Long term food storage is an insurance in the future well being of your family. You do not want to be unpleasantly surprised to find out that the food you thought you had, had gone bad because you had stored it improperly.
While most people are careful to store their food properly indoors, they forget to think about the idea that when they are in an emergency, they may be more in a camping situation than at home. Even in a camping situation it is very important that food is properly stored to last.
In addition, you will need to store more supplies for cooking and preparing that food than you may have previously thought necessary. You can practice storing food properly and collecting the things you need to cook that food now by going camping yourselves.
The first thing you will need to think about is which items need to be kept cold of the ones you will be taking camping with you. The length of this list will decide how many coolers and what size of coolers you will need to take.
It will also dictate how much ice you will need to take. You do not want to end up making the mistake of taking more items that need to be kept cold than you have proper storage for or these things will simply go to waste.
When you are deciding how many coolers to take and what size, keep in mind that the cooler will need to be kept at least 40 percent empty so that there is room for ice. This is especially critical if you are going to go camping for more than three days.
The longer you plan to stay camping, the more ice you will need to place in your coolers. You should try to have a separate cooler for drinks and for food that you will use more often than other food.
This will allow the ice in the other coolers to last longer because they will not be opened as often. Try to keep the food inside the coolers as cold as possible.
Of course, you may also need to take foods that need to be and stay frozen until use. If this is the case, make sure the food is frozen before you pack it into the cooler.
In addition, you will need to make sure that the cooler has even more ice in it than the other simply refrigerator coolers. This will not work as a long term solution as the ice will melt and the items will thaw, but it can help these items last significantly longer than if they were placed in the fridge.
You will also want to make sure that you have enough water with you before you set off. It is suggested that an adult needs at least one gallon of water per day.
This gallon should cover hygienic, cooking, and drinking needs. If you have a large family, you may need to pack a lot of water.
However, a person can die in three days without water. It is critical to survival of your family. If you can, start out with iced water.
Put all of the water bottles in the freezer and when they are frozen solid, transfer them to your coolers. This way they can help keep your food cold and when they thaw you will have nice, cool water.
Any type of water bottle will work for this process. However, the flatter the water bottles the better as the water bottles will stack easier.
You may want to take a thawed water bottle for each person so that you will have something to drink until these bottles thaw, but the cool water will be welcome a day or two into camping if it is warm.
Of course, you will also want to be mindful to make sure that all of your food is properly packaged and put away before you go to sleep. You do not want animals wandering into camp and eating the food that was intended for your family.
Your food should be in tightly closed, hard plastic or metal containers. Raccoons and other animals will simply rip through plastic bags.
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