Hi all, after the covid thing, I made a basic survival box that sits in my loft (roof space). I'm an Aussie, but using the word loft even though we don't really have lofts here (I've lived in the UK too). It was toilet paper (the first thing to disappear from shelves here), but more importantly rice, dried beans, chick peas, lentils, dried shallots, and mainly Indian spices for flavouring.
I'm about to refresh the stash, so my question for you is, if you were going to make a stash box or two to give you and your family of 4 about a month or two of survival food that'll last 5 years in variable conditions (dry but temps from 10 to 45 degrees celcius), what would you include?
Honey. I find it funny how people always forget to mention it when talking of long-term supplies.
Then white flour in air-sealed plastic canisters. Store the flour in a fridge for a few weeks in open/paper bags to dry it out, then fill the canister completely and close. Never open until an emergency comes. The flour /unlike grain/ will "consume" the oxygen in the canister over time so there is no need to add any oxygen absorbers. It will last this way for 10+ years even at 25C/room temperature and be still very much usable. It is also the cheapest immediately usable food item.
That said, DO NOT long-term store food in the loft/attic. Store it in a rodent-proof and insect-proof storage boxes/canisters in a basement/crawl space instead. Temperature is the worst enemy of food preservation. Right after light.
Toilet paper, stove wood, etc. and related is what can be stored in a "loft" space.
I’d include some canned veg (corn, tomato, green beans) for nutrients and diversifying what you eat, cleaning and sanitation products and water. For psychological benefit, make sure you have some kind of treat food and non digital sources of entertainment
This loft sounds like what Americans call an attic, namely space under the roof that's usable for storage but not human occupancy, which means humans don't often visit the space to check on things. For that reason, I'd suggest keeping the kit inside a durable lidded container like a thick plastic bin or better yet a metal bin, to keep out creatures like mice or wombats that might otherwise eat the food. You might also consider a moisture alarm, and even the cheapest ones are so loud you'd have no problem hearing it from the main house.
How hot does your attic get?
This is the problem I always wrestle with. I want to use my attic, but I live where it gets HOT in the summer. (But it's a dry heat!) I suppose I can keep my TP and paper towels up there but, not sure what else I can put up there...
By and large the only things I keep up there are spare building materials that already get subjected to those conditions.
I assume you have water up there already? Apart from that I would also suggest tinned foods, bread flour, pasta, and nuts like cashews and almonds for protein. Nutritional yeast is good for a cheesy flavour without having to worry about storing cheese, plus it's a good source of protein and vitamins.
Instead of an isolated stash of things which have been selected based on how well they can survive under extreme conditions for 5 years, why not build a pantry that can hold an extra month of food and rotate it? You'll still have the extra month of food, but it will be the things you really eat. With some heavy duty metal shelving units, you can cram a massive amount of food into a small space which is still inside the house and kept at a livable temperature.
I agree with everything already stated. I'd also add cooking oil and ghee which will pair nicely with your indian spices.
This raises a question I have had lately. Our climate is similar - very low humidity pretty much all the time - think arid climate. In summers, it gets over 100 F on a fairly regular basis with cooler nights, often with high winds and blowing dust. I usually leave for cooler parts of the country fairly early in the summer, as we both teach and don't have young kids. My question is this - we have long term food storage, mostly Augason Farms #10 cans and some canned salmon and tuna - how much would it degrade the product and shorten the lifetime if we did not run the AC at all in the summer when we are gone? I always see keep things dry and cool, even the dehydrated Aug, but I don't see any actual assessments of how long they are safe to eat if they have had temperature fluctuations like described in OP's post.
Dried food. We have a dryer at home. Works great for preserving fruit and making your own jerky. Also, those energy bars for camping trips and what not? Them too. Salted pork is also good. Pinnekjøt maybe? Flour pre mixed with other ingrediënts for hard tack. Etc.
How did the supplies you stored work out? Did the spices retain flavor? Did the beans become harder to cook/take longer? Any weevils/insects in the food supplies? Any evidence of rodents in the food or TP? Any breakdown in packaging?
I'd think that you could learn from how the supplies aged, then be able to make informed decisions on what to buy next/where else you might store it.
As others have noted, your loft may not be the best place for food storage with such temperatures, but if you check these items and see that things worked out, I see no reason not to do it again. Good call on the spice choices, by the way. I've been fighting an Indian food craving for days.
As for me, I like freeze-dried foods such as Augason Farms as my third tier emergency stash. Properly stored, some of the #10 cans are good for 20-30 years. First tier food is whatever is in the fridge and freezer. Second is whatever is in the pantry, which can include canned foods, shelf-stable pouches, or bags of lentils, pasta, etc. But I would never put any food in an area that has no climate control if I had another option.