I will be the first to admit that I am not particularly a fan of canned food. Canned food is not currently a part of my diet whatsoever. I also had a rather unpleasant experience with a very popular brand of canned soup several years ago that I’ll refrain from describing here. When there is no food though, and no means of procuring food for an undetermined length of time, I will rejoice canned food and eat it with gratitude and thanks.
When the day comes that you need to start eating your canned food stockpile to survive, there is one item that I cannot recommend highly enough. Whatever scenario brings us to (insert term here), it is fairly certain that we will have to survive without electricity. This can opener is battery powered and awesome! You can store it easily in a drawer and it takes up about as much space as one of those manual crank openers that are finicky and sometimes don’t work. I remember before I got this awesome battery powered can opener I used to struggle to get 8 cans of tomatoes opened to make a big pot of sauce with meatballs and sausage. Struggling to get the cans open also exposed me to razor sharp edges, which fortunately never punctured my skin! Easy and convenient will be paramount when things are at a fever pitch, and you can enjoy using it in your day to day life too.
Not being a fan of canned foods in my day to day life when times are normal does put me at one disadvantage though. Since I am not regularly consuming my stockpile, I am not able to rotate by expiration date and constantly keep things current. The way I look at it is…..I’ll just take a minor loss when things expire. Most canned foods have expiration dates that can be years off, so this doesn’t happen often or regularly. The few times this has happened I donate the canned foods to a homeless shelter and it’s certainly rewarding personally to help people in need.
As I write this, I’m realizing I forgot about one type of canned food I do currently enjoy on occasion and in a couple different recipes. Canned anchovies. Anchovies are an acquired taste, and perhaps people with a Mediterranean ancestral background might be a bit more partial to them, but for the life of me I can’t understand how people could prefer canned sardines to canned anchovies!
Canned seafood, including anchovies, sardines, mackerel and tuna can provide you with nutrition that you can’t obtain from most other canned foods. Canned seafood is abundant in vitamin A, vitamin D, all the B vitamins and essential minerals like magnesium, zinc and potassium to name a few. You will need those nutrients to keep your mind sharp and your body strong during such a stressful time. Fish are so nutrient dense, that if I had to choose only one type of canned food it would definitely be canned seafood. For the price of small fish in a can like anchovies and sardines you just can’t beat it!
Another thing to keep in mind is that we might be without electricity for an extended period of time. This is another reason canned seafood is ideal. With a solar powered stove or hot plate you can cook your canned green beans and chicken noodle soup. If you’re not that advanced or working with a tight budget though, I’d argue that canned sardines with mustard taste better than cold uncooked green beans. When you’re starving though, those cold green beans probably taste really good.
There are foods that a “healthy eater” might avoid during normal times because of what they perceive to be “bad ingredients”. It is critical to realize that bad ingredients are a lot better than no food and starvation, during a critical time no less. I don’t typically eat peanut butter, and my reasons for mostly avoiding it might be right and might be wrong. I will gladly eat peanut butter when the SHTF though and the ingredients in the jar are just fine with me at that point. Most peanut butter will last 2 years if unopened. I’ll keep 2 or 3 small jars in my stockpile, and if they’re about to expire I’ll make some cookies that I’ll mostly give away, while eating a few myself! It is crucial to put yourself in the mindset of survival, and not the mindset of “I don’t eat anything hydrogenated”. Hydrogenated is a lot better than starvation, or the incredible stress going hungry will put on you during what will almost certainly be the most stressful event of your life.
Aside from purchasing canned foods, you can also learn how to can your own food that you prepare yourself. I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten around to this yet, but I intend to at some point. The possibilities are endless though. You could can your spicy ground beef taco meat or meatballs in tomato sauce. You could can cooked chicken thigh meat in broth or Asian style Mongolian beef. I would recommend making this one of your last priorities when it comes to planning and preparedness though. I can’t envision you having to live on your stockpile of prepper food for more than 4-6 weeks. There are much more important ducks to get in a row than having delectable beef stroganoff you spent an afternoon preparing in your stockpile. In times of survival of the fittest, food is food and nutrients and nutritional value are key. You won’t be in a state of mind to savor how delicious the food is. You will be eating to survive.
There are so many factors to consider, but food and water are the most important things to have in order to survive a catastrophic situation.
Let’s talk about expiration dates. Just about all of the canned food items at the grocery store will have a date stamped on the top of bottom of the can that is a “best by” date. That date is for quality and not for safety. There are downsides to going past the best by date. You will lose some of the nutrient value in the food and the food might lose some color and taste. It is generally considered safe to eat for up to 6 years though. The USDA does not require a labeling for safety though. The food will generally be safe to eat for years past the “best by” date.
You’ll need to store your canned foods in an area where the temperature is below 75 degrees. If the temperature gets above that for any considerable period of time, you’ll need to make sure the can isn’t expanding or “puffing up”. If it is, that is a big no no and it is not safe to consume that can of food. If the can is dented, usually that won’t affect the seal. Just give it a smell to be sure. If there is rust on any of the cans, I would advise to toss those out as well.
