10 Best Forever Foods for Your Survival Pantry

Learn about the top 10 Best Forever Foods for Your Survival Pantry. These foods have an indefinite shelf life for long-term food storage. In addition, these foods can be an essential part of your Extended Pantry as part of your Four Corners Pantry system.

Plus, I share a little bonus in my latest pantry video. I also talk about additional foods that, although they do not have an indefinite shelf life, can be stored for up to 30 years!

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The Four Corners Pantry

So what exactly is a Four Corners Pantry? Great question! The “Four Corners” Pantry term refers to the following combination:

Working Pantry
Refrigerator
Freezer
Extended Pantry

Your Working Pantry is that area in your kitchen, such as a closet or cupboard, where you store foods that you use on a regular basis. It may contain about a month’s worth or more of shelf-stable foods.

Your Four Corners Pantry also includes your refrigerator and freezer where you can store additional food. But what exactly do I mean when I use the term Extended Pantry?

The Extended Pantry is usually a second closet, cupboard, or maybe even a room where you store those foods that you stock up on. These foods are generally shelf-stable and ones that you use on a regular basis.

You can stock your Extended Pantry over time with extra foods, such as when you find them on sale. With this process, you can save money and have a backup supply of food in the event of bad weather, illness, or job loss. Additionally, in a national or worldwide emergency, you may not be able to go to the grocery store or you may encounter food shortages. In these extreme situations, you’ll need to rely on the foods in your Extended Pantry.

Where Do Forever Foods Fit In?

As part of your Extended Pantry, you’ll want to designate an area as your Survival Pantry that you’ll stock with foods that have an indefinite shelf life. In my forever foods video, I outline the top 10 Forever Foods, including honey, maple syrup, instant coffee, popcorn (yes! popcorn!) and…much to my surprise upon researching this topic…store-bought canned goods!

According to the US Department of Agriculture, store-bought canned goods have an indefinite shelf-life. Be sure to watch the video where I share how to store these canned goods to guarantee their indefinite shelf life.

Almost Forever Foods

But there is more good news! There are additional foods that, although they do not have an indefinite shelf life, can be stored up to 8, 10, 12, 25…and even 30 years!

These almost forever food include white rice; dehydrated vegetables; pasta; soft grains, such as rye; and hard grains, like wheat berries. In my video, I go over the different shelf lives for each of these foods (and more!) and how to store them.

Learn More

To learn more about the shelf-life of foods and discover which are classified as forever foods, be sure to check out these great resources:

US Department of Agriculture
Utah State University Extension Service
- Food Storage Index (Includes “A Guide to Food Storage for Emergencies” free PDF download.)
Eat By Date
- Find out how long thousands of foods will stay safe and what is the best way to store them

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Comments

Judith Fleser says

May 30, 2020 at 12:38 am

I really appreciated this video about the pantry. I was raised when the economy was pretty bad up in Alaska, and we had to use everything we had. I’ve learned how to keep a pantry simply from living it and necessity. The fact that I have had a well-stocked pantry has kept me from freaking out about food during all of this craziness!!! I only buy TP twice/year when it’s on sale and I have coupons. I had over 100 rolls of TP before everyone panicked.