What foods should you stockpile?

When it comes to creating a stockpile you need to keep in mind the shelf life of the items, along with how much your family uses in a year. Another factor is what type of container you will need to have in order to ensure that they do not get infected by insects and/or rodents durring the storage process and where you will store these containers. If you work your cards right, you may even be able to get those containers for free by asking any place that makes cakes if you can have their empty frosting buckets. Frosting buckets are the same size buckets that you would find at a home improvement store only made with food safe plastic. Of course you will need to clean them out, but lets face it....the price is right.

Here are a few foods that have a 20 year or more shelf life, so they are great to stock up on. With basic ingredients on hand, you can build a variety of recipes off of them. Of course flavor and quality of the items will decrease in time, but at least you know it will still be safe to eat if you were to end up needing it that far down the line. This graph was pulled from Provident Living's website.

Food	New "Life Sustaining" Shelf-Life Estimates (In Years)
Wheat	30+
White rice	30+
Corn	30+
Sugar	30+
Pinto beans	30
Rolled oats	30
Pasta	30
Potato flakes	30
Apple slices	30
Non-fat powdered milk	20
Dehydrated carrots	20