Ok, here’s the scenario to imagine: its the dead of winter and, for whatever reason, you’ve been forced to head to your fallback location. Really, all you could take with you was whats on your back and not much else. Being the harshest part of winter, its a bit of a slog but you make it to your destination. You let yourself into your cabin (or whatever) and you’re wet, cold, and hungry after the stress-filled challenge of getting there. You grab a propane bottle off the shelf and get your buddy heater going so you can sit in front of it and get some immediate warmth while you wait for the fire in the woodstove to start warming the place up. You drag a plastic bin out from under the bunk and change your wet pants and socks for dry. So far so good. But..still hungry. This little haven has been empty for the last three months, so there’s been no heat. Whatever food you have in place is going to have to be something that can withstand freeze/thaw cycles without becoming inedible or simply exploding its packaging. So with that in mind, here’s my question for the collective hive-mind: If you were going to store foods in a location that was going to be subject to freeze/thaw cycles, what foods would be best choices? Obviously anything that is liquid is probably not gonna fly since jars will freeze and burst. Also, some foods simply do not handle being repeatedly frozen and thawed. To my way of thinking this means that youre restricted to things that are dry and have no liquid or semi-liquids to worry about….soup mixes, instant potatoes, freeze dried foods, rice, beans, etc, etc. Canned goods are probably off the list since they run the risk of the cans bursting from the cold, and the wet contents may not remain palatable through the freeze/thaw cycles.
No doubt someone will opine that the end-run around this is to have some sort of heat system in place that will run while the cabin’s owner is absent. A large propane tank and a thermostat, or some such setup. Thats not in the cards…while mechanically it is do-able, thats kind of putting a lot of eggs into a basket that may, at the worst time, simply fail.
And, also, keep in mind I am not asking about the quantity of food. Thats not really relevant here, Im asking what actual foods would be indifferent to storage in an environment where there is nothing standing between them and freezing.
Thus far, I’ve come up with dried pasta, rice, beans, hash browns, drink mixes (iced tea, Gatorade, Tang, etc.), egg mix, pancake mix, salt, sugar, most spices, hard candy, oatmeal, cornmeal,canned bread, mac-n-cheese, and a few others. MRE’s and freeze drieds are certainly an option and are part of the overall answer, but what else?
Lard ( Manteca) in cardboard packaging should be ok.
With canned items the freeze/thaw cycle may introduce condensation internally and compromise the product? Really think the freeze/thaw is the watchout…
Dig – root cellar /hole and get to static temps – another use for a compact excavator but I drift your thread …
My first thought in regards to the above scenario was instant oatmeal – could get that going with very little prep work and it has enough carbs and sugar to keep you going to prep the next meal. Freeze dried after that.
Another thought would be to dig down if possible. I don’t have much experience living in the cold so I’m not sure how deep you would have to go, nor how many rocks you’d have to go through. But, that would be a fairly bulletproof way to keep things above freezing in the winter and cool in the summer. And it would help for storage of non-food items as well. Now if you were really lucky and there were a cave on your new property….
I keep a lot of instant oatmeal and #10 cans of farina (Cream of Wheat) on hand. Farina has a lot of iron in it.
I would investigate what the freeze line is in that area…
How deep do you need to go to get away from freezing temps…
Then dig out a real root cellar which would be located under your structure…
In other words, decide where you’re going to erect your structure, and build a real
root cellar first… then the structure on top… This should protect your stores from freeze and pests, both 2 legged and 4…
The old “wooded trap door” under the rug scenario…
You can build a root cellar which can be both damp free and cozy…
Doesn’t need to be a dirt pit which leaks and has other challenges…
The Mountain House #10 cans are probably going to be your best bet, however they are far from the cheapest thing out there. I think freeze dried protein with rice to supplement is going to be the solution here.
And/or add some Jello pudding mix and powdered milk and you can whip up some MRE-type shakes.
Paste this into chatgpt. It has a great response.
Provide a listing of non perishable foods that could be stored long term and not be impacted by freezing conditions.:
I have used this site before https://steadfastprovisions.com/collections/all
We had the scout troop use the pemmican as a base and the scouts had to go soup or stew with fresh and dried/freeze dried additives.
There are lots of dried foods out there that might surprise you. I have dried soup from Bear Creek and also Progresso in my storage. These are far beefier and better than the old Lipton onion soup mixes. Then there are pouches of flavored rice and pasta from Knorr for $1.26 at Walmart. I don’t like these for long-term storage, but they are in my bugout bags. Zartarain’s has rice and rice-and-bean mixes in boxes. They want you to add a protein, but you can get by with just adding water. I would store most of these in buckets or jars to keep vermin out.
Then there are pouch foods that are like Civilian MREs. We like the Madras Lentils and the Chickpea Masala from Tasty Bite, plus they have other menus. I’ve never frozen them, but its worth a try.
You mentioned pancake mix, but that is just a start as there are many kinds of mixes. Get some flour. You can make bannock and many other kinds of flatbread with little more than flour, water, a smidge of salt and baking powder. You can even wrap dough around a stick and cook or an open flame if you must.
Peanut butter in a plastic jar can be frozen. Crackers might only be good for six months or a year, but you can rotate them out. Same with nuts and dried fruits. We also have #10 cans of applesauce powder, peach slides and banana chips.
There are also many kinds of beans, and your spices should chili mixes and ingredients for bean soup. We also like split pea soup, sometimes called peas porridge. And if you get tired of oatmeal, consider grits or other hot cereals.
Finally, in #10 cans, I recommend ABC Soup mix as a stand alone or to add meat from a small critter, and Augusson Farms offers botch a chili mix and a black bean burger mix that are worth having.
Jerky sealed in food saver bags, then sealed in glass jars to keep out vermin and reduce odor. Pemmican. And almost everything you listed will need water to cook or rehydrate it (as you already know) so plan on storing water in a manner that will resist freeze/thaw damage. A bottle or two of whisky might be nice too.
I have a dry cabin in the interior of Alaska. When it was built by my uncle back around ’76 or ’77 (I was pretty young back then) the area didn’t have power so it was built with just a wood stove and propane oven and lighting (I wish it still had the propane lighting). It has a Toyo stove now but since I often can’t get to it in the winter I don’t try and keep it heated, not worth the fuel or fire risk.
As far as food out there, I’m in Alaska so there is, of course, Pilot Bread but other then that I mostly have dried good. There is case each of most everything from the LDS store (not a member but agree with them on this sort of thing). It gets to -40 and even lower here every winter but some how there are some cans in the cupboards that “look okay”, I need to test them, they are from back when my grandmother lived there full time, 15ish years ago. I’m also still trying to figure out what all I should bring out there and what I should add for security, it’s close enough to town it’s not hard to get to but far enough out that I don’t really have to worry about junkies looking steal stuff.
root cellar is the way to go. my Grandfather has 2 of them. one close to the house, say 30 feet away and a back up one about 200 feet away. the far one had a smoke house on top of it. he smoked a lot of meats in there. I think both of his root cellars where stone walled. he also had a spring house with cold water running thru the middle of the floor like. also made of stone.
my Dad said it was because of fire that grandpa made two of everything.
and every one was spaced apart so he wouldn’t lose everything if fire did breakout.
one barn was for cattle and the one across the road held horses.
it all gone now as they broke it up and sold off a lot of my grandpa farm.
I have often wonder what became of all the bee hives he kept between the root cellar and the one barn. he had like 5-6 hives. I still can remember sitting down to honey and biscuits at grandmas after running around as a kid there.
the root cellar was deep I remember that much a good couple of feet above my dad’s head and he was 5′ 9″ in bare feet.
Peanut butter and jam or jelly come to mind, crackers or hard tack to spread it on. That’s food that doesn’t require rehydration or cooking to eat, which can be very handy. I personally would have fruitcake, but it would be my homemade recipe infused with rum since I am not sure how a commercial fruitcake would hold up.
You feel that jelly/jam/peanut butter will not suffer from being frozen and thawed repeatedly?
I would go with oatmeal, rice, noodles, freeze drieds.
Make sure you have some veggies and some protein. Mountain House still makes canned protein (beef or chicken) but they stopped making freeze dried veggies. They focus these days on entrees, presumably due to cost.
Don’t forget a water purification methods and a way to collect water/ melt snow or ice.
Due to the relatively simple nature of a second or tier bolt hole (and cost!) I would not plan on requiring a root cellar, though if you had one or a caviit would be a useful plus.
Don’t forget sturdy storage, probably in metal, to avoid vermin problems.
Life boat bars, made for hot cold cycles, being stored in a life boat on a ship. I have some, not these. No idea if these are any good. Listed as an example. https://www.lrse.com/products/seven-oceans-emergency-ration