The point I am trying to make is to think about this in consideration to what you store. What foods do you eat when you are sick, when you have a cold or flu...or hang over. What did you eat after a break up. Store plenty of this on top of The nutritious food.

Why? Why, knowing that in stress the average human will choose to eat bad foods that are terrible for our health and efficient functionality, would I stockpile it? I'd just be asking for trouble as the healthy food would sit untouched while everyone pounds back twinkies and doritos by choice, degrading both their mental and physical functionality, and exponentially reducing their positive survival motivations.

However, if all that is available to eat is healthy food, then that's all folks will eat. If someone is stressed/depressed to the point that they would starve themselves to death, they are a net-negative to the group.

Your personal story is one in which you had an internal disaster, but the outside world remained unchanged and provided you all the junky choices of comfort food your psyche was telling your body it wanted. In a disaster situation, that junkfood supply won't exist, unless you fabricate it.

* The above may see a little more trite and callous than I intend, but i'm heading into a meeting and didn't have time to soften it up a bit.

Oddmott,

I don't think that healthy food and comfort food are mutually exclusive. Though C5 offers a very personal example, switching from regular diet to post SHTF bowl of rice daily would really add to the stress of the event. Add to this food fatigue which is very real, especially for lonely senior which again compounds the problem.

Other than for calories, why do you think that Canadian soldiers have add chocolate bars in their rations since WW2? It has to do about bringing some comfort in otherwise bleak days.

Don't store 6000 #s of Twinkies, but if you only store rice and elbow macaroni, expect to be quite miserable.

Two years ago I knew what some things were like boxed macaroni and cheese and canned soup , but I had never had stuff that preppers were talking about like canned pasta like Chef boy are di and meat products , not even canned chili or stew so I decided to eat some things to see what products I would buy , additionally I remember eating canned corn and reconstituted potato flakes . At the time I was reeling from speculating what was happening at fukushima and if it blew up would we need to go underground for two weeks or what, so decided I would need some storage food . So I diverted from a regular diet and tried eating storage food things for three days and the result was a lot of stomach pain and a very acidic feeling , I was feeling terribly nauseous and wrecked. I am not sure exactly how well I would fare if I had to eat that alone for weeks on end . I love chocolate but in reality I can only eat small amounts or I will be sick . Same with any refined carb or sugary stuff like syrup, jam, honey . I can only eat them in moderation or a I pay a price with indigestion. Honestly if SHTF I think my comfort food would be boiled eggs from our own hens and swiss chard drizzled with stored vinegar because it does not cause me any indigestion . So I store staples with the idea in mind to extend whatever else is available and make food that is palatable.

Well, to each their own I suppose.

Having both and educational & business background in nutrition (specifically sugar & gluten free staples) I'd never prioritize the short term "high" of junk food above its debilitating longer term (10mins - 10 years later) effects. In an emergency situation, where potable water may be in short supply, the last thing you want to be doing is risking diabetes by consuming an abundance of sugars, without enough water to flush the crap out.

A couple important points to keep in mind when planning menus:

- A single tablespoon of processed sugar knocks out your immune system for 6 hours (more than enough time for any virus to move in)
- White & Wholewheat breads/pastas/crusts contain that much processed sugar added so, they are poor choices for that reason
- Modern white & wholewheat flours are broken down into even more complex sugars by our digestive systems, releasing extra glucose into our bloodstream for up to 12 hours after consumption. Simply put, the average North American's immune system is working at about 30% efficiency our entire lives, just from our debilitating dietary intake
- Maple syrup/sugar is EXTREMELY low on the glycemic index making it the absolute best natural, healthy sweetener. If you NEED sugar to feel happy (for the 5 minutes it has any "happy" effect), rely on maple syrup first, followed by sources like honey, refined fruit/fructose, etc.
- Realize that a single orange activates more of the average person's pleasure centres than even chocolate does, and revitalizes brain & body more than the average sports drink. Many other fruits have similar effects.

There are 1000s of tastier and healthier options beyond base rice and elbow macaroni. Food fatigue shouldn't ever be an issue if you have 1 decent nutritional guide and 1 decent cookbook for your growing region.

That said, i'm all for collecting canned & processed foods for a very short term reliance. It takes time to source what your region is providing naturally, even longer to plant crops and nurture them to the point of harvest. We all have to have something to eat to cover those few to six months, right?

I just urge everyone to really balance the nutritional value of the items they're storing on a deeper scale than simply "calories vs cost". Survival requires a lengthy series of correct decisions. You can't make clear, correct decisions when your brain is addled by malnutrition.

Very interesting reading how you guys are thinking on this subject matter, having lived in a fly -in and fly-out zone, where 95 percent of our food came by sealift once a year, and the other 4% was fresh game caught by the local hunters and shared and that last 1% was fresh stuff bought at the local store, I really do understand what it means to live for months out of storage, and by storage I mean processed dried and canned storage.

Living on the farm and having the season's we do, we are so so SO! spoiled, the only time of the year that I have a chance here and now on the farm to truly live even a bit hard is during the starving months of feb/april, I normally cut us of from outside supplies for a month and live just out of the storage and the farm..

Compared to living in the artic, I still have so so many other extra's down here in Ontario now..

Bottom line for me, if its there, you will find a way to use it.. and stock up on spices..

The point I am trying to make is to think about this in consideration to what you store. What foods do you eat when you are sick, when you have a cold or flu...or hang over. What did you eat after a break up. Store plenty of this on top of The nutritious food.

If someone is stressed/depressed to the point that they would starve themselves to death, they are a net-negative to the group.

LOL. I try to avoid groups that shoot their wounded. I think the problem is thinking about a survival group as some sort of mercenary , rig pig , hockey team. Now, take my story, then consider watching your 8 year old child, or your wife or mother, slowly getting skinnier and skinnier. In my group I try to weed out the mercenary, Nietzsche Supermen types before a coffee date is even considered. I use my story to look at new candidates, realising, once they are "IN" they are in no mater what. Not just as long as they are profitable to me. Not just while they are at the top of their game. They are my Responsibility and hopefully the sense of honor, brotherhood and self sacrifice is a mutual code.
Im left to consider one of my "Friends" that abandoned me at the bottom. If he had maintained his honour for just 2 months more, he would have been able to share in my prosperity. I would have offered him a place he could live for free for the rest of his life creating a platform he could have built wealth and security from...with healthy food growing and walking around just outside the door. He may die now. I guess its a strange morality tale.

This isn't an either/or type of post. Im just pointing out that extreme stress causes illness that can effect appetite. Others may gorge or hide food. I know from experience, that wile suffering a recent cold, that the only thing I could convince myself to eat was the extremely bland Primo soups. As a bonus, I didn't have to think about how to cook it much wile feverish. If I wasn't sick, Primo soups would be the last thing in the pantry I would consider eating after every thing else was gone.

I don't consider myself a shoot the wounded type. But maybe I am. Again, I didn't mean to sound overly harsh or insensitive. We all look at these things differently and that's the major reason we're all here.

I do know that neither i, nor any influential member of my group (which essentially every adult is), would ever consider jeopardizing the group's safety and survival chances by pushing very strongly to waste valuable prepping $ and space on junkfood.

And again, I pointed out earlier that your extreme case cannot be applied to a disaster scenario, as your disaster affected only you personally. The world did not change, only you did. You were ill and your psyche was in a very negative tailspin. It was telling you that parts of it didn't want to carry on, so it was ruling out nutrition and instead only allowing you to eat foods that would kill you.

In a disaster situation, that won't be an option. Those foods will be the first bought/raided and consumed. Your body won't have any choice but to carry on and eat what's available, or give up.

Yikes, isn't this going away from the OP's question!

Is there really a wrong answer?!?! So long as someone has enough to eat and don't become burdens to other or have to rely on pillaging to survive, I'm ok with their choice. Surely, a granola type eater won't see a point in storing junk food and a junk food addict won't really plan on having quinoa as a staple storage food. Have enough for you and your family and maybe a bit of extra for charity for as long as you see necessary.

As for myself, other than a dozen 25 yr freeze dry cans for serious long time survival, the rest is essentially a mix of what I need to buy during a grocery trip "+2". I would estimate we could keep up with our regular diet for about 3 months without much change and then a few more with a bit of rationing.

So, what are your top 5 food items to store?

Yikes, isn't this going
away from the OP's question! ...

So, what are your top 5 food items to store?

True enough.

My top 5 are...
- Gluten free flours & grains (and 6 yrs worth of seeds)
- Legumes, usually 8-10 varieties (and 6 yrs worth of seeds)
- Dehydrated/cured/salted pork, beef, venison & fish
- Maple Syrup or Honey (whichever I've been able to produce most of, or barter for)
- Potatoes, a ton, literally (used for eating, planting, alcohol production, starch for cleaning & thickening agent, wilderness medicine, livestock feed when they turn)

Thank you all for the tips, seems Im on the right track after all. I have a water source so I am tailoring my diet for foods that are prepped with water, by that I mean, rices, lentils, dehydrated foods. Spices to make it all taste a little better. My plan was to be able to hunt at the BOL, but I once read all civilizations become agricultural ones. I dont have the land to do this, and hunting is not always guarenteed, so Im working on the storage factor a little more. Does anyone see a problem with having a diet plan that relies on a "base" of water. Like i said lentils, pasta, rice, ?
Thanks The beav

Does anyone see a problem with having a diet plan that relies on a "base" of water. Like i said lentils, pasta, rice, ?
Thanks The beav

If you have guaranteed access to water and the means to ensure its clean, then that sounds good. You would want other food though to keep your diet whole. Eating only starches without protein, dairy products or fruit/veggies would leave you with a lack of nutrients.

There are a lot of great suggestions in these replies, but I don't see many people including an oil source. If you are reduced to cooking on a camp stove or open fire, boiled flour isn't going to be very tasty, lol. A can of Crisco, or better yet coconut oil will make for a better use of your other supplies, and the added calories will not be an issue. Once you are hunting for decent size game, you will be able to render your own fats, and that empty Crisco can will be a handy storage container. On a side note, shortening makes a great alternative fuel for small lamps/stoves.

1. Oats
2. Rice
3. Flour
4. Sugar
5. Water; nope, not a food; cooking oil - darn, not a food; ... oops, not a food ... guess I'd say OLIVES and/or Herbs which are both a food or flavouring item.
NOTE: I was split on this last choice with Dried Skim Milk powder. But I really love olives.

We should start another thread as to the Top 5 items to "store" for barter or use.
I would say cooking fuel / wood tops the list.
Other items would be: cooking oils like previously mentioned, essential proteins (dried or canned), vitamins, nuts, etc. There are just so many choices.

I was tooling around the site and found this post. It's both older and in a specific group (I'm in the MidAtlantic U.S., not Ontario), so I wasn't sure how kosher it would be to respond on the forum, but there was a PM conversation and I was encouraged to post it with the reasonings included. It's LOOOOONNNNNGGGG.

You might want to research "food fatigue" and "appetite fatigue" and decide how much of a role it will play in your planning. If you grow, you can help limit that.

You also want to consider the ability to phase in foods if they're not common in your diet, maybe by buying a bucket of "entrees" and sprinkling in others if you eat a lot of processed foods, or #10 cans of meal items, or grocery store cans. Otherwise, the digestive system goes from processed to "whole" foods and either shuts down, you get gas and bloating and cramps, or it all scoots out before it can be digested and you end up with dehydration problems and taxing your TP/phone book supplies and waste disposal system.

And onto the "5 things". It's set up in close to descending order of total space.

I store grains, sugars and salt in about equal bulk, because I require sugars and salts for both cooking and seasoning and for preserving other foods, and because it will be easier for me to secure proteins and veggies but it's difficult to produce grains without a mechanized system and I cannot keep potatoes "alive" long enough to plant for a second crop. I'm an okay grower otherwise, but I require an influx of potatoes from somewhere to start the next season.

Therefore, I store a mix of wheat, barley, oatmeal, quinoa and amaranth, both types of rice (brown rice and wild rice only store 5-7 years because of the oils), flour (only stores 5-10 years), baking mixes (3-10 years by type and packaging) and a variety of potatoes (instant in boxes sealed later and in #10 cans, diced and shredded and sliced that I buy by can and bucket and dehydrate on my own). I have a ton of oatmeal and barley because we can/will eat it and because I use it in homemade dog food. There's a little oddball stuff: cornmeal, dried corn, farina/cream of wheat/germade, millet (painful to mill on your own), and couscous; stuff to add more variety.

Variety is important to me in both the eating/nutrition factor and the time it takes to cook factor, and several things cost about the same on each level, take up about the same space, so I go for variety.

That's 1 and 2, maybe 1-3.

3/4 would be: Powdered eggs and powdered scrambled egg mixes and powdered egg substitute

They give me animal-based proteins for the dogs and cat (they need at least 25-50% of their protein intake to be animal-based and I figure everybody with a gun will start hunting). They hit fats for humans and dogs (fats are super necessary for the body to make use of the nutrition it gets; we eat too much as Americans, but rice and beans and veggies contain almost none).
*I have beans stashed, but I need animal protein, the eggs take less volume per protein serving, and I will have the opportunity to grow and possibly hunt/gather more protein and plant-based protein than grains and the others on the list.

4/5 would be: seasonings
Powdered butter (fats + comfort + a tad calcium), powdered shortening (same, minus dairy), beef and chicken and veg stock powder (dissolves easier than cubes), cream-of soups, canned veg and spiced soups (for cooking as casseroles and for adding beans and wheat and rice and barley to), BBQ sauce, salad dressings (heavy on Caesar, Ranch and super heavy on Italian), BLACK PEPPER (by the bucket, literally, although it's in smaller containers for rotating), powdered garlic and onion, Wor... sauce, soy and teriyaki and plum sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves [collectively, those herbs give me the most bang for the space and buck, and I grow sprouts for hot and spicy and bite and a ton of herbs that cover my annual use every year], and cocoa, energy drinks, Slim Fast, and Gatorade to both boost nutrients and calories and to make treated water taste better and serve as a pick-me-up.

5 (if your eyes aren't bleeding yet and I can call salt and sugar one thing) would be:
Ready-to-eat, just-add-water, heat-and-eat foods
These are canned baked beans, Mountain House #10 cans of entrees and breakfast meals, Provident Pantry and Augason Farm and Thrive pasta meals and rice meals and beef stew (beef will be a treat in my house) and Oriental beef meals and chicken dishes, soups that can serve as a base and be stretched by homegrown beans and veggies. Collectively, because I can grow a good bit and have the ability for small amounts of winter/isolation growing, I stock more of those, although almost all of them have a veggie or fruit set aside to go with them.

Pectin is a biggie in my house, too. And Vinegar, because it can be used for cooking, preserving, cleaning, and to get rid of pests in the garden.
Hope you made it and that I didn't overstep.
-Mrs. P

Mrs. P - we don't have rules about posting in "other" forums. In fact we encourage it. The provincial boards are meant to be for provincial posts - like meets or local bargains etc but things end up where ever and we've decided to not worry about it too much. Post away!

Good post too BTW!