Food storage is key to staying healthy in an emergency. Whether it is a natural disaster, job loss, or a pandemic, long-term food storage will always keep you relaxed, knowing that you have food for yourself and your family.
So, if you haven’t started making your DIY long term food storage plan, you should start now! You will have peace of mind now, and everything you need later.
While you are prepping food for long-term storage, you need to make sure the food is protected from oxygen, moisture, and light. If you want to know more about this, you can read our blogs here. Protecting your food from these elements will help you mitigate any bug or pest infestations.
Just imagine a situation where you have packed your food, hoping to use it over the years, when an emergency strikes. But when you open the packs, you find bugs and pest infestation has spoilt the food. All your hard work would be ruined!
So, how do you protect your long-term food storage from bugs and pest infestation? In this blog, we will tell you 5 ways to protect food from bugs and pest infestation.
How and when do bugs and pest infestation in your food occur?
Bugs and pest infestation in your food storage occur when you bring packets of cereal, flour, pasta, grains and more that are already infested with bugs. Either they will have insect larvae or live insects in the packages.
When the right conditions strike, such as moisture, these bugs and pests reproduce and start infesting other food items in the storage or pantry.
How to protect food from bugs and pest infestation?
- Use Sealed Containers
When you are storing food items like flour, pasta, grain and more, make sure to use sealed containers. For example, you can use Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to store food items long-term. These are vacuum sealed and protect the food from oxygen and moisture. Moreover, they are puncture resistant and hence outside bugs or pests can’t enter inside. Also, they protect food from light.
- Dispose of Infested Food
Sometimes, preppers use the original packaging of the food items to store them for the short term. The original packaging of food items is usually flimsy and prone to breakage. This can allow outside bugs and pests to enter the food packet and infest. Now, if you notice bugs and pest infestation in one food packet, chances are there might be more.
Open the first packet you notice infestation signs in such as wings, fecal droplets, or live pests. Open any packet kept in the vicinity of the infested package. Remove all the food that bugs and pests have infested. Use sealable bags to dispose of such food items to avoid the spread of infestation further.
- Freeze the Food
As mentioned above, infestation occurs when you bring a food package from the departmental store that is already infested with bugs and pests. Now, one of the tricks that experienced preppers use is freezing the food before they pack it further for long-term storage.
This is particularly popular with flour as it often already has bugs or larvae in it before you can even bring it home. Storing it in the freezer reduces the chances of bugs and pest infestation further. To read more about how to store flour long-term, read our blog here.
- Keep Storage Areas Clean
To reduce the chances of bugs and pest infestation, make sure to keep your storage areas clean. Whether it is your pantry for short-term storage or cellar for long-term storage, use the right methods to keep these areas clean.
Make sure to clean the containers before reusing them, especially if you have had a pest infestation before.
- Get Pest Control
If bugs and pest infestation are widespread, you must hire pest control services. Professionals from pest control companies can implement the right strategies to remove pest infestation and prevent it from happening again.
Bottom Line
Long-term food storage takes a lot of effort, and you certainly don’t want your efforts to go to waste. So, with the ways mentioned above, you can reduce the chances of bugs and pest infestation.
At Wallaby, we suggest you use high quality Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers for long-term food storage.
You can check out our website to help you buy the products you need to store food long-term and to protect your food from bugs and pest infestation.
