A Variety of Food

It’s really important to store what you eat – as survivalists/preppers keep saying over and over – because you’re going to want something that’s familiar to you when everything else is falling apart. Just don’t get too comfortable with only two or three foods, because that’s going to end up making life very, very difficult in the end.

Trust me: having six hundred pounds of rice might seem like a great idea right now, but unless that’s all you eat in your everyday life, you’re going to need some variety. Stockpile different kinds of rice, for starters: white rice is good for some things, but brown or wild rice is better for others. If you have that variety, you can make more kinds of meals, and that’ll keep everyone a little happier.

There should be a variety of food in the stockpile: that way, you and your family won’t get bored and cranky when you’re eating the same old boiled, white rice for the fifteenth day in a row. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ll all be grateful that you have SOMETHING, even if it IS crappy old white rice, because that’s not what’s going to happen. Personal experience taught me that, after you eat the exact-same food enough times in a row, your body starts to reject it. It’s tough to gag down white rice, even if that used to be one of your very-favorite foods, after you’ve eaten it for too long. You get to the point where you just don’t bother eating anything, and that’s not a good situation at all.

We stockpile all sorts of food…after learning that crappy little lesson, that is. Along with the rice that I just mentioned, we stock up on beans, pastas, and vegetables, along with some snacks here and there. There are tons of foods out there that are easy to store, and can be prepared without electricity or other modern conveniences. You don’t have to have a working refrigerator or freezer, either, if you’re stocking up on things like peanut butter and canned vegetables.

Get a good variety of foods, and pay careful attention to ingredients that make lots of different meals. If, for example, you have plenty of flour on hand, you can use that in everything from pepper gravy to a cake. If you get your hands on some powdered milk, you can use that for all sorts of things, too. Beans can be very flexible, too.

Also, don’t forget the comfort food. I’m not saying that it’s a good idea to forego nutritious food in favor of stockpiling candy bars, or some nonsense like that. It is, however, a good idea to have some of the comfort stuff on hand. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference a few bites of chocolate will make. Yeah, I know: that’s going to be one of the last things on your mind when the world’s gone crazy, right? Well…no, actually. Even though I don’t turn to food first for comfort, a few of my very-favorite foods make me feel better, and I really enjoy them when life’s insane. There have been times when tiny things, like a Little Debbie snack cake, have made a huge difference in my outlook.

Let’s not forget beverages when we’re talking about variety, either. Water is vital to our continued existence, yes, but it gets very old after a while. I like powdered lemonade and iced-tea mixes, as well as powdered Gatorade. They’re all easy to mix up, and they don’t require anything special. However, my family tells me that warm, or even cool (versus cold) beverages suck out loud. I actually like room-temperature drinks, including Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew, because I couldn’t have cold stuff for a long time thanks to my teeth. I actually dislike cold sodas, because they don’t taste right to me. So, you might have to think about cooling off the lemonade – that’s honestly something that I don’t think about, so I don’t have any thoughts.

If you get a good variety of food, that you can prepare and keep fresh even without electricity and your refrigerator or freezer, you and your family should eat well for quite some time. You don’t have to get so much variety that you see the same food only once a month or anything like that, though. If you have several basic ingredients on hand, like flour and sweeteners and such, then you can easily work things out so that you don’t see the same meal more than once, maybe twice, every week. That’s enough variety to keep everyone happy for months, if not years, depending on your family’s preferences and tastes.

Don’t worry, though, if you don’t have that huge variety just yet. Keep working on the stockpiles: you’ll get there soon if you move forward one step at a time. Expand your stash as you can, adding different things whenever possible, and you’ll be better off than most people out there.