9 Fun Items to Add Variety to Your Food Storage
It is easy to overlook just how bland food storage staples are. If the only things between the mountains of canned vegetables are bags of rice and beans, you may want to consider adding some additional items to make your food storage more palatable.
It’s one thing to have food to eat in an emergency. It’s another matter entirely to have food you enjoy eating during an emergency.
Many small and simple things can make a big difference in your enjoyment of your food storage. Likewise, there may be some things you’ve overlooked that can make preparing your foodstuffs more convenient.
Yogurt
Freeze dried yogurt is an excellent addition to your food storage collection. Yogurt adds dairy with all its vitamin goodness to your food storage. You can store it as a powder or as tiny yogurt drops. Either way, it will add variety to your emergency pantry.
Yogurt drops make a great snack for children and adults alike. You don’t need to wait until an emergency to enjoy them. Freeze dried yogurt drops pair well with salty crackers in trail mix or as a standalone snack to munch on. There is little doubt your family will love you when they have these during an emergency!
Similarly, powdered yogurt can be helpful in emergency food storage and a regular home pantry item. During an emergency, this powder can be used as an added supplement to cream milk and provide another needed vitamin source. In everyday use, powdered yogurt adds a subtly sweet, creamy texture to everything you put it in. It works exceptionally well with desserts and cream-based meals.
Ice cream
Apart from providing astronauts a way to enjoy this classic dessert in space, freeze dried ice cream is an excellent addition to home food storage.
Freeze dried ice cream makes an excellent dessert to pair with freeze dried meals. These can add a calorie-dense dish to your survival pack or can just be eaten when finishing off a meal.
Ice cream is a staple part of American desserts. What food supply would be complete without it?
Milk
Powdered and freeze dried milk is another excellent product for supplementing your need for proteins and vitamins. Milk is a central component in many soups and sauces and would make a perfect addition to food storage.
Having a way to make powdered milk can add variety to your meal plan, making emergency food storage dinners much more enjoyable.
Powdered Drink Mix
You cannot store many drinks long-term without them spoiling or fermenting. Water, when stored correctly, can last a few years. Any food storage you have will likely include at least some water for drinking and hygiene; what you won’t have is variety.
Powdered drink mixes are ideal for giving your average drinking water a sweeter taste. Some powders can also contain vitamins and minerals—similar to sports drinks—that can replenish electrolytes lost in sweat.
Candy
Who wants to live life without candy? Unfortunately, chocolates, caramels, and hard candies don’t keep as well as other foods. Freeze drying can extend the shelf life of your favorite sweets by decades!
The light, crunchy, and flavorful variation of your favorite treats will help keep mealtime and snacking enjoyable if you need to dip into your food storage. Many freeze dried sweets make excellent pairs with salty foods and snacks like crackers and nuts.
Honey
Not only is honey one of the best and healthiest natural sweeteners, but it also lasts forever. That may sound like hyperbole, but it’s not. Honey can last thousands of years when stored correctly.
No, you didn’t read that wrong. The oldest known edible honey sample is over 5,000 years old. Imagine using that to flavor your emergency stash of oatmeal!
Honey’s antibacterial properties make it an ideal sweetener to keep in every pantry, food storage, or everyday use. Be sure to add this to your food stash. You can’t go wrong with honey!
Spices and Condiments
Last on the list of foodstuffs to add to your long-term pantry are spices. Salt, pepper, seasonings, and condiments are essential to help keep your food storage meals flavorful. Some herbs and spices have a shelf life limited to a couple of years. Others, such as natural salt, are good if they stay in a sealed container and are free from contaminants.
A little spice can go a long way in making a meal more palatable. Dozens of different herbs are available in freeze dried form, guaranteed to last at least 25 years.
EM Preparedness Items
The following items, while not food items, are useful in helping you prepare food from your food storage. They may seem essential useless until they are needed, but some of these items can save you lots of time, energy, and worry if you’ve already had them stockpiled with your other emergency food items.
Can Opener
Canned food is cheap and, chances are, makes up most of the items in the average food storage arsenal. Canned goods can quickly add variety to your diet. But what good is food that you can’t easily access?
Don’t forget to pack a couple of can openers in your long-term pantry. Mechanical can openers make meal prep fast and easy, but they also break easily. You may want to include non-mechanical options such as a can punch or similar tool on hand if the mechanical ones break.
Water Filter and Water Purification Chemicals
Storing water long-term typically requires chemical treatment. Most water can be pre-treated with chlorine or bleach to prevent mold and algae from growing in your container.
Suppose you are in the unlikely circumstance where there is no feasible access to fresh drinking water in the foreseeable future. In that case, you may want to pack some additional treatment chemicals and filters.
Sweet Sweet Variety from Candy Jan
Are you trying to diversify your food storage? Try throwing some of your favorite candies into the mix! We have a variety of classic sweets you can choose from in our online shop!
Freeze dried candies are the perfect addition to any food storage inventory. You can use them as a dessert, a tasty snack, or a calorie supplement.
Check out our inventory and get your favorite candies ordered for your enjoyment today!