If I expected to hunker down for an extended period, I would insist on having these canned foods on hand. I didn’t curate this list for price. Some of these items are not cheap, but they are all delicious.
Beans
Beans are high in protein, folate, magnesium, potassium and iron and contain little to no fat. They are also a good source of fibre.
Aside from the healthy nutritional profile, beans are extremely versatile and form the foundation of veggie chili or chili con carne, tacos, burritos, ribollita soup, hummus, mochi filling, and many other dishes.
Every pantry should have black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas, which make hummus), and kidney beans.
They’re long-lasting with listed expiry or use-by dates about three years out. I’ve used cans of beans more than a year out of the expiry date, and once hydrated and cooked I haven’t detected any difference from newer cans of beans. Make sure you do a smell and little taste test and check the cans for defects before you cook them up.
You can pick up 12 or 15 can flats of these very affordably at Costco.
I tend to pick up a few cans out of habit whenever I see them and don’t find a noticeable difference between brands. But I do select for no salt added.
Tomatoes
I store diced tomatoes, whole peeled tomatoes and tomato paste. They’re an essential part of many dishes, like chili and pasta, and are high in folate, vitamin C, and potassium.
John Blackthorne and his sailors in Shogun wouldn’t have been rotting away with scurvy if they only had cans of tomatoes teleported back in time.
Like beans, if the can looks okay, and it’s been stored in a cool, dry area, canned tomatoes should be safe to eat at least a year after the use-by date. There are some reports that they can be kept indefinitely, but I’m a little dubious about that. If you rotate your cans and keep the older ones up front to use, you will be fine.
Like the beans, you can pick up a flat of San Marzano tomatoes, which I find to be a good producer, at Costco at a reasonable price.
Sardines
Recently I picked up a variety of canned sardines in both oil and water from a Portuguese National Sardine Shop in Lisbon. Yep, Portugal has a national sardine store, and for good reason because their canned sardines are fire.
The resident sardine expert at Loja das Conservas said that they can be kept indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry area, as with other canned goods. I’ll let the expert taste-test that theory, but if they last for a few years, that would do the job.
Sardines are a good source of protein and are high in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Sardines are also low in mercury, which tend to accumulate in large fish such as tuna.
Toast a slice of bread until brown and crispy and top with sardines and tomato. Delish!
There were hundreds of varieties of canned seafood from over a dozen Portuguese canneries at Loja das Conservas. Some of the cans are works of art and it’s apparent that plenty of care goes into creating them. Highly recommended to visit if you find yourself in Lisbon.
Loja das Conservas
Rua do Arsenal 130, 1100-040 Lisboa, Portugal
Butter
From all the research I did, Red Feather kept coming up as the best canned butter in existence. And it is. It’s bizarrely creamier and tastier than fresh butter and lasts for 2-3 years when stored nicely.
There’s a YouTuber who bravely taste tested Red Feather butter after storing it for 14 years. It was edible, but it didn’t sound that tasty. Would not recommend. Eat it within a few years and it should still taste as great as butter usually tastes.
Hailing from farms in New Zealand and made for generations by an Australian family, Red Feather butter has just two ingredients: pasteurized cream and salt.
It’s been a survivalist and prepper favourite for years, and the prices now reflect that. A 12 oz or 340g can cost around $12.
Cheese
Another Aussie export is Bega canned cheese. It clearly states that it’s processed so don’t expect the same experience as having a fine aged white cheddar. But in a sustained grid-down situation, it’d be nice to have a semblance of cheese. To be honest, it tastes a bit like Laughing Cow cheese if you’ve ever had that.
I picked up my Bega cheese at Amazon. There are no expiration dates, but I would consume it within 2-3 years. There are claims that it can be stored indefinitely, but there are no warranties about how it would taste at that time. Again, I wonder about those types of claims!
