One of the areas I am lacking in is some kind of oil or fat to store in bulk for long term. How long will vegatable oil store in the original containers at room temps? Is there a better oil to store, such as sunflower, peanut or olive oil?

Thanks

Last week I fried some chicken in a cast iron skillet filled with ccrisco from a 'found' container of off brand shortenning in the back of a dark cool cabinet. It had a "best of used by" date of early 2005.

If kept cool I don't see why it would not last 3 or more.

understand that if the shtf that your houses A/C likely will not be used and that cool cabinet could get real warm during a long southern summer

I (my wife) regularly uses vegetable oil that is more than two years old.  I don't know that we break three years by much, but I don't notice any discoloration, texture or flavor issues.  We buy light colored oil, store in a dark closet, and keep at room temperature.  Perhaps there is some oxidation at this age, but it is not noticeable.  

Unfortunately storing liquid oil is difficult; so we try to maximize our storage as noted above and rotating through the next-oldest bottle.  We also keep a lot of Crisco.  That stuff stores for a long time.  I was reading that vegetable oil was one of the most precious food commodities in post-war Europe.

Veggie oil begins to break down after several years.
It discolors and does not have the same viscosity.

Altho I have never tried to use any that was obviously breaking down.

I've mentioned this before, but I'll bring it up again.

There's a device that you can buy in just about any well stocked kitchen shop (Bed, Bath, and Beyond, for instance), called a Vacu-Vin. It's designed to be used on an opened bottle of red wine to prevent oxidation once the bottle has been opened. Oxidation is the same process that breaks down the cooking oils and causes them to go rancid.

I have several wine bottles that I've cleaned and re-labeled that I have olive oil in, and several others that I have canola oil in. I filled them to near the top, and used the Vacu-Vin to suck the air out of the bottles. The rubber stoppers work quite well at holding a vacuum.

It's a simple solution, and it works.