Here are some thoughts to ponder, and to reiterate some thoughts mentioned above.

If you don't like it enough, or at all, to normally eat it, don't buy and store it. If you have some stuff you bought and tried it, didn't like it, give it away to someone else who may like it. If you've purchased long term food, try some out now, see if you like it and will eat it, as well as your family, as well as any long term foods you may buy, try some out when you get it. Use your space to store what you will eat.

Be careful buying the mass marketed 30 year storage foods (with the exception of the #10 cans from the LDS pantry). Much of the freeze dried and dehydrated food items are of an extremely high Sodium (salt) content, it will not be good for you. Jacked up high blood pressure for one, another is you'll have to drink more water every day (how much water can you count on every day when SHTF?)

Don't fall into what I call the "Set It & Forget It" (with apologies to Ron Popeil) mentality of food storage.
You MUST keep an eye on it, look it over twice a year without fail. You just can't really toss it in the closet and leave it for 30 years and expect it to be good. One reason is that no one ever really stores it at the proper temperature. People don't like to pay a higher utility bill,a few bucks more a month, and will let the items get too warm or way too cold. This reduces shelf life. Shelf life means strict temperature and climate control discipline in a continual and proper manner.

Do have some long term, and of course short term and medium term as well, but you'll just absolutely have to buy and rotate canned goods on a constant basis. Use from your kitchen pantry stock, restock that from your somewhat longer storage, and replenish to your somewhat longer storage from your regular trips from the grocery store.

You can indeed store most canned foods for 3,4,5 years, some even longer depending on the item and proper storage. If the can is not rusty, bulging, expanding, you hear air popping out when piercing a can to open it, if it smells bad or looks bad, you should discard it immediately. You'll figure out over time how to do this.

Again, be sure to rotate, it really isn't an issue, just a bit of dedication to do so. Food items and stored foods are the same was throwing cash money out the window if you throw stuff out.

Here is an interesting concept. How much food to store? I believe that a person will need something like 500,000 calories over 6 months, One Million calories over a year is a rough estimate. Sure, this varies a bit from person to person, Male or Female or Child, but at roughly 3,000 calories a day may be the number to maintain weight, not starve to death. You may not be sedentary, you might be out working a garden or flock, hunting and fishing, working physically at producing fresh food items for consumption. You may burn less than 3,000 calories over time, maybe, but you may burn, and thus need, more than you plan for. It's better to have a little more calories stored and not need it, you know the other part of this saying.

To do that, create a spread sheet. Inventory all your stored food and account for the calories, and add them to the spread sheet by item description and calories. If you can't measure it, you can't effectively control it.

These are just some ideas I live with. I'm not a prepper, I detest the word "prepper". I was taught as a young child to be prepared by parents who had been there, done that, and survived.
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I’d think a person could just rotate the regular canned goods, over buying specialty ‘30 year’ survival food.

Some stuff like tuna, beans, rice, pasta, spam, whatever lasts a long time. It could be things you eat anyway. I have no problem going a few years beyond the expiration date, depending on what it is.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
I’d think a person could just rotate the regular canned goods, over buying specialty ‘30 year’ survival food.

Some stuff like tuna, beans, rice, pasta, spam, whatever lasts a long time. It could be things you eat anyway. I have no problem going a few years beyond the expiration date, depending on what it is.

As long as you are going to eat it. I eat the canned goods I store and then replace them when they are close to expiration. There are some I buy that I would only eat in an emergency and I donate those to the homeless when they get close to expiration. I firmly believe in the three layers I mentioned, but each person will have their own plans based on their own reasons.

We have a bunch of. #10 cans of different things, as well as rice, beans, etc… in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. We also do a garden and can and freeze things, and rotate those items. I do a fair amount of hunting and we eat a lot of game through the year. I would also suggest learning what’s edible in the wild locally.

I don’t consider myself a prepper, but more a person that wants to have some variety and fresh items to eat when things turn bad.

quote:

Originally posted by Ackks:
I have the staples covered, but who still has reasonable prices on long-term food storage? I'm looking for items to give variety to wheat, rice, potato flakes, beans, etc. We can live on those, but it will taste like crap after a while, to quote Dundee. My Patriot Supply and others could be good, or they could be gimmicks. I'm looking to spend $500-1k or so. Thanks!

I used to make rice, beans, and lentils less boring with spices. An Indian grocery store nearby had many spice mixes like chana masala. Most have variations on core spices like cumin, clove, coriander, cinnamon, turmeric, fenugreek, and cardamom. There are many of these mixes that create different flavors. One can heat up some rice and/or black beans, add maybe 1/2 tsp of a spice mix and you have something no longer bland. Add other spices like cayenne, black pepper, garlic salt, thyme, etc. and you have quite a few options.

A local Asian or Indian grocery store will likely have many of these. To order larger amounts, places like SF Herb, Amazon, and E-bay can have good per/ounce prices.