poles are a great way to provide a  lot of calories and nutrition.  There are a lot of diversity in the types of beans, so likely you can find one that grows well in your region.  Much of the world, especially Latin America, relies on beans and rice as their staple food.  Rice is a challenge for most to grow.  Nearly everyone can grow beans in a small garden patch.   Once dried, beans store very well over a winter.

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These five foods above are good candidates for homesteaders and back-yard gardeners.  With these five foods alone, you’ll achieve a high-level of food self-reliance.

What would you add to this list.  Please drop a comment with your ideas.

May your stomachs and heads be always filled with quality.

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SOURCE : http://www.prepperfortress.com/five-5-key-foods-for-survival/

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