By Joseph Parish
When it is time for you to escape to your established retreat you never know exactly how long you will need to remain there. It could be perhaps as little as a month or in dire cases you might maybe be there for a year or more. In either case drinking nothing but water can quickly get old and become boring.
My suggestion on this issue is that you plan on storing up a few other instant drink mixes as well. I have personally included sufficient supplies of coffee, various teas and a selection of powdered juices and drinks specifically tailored to family member’s tastes.
In my pantry you will find a good selection of herbal teas some of which are designated for medicinal purposes while others are merely tasty to drink. I keep a small selection of canned as well as bottled juices on hand, several containers of powdered milk, hot cocoa mix for my wife and plenty of containers of Kool Aid. We have drinks which are commonly found in the grocery store such as Tang and even some that are more difficult to locate.
My go kit contain individual drink mixes which you merely open and dump into a bottle of water. Nothing could be easier. In this way I merely have to provide cases of water in my BOV instead of a large collection of soda bottles or cans.
When I was explaining this process to a small group of preppers they posed a question in my direction. They wanted to know how I managed to store my teas for any long periods of time. They indicated that the boxes which the tea comes in were really very inadequate for long term storage. I too must admit that this observation was very accurate. In the past I have taken the tea bags or the loose tea out of the boxes and placed it into small half pint jars along with a single oxygen absorber. This method may not be the most efficient way to accomplish the task but in all aspects it appears to work just fine.
In the case of the Kool-aid mixes or the tang I leave them in the original containers they were purchased in. as long as they are not opened they remain dry and useable for a long time. Once opened the drink mix should be used within a short time frame. The problem stems when moisture is allowed into the container. The product then gets lumpy and so hard that you may as well toss it in the trash.
In order to keep your coffee from going stale you should consider storing them as beans. Place them in a quart canning jar along with an oxygen absorber and they should last a good many years. Take and grind the beans as you need them.
In conclusion, water is a necessity of life but nothing in the rule book says that we can not flavor it to make it more appealing. Think carefully on your drink plans as you prepare your food storage at your retreat.
Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish
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