Canned food lasts a good long time so I wouldn't be worried much about rotation... if it comes time to rotate and you don't want to eat it, donate it.

I basically never rotate--I figure that if I need the emergency kit, a little bit of old/plastic-leached bottled water will be the least of my concerns.

My stash includes canned beans, boxes of cereal, evaporated milk, and canned tuna.

Heh, great picture of Russian canned food you found! Some MREs are not bad, they are super filling at about 2000 calories each. We used to have a stash until they expired (and those things last forever so they were really old). My emergency kit has all sorts of white beans, peas, canned/pouch tuna and salmon, peanut butter, nutella (for the high sugar) and actually some of the cans up there like the sprats that I get from the Russian store! I'm not a big canned food eater, and I don't like already mixed things (soups etc) so I keep things that I like to eat by themselves or mix them myself with whatever else is around.

I have lots of granola bars, some pouches of instant oatmeal and I got a couple of bags of dehydrated backpackers' meals. I did have some cans in there at one point but it made the bag super heavy.

I'm from Gulfport, MS and after Katrina we were given MREs to eat. They're pretty nasty, kinda weird and pretty much only ate them to see what they were like. I had the spaghetti.

Giving it to a food bank sounds like a pretty good idea.

I temporarily had an emergency stash inspired by living in lower Manhattan through 9/11 and the black out. Our gas stove worked (we lit it manually as the electronic ignition was out), so I was able to heat things up, which was great. Same thing when I lived in San Francisco for a 7.1 quake--gas but no electric. We started with the freezer items, naturally. The biggest drag to store/rotate is gallons of water (we boiled pasta in it).

One thing I've learned is that it's not that I can't cook in an emergency, it's that I can't shop. So having a good, basic pantry goes far.

Suggestions? Black beans straight from the can are totally edible, especially if your stash includes a can or jar of salsa! And I do use canned beans and salsa, so that's ok on rotation. The Nutella is a great suggestion. Some shredded wheat, canned fruit, and evaporated milk might not be so bad. Those are items I'd use in a rotation, too.

In a real grab and go emergency, it's protein bars all the way. You'll be getting enough of a workout carrying water, children, and running without cans.

We live in Northern California and are pretty well-prepared. I bought a book about emergency food a few years ago called Apocalypse Chow (http://www.slashfood.com/2007/02/18/apocalypse-chow-how-to-eat-well-when-the-power-goes-out-cookbo/). We have our disaster stash right next to our regular pantry and it is ONLY food that we actually eat. I rotate through it regularly.

I just want to chime in here to say that actually my food budget is quite tight these days. So I would really prefer to buy food that I can eat and not have to donate. Thanks for the book recommendation, kaylaps!

I second the food bank seriously...Yes you are having to spend more money on more food but you are helping out as well. MRE aren't that bad but bad, so use caution with them, they are also enormous calorie fillers

As the pp mentioned, beans and tuna can be eaten right out of the can. Nuts and dried fruit could work. You could also use canned broth, soup or juice to rehydrate something if there is no clean water.

check out these foods -- a friend of mine sells them: www.mpowerfoods.myefoods.com

they look tasty to me!

I was just talking to a friend about how hard this is. She donates hers. My problem is a house full of food people with multiple food allergies (including dairy, tomatoes, and black pepper) and a child with celiac disease. Between these two things it is hard to find canned foods we can eat, especially the kinds that are meant to be meals and have a decent number of calories.

I do what I can. Canned pears, olives, pineapple (not all of us can eat it though), peanut butter (same), fish (same). I might as well stop. I don't know that there is a canned item in our pantry that we all can eat except for the pears and olives. My plan is to start buying canned beans and canned veggies for a stock up and to go with the donation route when it is time to rotate. We don't like them and don't use them, but they will do in a pinch, and I am realizing that it is even more important for us to have a solid stash because of the food allergies.

anytime i buy new cans, i put them in the kit and pull out an equivalent amount of whatever item it was for the pantry. rotation not needed - besides, all cans are stamped with a date on them.

for what i keep: beans, potted meat and fish(mackerel, sardines, etc. not tuna), spinach, other veggies. lots of tomatoes. basically anything that's high in nutrition and a regular part of our diet goes in the bin.

I am miserably unprepared for an emergency. Our house is a turn of the (last) century farmhouse and has not been updated with energy-saving changes. It's drafty in the winter and crazy hot in the summer. There is no room that stays consistently cool year-round, so I don't have anywhere to store dry goods. Canned beans and tuna are about all I have that doesn't require water for cooking. We do have six gallons of water stashed at all times, but that's really not very much.

I also worry about our cats; they eat raw food which needs to be frozen. My solution is to buy a few months' worth of canned food then donate it when the expiration date is near.

I live in Missouri, where there are always people pointing out the possibility of earthquakes but the real disasters more likely to occur are tornadoes and weather related loss of power/etc.
At the moment I have the same problem. Growing up I know my grandparents and parents kept a six month supply so I did actually grow up eating a fair amount of canned pastas and fruit cocktail since they actively rotated it. I *guess* I could subsist on that if I had to but it's not what we eat on any given night around here. So I worry about stocking up because in the event of an emergency I would want something but don't want to open up a can of furry food.

My husband on the other hand had a 1 years supply of food in his parent's basement before we got married. He had pounds of cornmeal, some kind of wheat that takes years to go bad, industrial size cans of pinto beans, sugar, and peanut butter. These are things we could use (cornmeal, sugar) and store well but definitely wouldn't be good to buy them in the sizes he did - and you would need something to cook to make them edible which I guess he didn't think about.

We do keep a few crates of bottles of water in the basement for now.

Ah I just had an idea actually I could stock up on Heinz brand baked beans. And I admit most of the canned foods we have are actually non-US foods from the international food store in the city. I actually would eat the beans (on toast).

You have to keep in mind that MRE's are not good for any long term crisis. They are extremely high in calories and dangerously low in fiber. Most emergency preparedness books will say that they are acceptable for a 2-3 emergency kit, but it isn't wise to stock pile them for your sole food source - unless you want to make yourself very sick. :P

Sorry I meant 2-3 day* emergency kit

Being an emergency responder, I have lived off of MREs for weeks at a time (after Hurricane Rita stands out in my mind) They will keep you alive and with enough hot-sauce don't even taste too bad ;-)
If you have any LDS (Mormon) neighbors, check with them on survival food with long shelf lives. They have a real good source and have many suggestions on use.
BruceB

Wow. Some of you sound pretty spoiled and out of touch with reality. Nutella won't get you through an emergency. Ever gone camping? Freeze-dried food, MRE's, and a water purifier + iodine tablets will help you if you have access to contaminated water. And in a disaster, the last thing you're going to care about is how gourmet your selection of canned food is. Find something packed with calories, with a long shelf life—that way you're not tied to your pantry full of steel cans that total 200 lbs, and are mobile if need be.

There, I said it.

Oh redrumdigital, of COURSE we're spoiled! READ THIS SITE! We worry about sourcing our cheese! As for out of touch with reality, though, no. I live in Manhattan. I've lived through emergencies in Manhattan. And I think Nutella is a great idea. Just because the world is ending doesn't mean I don't want dessert.

I understand having a tight food budget, but donating strikes me as the best solution as well.

Rather than thinking of this coming out of your food budget, consider it an insurance payment (isn't that exactly what it is? Making an investment against a risk?). Take the money from the same account you would make your car insurance payments from. Keep your receipts and deduct the donation come tax time.

And a P.S.--Half my family is in Japan (luckily not where the tsunami hit). They aren't living on MRE's either. They live in huge cities. They are going to RESTAURANTS. You prepare the best you can and then you roll with what you've got. Black outs mean it's better NOT trying to cook, because the restaurant down the block cooked as much as they could, as fast as they could, while the power was on. So just head on down there and buy it. Good for you (you're fed) and good for them (they stay in business).

To take a bit of the 'chore' out of rotating water supplies, Slate has an article on Emergency kits and mentioned that expiration dates on water are a myth. The water will have an 'off taste' but is fine to drink. One problem is that sometimes the bottles leak and should be checked for replacement.

http://www.slate.com/id/2288031/

Also, a well-prepared colleague clued me in that water heaters are an emergency source of water, too.
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Emergency-Drinking-Water-from-a-Water-Heater

I suggest you look at Amy's Organic and Eden Foods. They're pricey but might be more to your tastes.

Also - if you're going to rely on dried goods (rice, oatmeal, cornmeal...), remember to store more water too.

Alternatively, you could start canning your own favorites.

Every 6 months? We never did it that often. We kept track of expiration dates, which are quite lengthy for canned items. And please remember, if you donate your kit don't wait until the month of expiration.

Start by looking in your pantry. What do you have that keeps well? Or what items have canned versions that keep well and you could use, even if they aren't your first choice? Canned soup, chili, beans, fruit seem pretty easy to use. My family also always made sure to include some non-necessary comfort foods, like packaged cookies, goldfish crackers, etc. Had disaster struck when we were kids, it would have been wonderful to have things we liked. It also made the earthquake kit clean out a little more fun.

cans of slimfast (they are packed with nutrients), jarred nut butters, cans of sardines, canned pumpkin, canned spinach, canned coconut milk, vacuum sealed beef jerky, canned beans, dried beans you can sprout (like garbanzo & lentils), evaporated milk, spices, vitamins, water, and vodka (for disinfecting, and cheering up the atmosphere)

While I might not eat these things in my regular life, they are all things I don't have a problem incorporating into my diet while doing "rotations".

Great question--I've been wondering the same thing myself--not that we'd be picky what we're eating in an emergency but we use very few canned foods (hello, sodium!) and so the rotation out of the kit would be a problem. Thanks for the helpful answers!

A giant tub o' Met-Rx or other high-protein-high-calorie bodybuilding supplement is about $22 at Trader Joe's. Mixed with water, it can give you essential nutrients for a good long while. I figure, if you're in a situation where your food supply is cut off long enough for you to get bored with the Met-Rx, then you probably have bigger problems than food monotony. Plus, in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, its chocolately goodness can be bartered for beans or other canned goods that you eschewed in your emergency kit because of their weight.

As for getting rid of it in non-disaster situations, I am not above using it as an occasional dessert substitute, heh heh. Or sell/pass it along to a bodybuilding friend after 6-12 months but before it expires.

I have to agree with redrumdigital: keep in mind that you may have to travel so the weight too many cans is going to be a chore, if not an obstacle if you are injured. I only have 3 items in my kit: protein bars, MREs, and a few cans of beans plus water, of course. If I were to survive something as horrific as an earthquake and tsunami, I would happily eat whatever I had on hand and not care too much about the expiration dates. I also have a separate kit in my car: first aid kit, water, blanket, sweatpants, sweatshirt, hiking boots, gloves, duct tape and dog food. You may not be home or able to get home when disaster strikes.

I grew up Mormon, so my family always had TONS of food storage for long-term emergencies as well as 72-hr kits for short-term emergencies. We had a year food supply for long-term emergencies and included things like buckets of wheat berries (my mom had a manual wheat grinder), buckets of honey (my grandpa was a beekeeper), buckets of raw beans and then tons of home-canned preserves of both vegetables and fruit. In the 72-hr kit, we kept a change of clothes, a first aid kit, and the food was mostly quick stuff that you could live off for 3 days. So, granola bars, some canned fruit, some peanut butter crackers, trail mix, tuna, etc.
It is important to have food storage that you'll actually eat (hence the idea of rotating things through what you use everyday). I'm not Mormon anymore, but I still believe in planning for emergencies and have enough food on hand to last a family of 4 about a month.
For water - we're saving up to buy a LifeSaver System water bottle & Jerrycan. Look it up - it's an amazing water purifier and would be much easier to have for emergencies than stockpiled water bottles.

Can someone explain why Mormons know about emergency kits?

Mormons are encouraged by the church to be prepared for any emergency by having a 1 year/3 month supply (1 year is the ideal, 3 months is the current recommended starting point) of food and water and supplies stored. They also encourage general preparedness with really well stocked 72 hour kits. There are even church run canneries. There are a lot of great and fascinating websites out there that offer advice and shopping lists.

From a practical standpoint, it's good to be prepared for disaster/job loss/other. From a theological standpoint, it's because Jesus could return at any time and the world may be chaotic for a time. From a historical perspective, I believe it's because they were driven out of several communities before making their way west. There was no time to pack, so villages, food and belongings were hastily left behind.

I tie changing the food out with the first day of spring and the first day of fall--I also change my smoke detector batteries and clean out my dryer vents around that day.

I have pouches of precooked brown rice (the kind you microwave to heat), tuna pouches, canned white beans, potato flakes, Indian meals from Trader Joe's, peanut butter, crackers, granola bars, freeze dried veggies and powdered milk.

Most of those things are easy to incorporate into our regular diet. The potato flakes, beans and tuna can easily be made into tuna cakes, The rice is a little on the mushy side, but heated with milk or made into pudding it isn't too bad. It's not a huge amount of food to work into your regular household cooking plan, but donating it is another good choice.

We rotate every two years which is reasonable for emergencies. We buy regular food mostly protein + fiber pills. The water gets switched out every year.

What are some foods that have the longest shelf life? We have (with all the recent news) started to try to plan better in our family for this.... I would like to work with some foods that can last a long time. Thanks!

Very interesting about the preparedness of Mormons. I had no idea.

@kat98, I am so with you. Would love to learn more.

The foods that keep best are dehydrated or freeze-dried then canned. Pricey, but have a shelf life of 25+ years & make a good base which you can round out with less expensive items to rotate. I stick with dehydrated as freeze-dried just isn't in the budget.
While there are a massive number of businesses selling on line, the actual food stuffs come from a limited number of suppliers around the country. Go direct to the source & save a bit. I have used Walton Feed in Idaho.
DON'T buy a package deal from a middleman unless you know you will use all the items. Go through the lists & order the basics you will use.
I started with things like soup/sauce bases, LOTS of veggies, beans, rice, powdered eggs & milk, bread & muffin mixes, fruits, & a 5lb bucket of rye flour (for which I still need to get a grinder).
It's a given, unless you have a mansion, you will not be able to store enough water. Get a filter & purifying tablets. You might want to have a supply of non-hybrid seeds, as well.
Obviously, this is strategy for longer term "shelter in place". For grab & go I have a big bucket of basics from Costco & a supply of typical camping/hiking stuff others have mentioned. My camping gear is also my emergency gear i.e. shelter, warmth, light, cooking.
I try to always have a bag of clothes & toiletries packed & ready. Clothing should be synthetics & wool if possible, not cotton.
Don't forget to plan for your animal family members as well. I am researching cat food to store as the healthy stuff doesn't have much in the way of preservatives.
I am also working on building up a stash of my medications & OTC as well. Rotation is very important here.
There is a ton of info online to help anyone get started. Amazon has lots of resources from reading material to emergency supplies & food.
Take care all, & here's praying we never need to use it...

The only thing I've kept from being raised as a Mormon is food & toiletry storage.

For those who wanted to know here are some links to the Lds sites about food storage.
<http://www.providentliving.org/content/list/0,11664,8034-1,00.html>
<http://lds.org/ensign/2009/03/family-home-storage-a-new-message?lang=eng&query=food+storage>

The government of Canada has a great resource for information on being prepared for emergencies and making a 72 hr kit.
<http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx>

I think that if you really wanted to know what works for you take a weekend and try camping with your kit. Then you can give it a go without the stress of an actual emergency. If it doesn't go well at least you will know what not to do. You can always pack it in and go find a great restaurant ;)

tuna and canned beans are pretty standard - you would eat them so they wouldn't go bad. canned foods last for years so worse case scenario you hold on to them for 5-6 years and throw them away - you are paying for peace of mind. my house is so small that my "pantry" (just one cupboard) and our stash of stuff we eat to get thru the day like trail mix and gatorade powders are already in the house. so as long as you're well stocked in the things you already eat that's about as good as it will get. if you're on your roof floating it doesn't matter how much crap you stored. you can't get it if you're trapped under a piece of your home either, right? so in the long run i think it doesn't really matter what you have because it most likely will be inaccessible.

that being said i always have PB, trail mix, and tuna on hand. as long as you're getting a little protein and fresh water you can deal with anything.

am going to fill up my 5 gallon water jugs tomorrow!

For more on LDS food storage, I'd also recommend the "Deals to Meals" blog. She covers a lot of the basics and offers good ideas for how to use the things you're storing in some unusual ways. Recently there was a great article on using beans in bread.

http://www.dealstomeals.blogspot.com/

Great post on emergency eating. I noticed kaylaps mention Apocalypse Chow, and wanted to let everyone know that the book went out of print a while back. I was disappointed, but then found out it’s been revised and new recipes added. It’s called Vegan Unplugged and it’s terrific. Like kaylaps I make this food all the time—it’s really excellent and the dishes take less than 15 minutes.

We have mostly pasta, a big bag of basmati rice, tuna, sardines, canned beans, oatmeal... stuff we eat regularly anyway.

Less often do we eat the baked beans, turkey spam, or canned corn beef, but we don't mind them.

And jams, honey, nutella, and vegemite make things nicer. Vegemite has vitamins in it, nut butters even have protein.

As for the MREs being too high calorie... for some disasters, high calorie is exactly what you want. Besides, you can divvy them up between people. Better to have food for more days than not enough. You don't really want to be trying to do a thousand calorie a day diet in an emergency, and canned peaches will only take you so far.

Canned fruit: I only get the ones canned in fruit juices that can be drank. I mean, I'm sure I would drink corn syrup under some circumstances but I'd rather have the pineapple or pear juice for drinking/cooking with.

@kat98 - Mormons are also advised to be "self-sufficient" so that's why you find many that grow some of their own food, preserve it themselves, know how to sew, etc. The food storage is traditionally recommended to be a year for your family, though i think the modern church understands that it's hard for most families to store that much food, so now it's a few months. i think my sister (still mormon) has a 6 month supply for her family. the LDS church owns bunches of land, cattle ranches, huge grain silos, etc. my husband and i always joke that if things really get bad, we'll just go back to church. :)

Every 6 months is too often. Once a year is great and the food is still good to donate to the food bank, and then restock. Simple.

Don't forget sanitation supplies. Pads/tampons, bags for waste... these don't need rotation. And a good book, journal and pencils.

There are websites which sell foods that are shelf-stable for up to 20 years. Yes, they are dehydrated but the dried fruit would work for long-term storage even if water was a concern. Also tuna in the packets is better-tasting than the tinned tuna. Canned or boxed soups might be another possibility. Pacific Natural foods does a line of boxed organic soups. Curried Red Lentil is a personal favorite.

Kimberly - Pacific Natural foods also does a gluten-free, dairy-free line of soups. Even my local Wal-Mart now carries a wide selection.

For those storing granola bars or cereals - rotating is especially important as tiny beetles love these sorts of things.

Consider storing water or purchasing a water bladder as part of your emergancy kit too since we can live without food for a while but not without water.

For stocking pads, as icky as it might seem, I'd really recommend buying the cotton-fabric reusable sort.

I only recommend this because recently I visited my parents' home, forgot to pack any necessaries, and then got snowed in for days. I realized I still had a box of pads stashed in my bedroom from five years ago when I was still living at home, but when I tried to pull them out the plastic was all gross and crumbly. They were stored in a cool, dry place too, so I don't think storage was the problem. Just age.

Tampons on the other hand, faired much better. Possibly because they're not all plastic?

So, either rotate those pads out every five years, or get some fabric ones that can store for ages.

I'm with OscarMama - instant Indian food! I like Tasty Bites, and Trader Joe's carries some version of it too. They come in a metal pouch and you can heat up in boiling water (though in an emergency, you could eat cold). Reasonably tasty and very portable. I also take it on car camping trips, so it's easy to use up and rotate in new packs. I think I've seen Thai curry at Trader Joe's too, though I'm not sure they carry it anymore. Sometimes I will take one of these packs and add canned tuna or salmon.

In addition, I am lucky to have the time and resources to have home-canned goods in my emergency stock, like chili and beans. I recently added in some ramen, at my boyfriend's request, despite it requiring water and cooking. I figure our water stash and camp stove can get us through at least one pack of ramen each.

I'm with many other posters here. Take a look at what you eat already and find a way to incorporate that into your emergency stash. There are a lot of fun alternatives to canned baked beans and fruit cocktail - browse the "instant" section of alternative grocery stores and see what you can find!

We have Datrex food bars in our emergency kits. They have a 5 year shelf life. I've never actually tasted them, though!