When Snacks Attack

As I mentioned in my article How To Keep The Yummies For The Tummy, I suggested you stock up on snacks. Snacks are a great way to keep you fed between meals. They help provide you with quick bursts of energy when you need it most. Snacks can also come in handy if you cannot set up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner because you are traveling a great distance and can’t afford the time to stop. There are so many options for good snacks available to you. Which ones should you get? Well, here is my idea of the worse snacks to stock up on.

Snack Cakes

We all know that in a nuclear apocalypse, the only things that will survive the blast are Twinkies and cockroaches. As much as I love snack cakes, they have a brief shelf life. When Hostess first closed in 2012, I, like thousands of other people, rushed to the store to buy the last Twinkies and, my favorite, Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins. I put them in a cool, dry place with the rest of my food storage and moved on with my life. When they announced there to come back months later, I pulled the snack cakes only to discover they were hard as a rock. When I bought new cakes to replace them, I tried to vacuum seal them and it was a cream-filled disaster. So my best advice is to just avoid them.

Dried Pasta

A lot of sites say dried pasta is a good thing to stock up on for doomsday or a crisis. Sure, it has a long shelf life when stored properly, but it requires a lot of water to cook it. One handful of dried pasta requires one quart of water to cook. Once it’s done cooking, you can’t consume the water since it’s going to be dirty from the starch residue from the pasta. Water is scarce enough without having to use it to cook one thing. Also, you can’t bulk cook pasta because when it cools, it can become a gooey, congealed ball of yuck. To store cooked pasta to prevent food poisoning, you’ll need refrigeration, which doesn’t exist in a long-term blackout.

Potato Chips and Pretzels

A couple of preppers I know are stocking up on these crunchy snacks, and I don’t understand why. Chips are super high in salt and can increase your chances of dehydration. They are easily breakable, making them unable to be transported safely. Potato chips have a shelf life of three months before they go bad and taste off. Pretzels might have a slightly longer shelf life, but they have tons of salt on them. Over the less few years, companies have recently started using less salt on their products, which makes them taste alright but not as good as the originals. I would just naturally avoid salty foods, no matter the sodium level altogether unless you plan to store extra water.

Damaged Canned Goods

Many groceries stores have displays or bins where they put their damaged cans in, to sell them at a steep discount. You might think this is a sweet deal. Instead of getting eight cans of corn for eight dollars, you can get sixteen for that same price. So what if the can isn’t pretty? The food inside of it is still good, right? You can get food poisoning, like botulism, from dented cans. The lining of the cans can also leak into your food if it’s dented and can lead to Lead or BPA poisoning. Damaged cans can rust faster, causing even more health problems for you when consumed. I wouldn’t risk getting all of this to save ten cents.

A Sale You Hate

Do not buy foods you hate, no matter how cheap it is. This is the worst thing you can do for your food preps. There is nothing worse than going into your pantry to get a snack and finding nothing you like. If you hate the item, leave it there. Most people who buy food for their prep look at just the cost, often disregarding whether they even like it. They think that in desperate times they’ll force their body to eat it. This is a terrible plan and will cause you to vomit. The only good use you can use these items for is to barter. Someone in town might love it, and you’ll be able to strike a deal with them for help or items you actually need.