Pests can quickly deplete your food supply and increase your chances of getting a foodborne illness. Luckily, you don’t need to do much to keep pests out for good. Follow these practical tips to ensure your stockpiled food stays secure in even the most demanding survival situations.
Is Your Storage Space Vulnerable to Pests?
If you have a well-prepped storage space, it likely contains foods like jerky, rice, canned vegetables, flour, oils and pasta. Pests like spiders, rodents, insects and microorganisms love shelf-stable goods like these because they provide the perfect place to live, hide and breed. Areas crammed with supplies have lots of safe, warm nooks and crannies.
Food exposed to open air can quickly become infested. For instance, flies only need a few minutes to lay eggs. Pests can carry diseases and produce toxins. Warehouse beetles, for example, shed stiff barbed hairs that are naked to the human eye — and ingesting them can cause an allergic reaction.
Not all pests trigger allergic reactions or cause foodborne illnesses. However, they will still deplete your food supply while living, eating and reproducing.
It is one thing to lose a bag of rice, but if pests get into scarce specialty goods — like lactose-free food for those with dietary restrictions or infant formula for newborns — the replacements can get expensive. In survival situations, that could put you in a tight spot. Your best bet is to secure your storage space by making it pest-proof.
[Editor’s note: That’s a good point about specialty foods! Aside from the following advice, if you rely on very special foods, then consider making separate stockpiles in separate locations of your home.]
Building Better to Keep Pests Out
There are a few design changes you can make to help pest-proof your space.
- Seal Cracks and Crevices
Remove every piece of furniture from the room so you can spot even the most minor cracks and crevices. Use caulk, weatherstripping or foam tape to seal them, paying particular attention to windows and doorways.
- Manage the Temperature
Everything from algae to cockroaches thrives in warm, damp conditions. Make your storage space as inhospitable as possible for them by keeping it cool, dark and dry. The ideal temperature ranges from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees. The humidity should be between 40% and 60%, although it depends on your altitude and the time of year.
- Keep Trash Far Away
Pests are attracted to trash because it is strong-smelling and often goes undisturbed for long periods. If you store trash right next to your food, they will migrate over. In addition to keeping it far away from your food storage, put it under a lid at all times.
- Set Sticky Traps
Even the ultimate pest-proof storage space may see the occasional bug — these creatures were practically designed to get into places they shouldn’t be. Place traps at entrances, in corners and below shelves. Sticky traps built for rodents are ideal as they can catch everything from a house fly to a squirrel without using pheromones.
- Remove Paper Labels
Paper labels give insects a safe space to hide and lay eggs. They also provide excellent bedding material for rodents trying to build homes and can be a breeding ground for bacteria. Remove them and use permanent markers to label food instead.
[Editor’s note: I had no idea about this. It’s amazing just how fragile our food stores can be, and how little things like this can cause huge problems!]
- Store Food on Shelves
Leaving food on the floor provides easy access for insects, spiders and vermin. Keep everything on shelves six inches or more above the floor to keep them out of reach. This also makes things easier to inventory and clean around.
Creating Habits to Keep Pests Out
Changing your habits can help you pest-proof your storage space.
- Quarantine New Foods
Triple-check the food you buy. Pests like pantry moths, fly larvae and warehouse beetles often take up residence in grain products like flour and rice. Even if you can’t see them, their tiny eggs may still be there. Quarantine new supplies in your freezer for at least three days before adding them to the rest of your supply.
- Routinely Clean Your Space
Discourage pests from moving in by routinely wiping surfaces, sweeping under shelves and moving boxes around. Leave no corner untouched. You can make it part of your inventory-taking process.
- Transfer Food Into Containers
Rodents can chew on anything from aluminum to plastic — and they often do. Their incisors are constantly growing, so they must continuously chew to keep their teeth at a manageable length. Of course, rodents are also food-motivated. To keep them out, transfer food from original vessels to new ones. Glass and thick metal are some of the only pest-proof materials.
- Wash Containers Thoroughly
You have no idea where or what touched your containers before you got them. Before filling them with grains, flour or produce, wash them thoroughly with warm, soapy water or a food-safe disinfectant. You should also clean them before refilling them to prevent cross-contamination.
- Eat Far Away From Storage
Even a single crumb can attract any pests in the vicinity. For instance, ants have roughly 420 glomeruli — specialized brain structures that process scents — in their antennal lobes that help them locate odors. They will walk directly to you, leaving behind a pheromone trail that signals others to follow. To keep them off the scent, eat far away from where you store your food.
How to Store Different Food Types
The best storage method for shelf-stable food items is airtight jars on shelves. Being at least half a foot above the floor protects them from floodwater, rodents, moisture, insects and dirt. It also gives them better air circulation, reducing moisture. This way, dry goods won’t spoil as fast or become contaminated as easily.
Ideally, you should store grains in glass vessels with sanitary glass or rubber lids. Since glass is impermeable — meaning it doesn’t allow liquid to pass through — it doesn’t harbor harmful bacteria like plastic. Best of all, glass is excellent for long-term preservation because it prevents oxygen and moisture loss.
Another benefit of glass is its durability. Rats and insects can’t chew through it. Imagine pantry moth larvae hatch after you sealed everything away. The infestation wouldn’t spread because you’d be able to see in — and they wouldn’t be able to get out.
If you don’t have glass, you can use an old, unpowered fridge or freezer to store shelf-stable goods. While working cold storage is ideal, you don’t need electricity. The point of keeping them there is to take advantage of the insulation, built-in shelving and thick metal. You won’t have to worry about temperature fluctuations, rats or floodwaters.
[Editor’s note: FDA-approved buckets or Mylar bags and regular buckets work well, too. I’ve used both for many years without trouble.]
Keeping Food and Water Fresh
The point of prepping is to preserve food for as long as possible. The best way to do that is to practice the first-in-first-out rule. Organize by expiration date so you can eat and drink older inventory before moving on to new items. This is particularly important with grains. Empty containers completely before refilling them to prevent rot, mold or spoilage.
Have you thought about how to keep your water fresh? Vermin infestations aren’t the only thing you need to worry about. Harmful algae blooms can quickly spread in stagnant or slow-moving bodies of water — especially if the conditions are right. Bathing in or drinking this water will make you sick.
To avoid this, regularly clean out your water tank. If you have test kits or aerating devices, use them. While bottled water won’t experience algae blooms, it can still go bad if you store it improperly. Keep it in a cool, dark place away from chemicals and harsh solvents.
Any container you use should be airtight and resealable. Mason jars, zipper storage bags and vacuum-sealed boxes are ideal. Anything that you’d have to use a bag clip to close will let oxygen and moisture in, which can cause food to become stale or rot.
The best place to store your food to keep it fresh longer is away from your appliances. Ovens and refrigerators produce heat when powered and in use, which can accelerate the rate at which your perishables spoil.
Cooked items are even more sensitive to temperature. If you have a refrigerator, make sure to store food within two hours of cooking — or one hour if the temperature is above 90 degrees — to prevent harmful bacteria from building up. This way, you can keep yourself from contracting a foodborne illness.
How to Tell if Something Is Safe to Eat
Have you ever heard the phrase “better safe than sorry”? Today, getting food poisoning from old rice makes for an uncomfortable sick day. In survival situations, foodborne illness can be deadly. There are a few different methods you can use to test whether your food is safe.
The easiest way to check your food is through a visual inspection. Throw away any canned goods that are rusty, bulging or badly dented, as a broken seal is an opening for bacteria. Meats and vegetables follow similar principles. If the package is bulging — as in it looks inflated or bloated — it is probably inedible. This is a sign that harmful microorganisms are reproducing! They produce carbon dioxide, which can cause the packaging to swell.
[Editor’s note: The “nose knows” method is another good one.]
You also need to test whether your drinking water is okay. Some contaminants are unsafe — even if you boil the water. You can spot them by looking for cloudiness, floating particulates or thin film on the surface. However, many contaminants are invisible to the naked eye.
Water that smells sour or of sulfur, sewage or fish is likely contaminated by wastewater, bacteria or algae. A slight metallic smell is usually fine — water often picks it up when it passes through old pipes or absorbs natural minerals underground.
Bottled water is usually good until its expiration date. However, there are exceptions. Most single-use bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, so they shed microscopic chemicals over time. PET plastic is permeable. This means viruses, molds and pathogenic bacteria can get inside even if the seal is intact.
If you are desperate, an activated charcoal filter and a quick boil can remove all but the most stubborn contaminants. If you don’t have power, unscented chlorine bleach also works. Use eight drops of 6% bleach per gallon or six drops of 8.25% per gallon.
[Editor’s note: I recommend using a quality gravity water filter, such as the Berkey system with black Berkey filters, though there are other options. I’ve tried a few, but I wouldn’t bet my life on some of them. In general, you get what you pay for, so if the system or filters are exceptionally inexpensive, they’re probably not that good.]
Keep Checking In on Your Storage Space
The best way to keep pests out is to make sure your space is lived in. Even the most determined bugs and critters dislike moving in when the place is already occupied — they’re more scared of you than you are of them. Instead of prepping and forgetting, regularly check in to ensure everything stays clean and emergency-ready.
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