Food Shortage Prep: Best Foods to Store and How to Extend Their Shelf Life

Planning well can help anyone, on any budget, to get through uncertain times or lean months. (MilanMarkovic78/Shutterstock)

Food scarcity is coming—and soon, says Texas-based food scientist and “Health Ranger” podcaster Mike Adams, who sees dire events unfolding across the United States in the short term.

Because of soaring fertilizer costs, the shortage of agrochemicals, and prolonged drought, farmers have already begun growing smaller quantities of certain crops, which are different from before. After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military invasion of Ukraine, inflated fertilizer prices were pushed even higher, which has also significantly affected food exports. Both Ukraine and Russia are major producers of the world’s wheat and corn.

“The thing to really watch for is the food inflation,” Adams said.

Adams’s advice: People need to get prepared now.

Diane Vukovic of PrimalSurvivor.com, an online personal preparedness website says: “I suggest writing a list of the most likely disasters for your area. For most people in the United States, these will be earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and power outages. Then make a list of what items you would need to be prepared for these disasters.”

PrepperWebsite.com host Todd Sepulveda said: “If you want to stock up a month’s worth of food at one time, just quadruple your list. You can bring more variety to your family food storage if you make a two-week menu and double that. That way, you aren’t eating the same foods every week.”

Foods That Are Durable and Nutritious

Among the staple foods, dry noodles, flour, and rice are all excellent foods for long-term storage.

Dried seeds such as soybeans, mung beans, red beans, peas, broad beans, and peanuts also can be stored for a long time. When you want to eat vegetables and get a higher nutritional content, you can sprout the beans into soybean sprouts or mung bean sprouts, for example.

There are also a lot of durable vegetables, such as carrots, white radishes, onions, beet roots, sweet potatoes, yams, potatoes, pumpkins, corn, and cabbages. These can be stored in a cool, ventilated place. (We'll talk about some specific storage tips later in the article.)

The vitamin A in carrots, corn, and pumpkins can maintain cell membrane stability and increase immunity. White radishes and onions contain quercetin, which recent studies have shown is a powerful antiviral and anti-inflammatory antioxidant that can slow down allergic reactions. The dietary fiber in sweet potatoes and yams can promote the production of beneficial gastrointestinal bacteria and improve intestinal health, which also helps to enhance immunity.

Cabbages and broccoli are cruciferous vegetables containing sulforaphane, which can activate immune cells and protect the respiratory tract.

Dried black fungi (wood ear mushrooms), white fungi, and shiitake mushrooms are also good for long-term storage. Wood ear mushrooms are rich in soluble dietary fiber, and shiitake mushrooms are rich in polysaccharides and vitamin D.

Although tomatoes aren’t durable, there are ways to extend their shelf life. Tomatoes contain nutrients such as lycopene, vitamin A, and vitamin C, which can also strengthen the immune system.

So how do we extend the shelf life of different food items?

Extending Shelf Life

The first thing you can do to extend the shelf life of foods is by using common seasonings and spices wisely.

The food you have on hand can be stored for a long time, if it’s properly preserved. Salt, vinegar, sugar, and oil are all seasonings that can be used to preserve food.

Yipei Li, a retired teacher of cuisine and bakery, recommends vinegar over salt, because too much salt can be detrimental to health. However, not everyone can accept the sour taste of vinegar, so some sugar may also be added for a better taste.

Vegetables and fruits can all be preserved by being soaked in vinegar. For example, people pickle cucumbers, radishes, and cabbage in vinegar, and as long as these pickles don’t touch water, they can be preserved for a long time, just like wine.

When pickling vegetables, you can scald the ingredients in boiling water first, let them cool and get dried, and then pickle them with vinegar and sugar. For instance, radishes can be salted first, washed in boiling water, and dried, and then put in a jar. Once you pour vinegar and sugar into the jar, they will last for a long time.

Another method is to “seal” the foods in oil. First, you need to dry ingredients that don’t last long, such as fresh tomatoes and mushrooms. You can slice and dry them, soak them in olive oil, and then put them in the fridge. That will preserve them for a long time.

However, it’s best to use extra virgin olive oil to make the ingredients tasty, but the cost is relatively higher. In contrast, sugar and vinegar are quite inexpensive, and salt is the cheapest preservative seasoning.

Furthermore, garlic, chili, and other spices have a bactericidal effect, and some pickling dishes also use them to enhance the preservative effect.

In addition to pickling fruits and vegetables for storage, you can also cook and freeze the ingredients, and then take them out in batches for consumption. However, this method isn’t suitable for leafy vegetables.

When people eat frozen vegetables, they find that their taste has deteriorated because defrosting causes water loss. Li shares this tip: After taking frozen vegetables out of the freezer, instead of de-icing them, put them directly into boiling water to preserve their taste.

How to Properly Freeze Meat and Protein

To maintain a healthy and balanced diet, it’s important to eat sufficient amounts of fruits and vegetables, and to supplement protein in appropriate amounts.

After you purchase fish or meat, wash it first, then remove the blood, hair, and offal, if any. However, instead of cutting it into pieces, put the whole chunk of meat or fish directly into the freezer. Before you cook it, just defrost and cut it into pieces.

Meat that is meant to be stored for a long time shouldn’t be cut into small pieces first, Li says, in order to avoid losing moisture when defrosting it. If cut into pieces, the meat’s juice and sweetness also become lost, along with the blood loss, and the taste will become bland.

If there isn’t enough space in the refrigerator to store whole chickens or ducks, you can mix wine and salt, rub the mixture on their surface and hollowed out bellies, and then hang them up to air dry, or blow dry them with an electric fan. Li says that during her childhood, there was no fridge at home, so her mother used to preserve poultry in this manner during the Chinese New Year holiday period, and they could be consumed within half a month.

Tofu can be frozen directly and turned into frozen tofu. Or, in the case of traditional tofu, it can be soaked in water to insulate it from the air, in order to extend its shelf life. This method can also be used for dried beans. To do this, put a piece of tofu in tap water and refrigerate it, then change the water once a day or once every two days, and the tofu will be good for a week.

Use Common Household Items to Extend Shelf Life

Dunci Tan, a senior nurse practitioner at the Clinical Poison Center at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, shares her food preservation methods. With the clever use of some small household items, you can easily extend food’s shelf life.

Stockings: Wash your discarded stockings and fill them with multiple onions. Tie a knot between every two onions, and hang the entire bunch on the balcony in a cool, ventilated place. When you want to use an onion to cook, just cut one off.

Apples + aluminum foil + paper bags: Place potatoes in a paper bag with an apple in the center. Wrap the bag with a sheet of aluminum foil. Then, loosely fold up the bag and place it in a cool place.

Tan explains that potatoes are prone to sprouting. And when sprouted, they become toxic and can no longer be eaten. However, the ethylene released from the apple can inhibit the sprouting of potatoes and other root vegetables. In addition, potatoes are prone to sprouting under light, so wrap a sheet of aluminum foil outside the paper bag to block the light.

Keep them separated: Ethylene also has the effect of ripening fruits, so don’t store apples and bananas together. Tan says that since bananas also release ethylene, they ripen faster when they remain in a bunch. She suggested separating the bananas one by one and laying them flat in a ventilated place to let the ethylene dissipate, in order to avoid their premature darkening and ripening.

Wet paper towels: For carrots, cut off their stems, wrap them in a wet paper towel, place them in a bag in an upright manner in the direction of their growth, and store them in the refrigerator.

Tan shares her own method with us: Peel carrots and white radishes, cut them into pieces, then steam them in an electric cooker, and freeze them in portions. Whenever you want to eat these vegetables, take out one portion and cook it with other vegetables or meat, to save the stewing or steaming time.

Paper towels: After buying leafy vegetables, wrap them in paper towels to avoid getting them wet, and put them directly into a plastic bag with a loose knot. Then place them upright inside a refrigerator crisper drawer in the direction of their growth. If the storage space isn’t large, a slight tilt will also work.

Supermarkets spray water on vegetables to keep them fresh and moist. Tan recommends buying vegetables with a relatively dry surface, because water accelerates their decay. And whether the vegetables you bought have been sprayed or not, it’s best to wrap them in paper towels to regulate moisture. Cabbage is durable in general. You can cut and wrap it inside paper towels and then place it inside a plastic bag, which can prolong its shelf life. Don’t seal the plastic bag, though, in order to avoid sealing moisture within the bag.

Choose greenish tomatoes for better storage. Tomatoes don’t need to be refrigerated. You can just put them in a ventilated place on the balcony.

When buying mushrooms, pick the ones with packaging. For example, vacuum-packed enoki mushrooms can be stored in the refrigerator for a week, as long as their packaging isn’t opened. If you buy mushrooms in bulk, don’t wash them before storing. Instead, cut off their stem base and wrap the mushrooms in paper towels before putting them inside a sealed container. Use them within two or three days.

As for other vacuum-packed or regularly packaged rice, cereals, and dried goods, you can just put them in a dry, cool place, as long as they remain unopened. However, put them in the fridge after opening.