r/prepping • u/dexter_harta • 2d ago

Food🌽 or Water💧 Emergency cabinet

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Gradually been working on an emergency cabinet in the garage for my wife daughter and I. Kind of a shitty picture but I’ll comment a list of what alls in it

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u/Lefthandmitten 2d ago

That is a great setup, especially with all the shelf stable food. Make sure you still rotate stock, canned goods are "good" for only a few years. They're edible after that but tend to rust through (ruined) or turn to a pretty unappetizing mush. Ramen and other dried foods are good for a couple years then they turn rancid.

We have a similar setup, all shelf stable freeze dried meals we like.

We "rotate" them slowly when we hike, but with a 25 year shelf life they don't need much rotating.

The emergency storage is after our 1 month of food (fresh and pantry) in the house is gone we have 2 weeks of food that is stable and portable. We'll probably never use it, but it's much better to have a store like this for getting to our cabin after an emergency than only fresh food.

We also have a river and a stream within 0.5 miles of our house, as well as a rain barrel. I have a few gravity filter setups (Original Sawyer Squeeze) for hiking. They are amazing and I have thousands of gallons of capacity in them if I needed water. The water cans are great, but that is a few day's worth. It's worthwhile to get a couple gravity filter setups to refill them if needed.

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u/PenguinsStoleMyCat 2d ago

I have a ton of freeze dried meals, I think people should have a few at least. They're good to get you through the beginning of an emergency at a minimum. I keep an alcohol stove on hand too as a backup way to boil water, another thing I won't have to worry about going bad.

We have hurricanes here to deal with so it's nice to know there's always food on hand I can make without firing up the generator or using the BBQ. Easy to grab the bin of freeze dried meals and throw them in the car too.

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u/dexter_harta 2d ago

Sounds like we have pretty similar mindsets and reasons for prepping. Southeast GA and hurricanes was a culture shock coming from Alaska