Fruitcake lasts forever...
I used to sail as a younger man and one of the recommendations of the, “Safety of Life at Sea” (SOLAS) folks was to pack dog food for your abandon ship bag. It has enough nutrition to keep one alive but it's not something you would eat up too quickly.
As a prepper I have stocked roughly three months of foods (breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner) for my family. Enough for ~3 months, longer if we skip some meals, but I have buckets of rice and beans which my kids call, “dog food” and tuna, you guessed it, “cat food” which though not their 1st, 2nd or 3rd-10th choice would extend our horizons.
As to the authors points of beans, bandaids and bullets...
Just as by beans he means food, bullets are tools. I have collected a good set of other non-power tools; shovels, axes, saws along with hand tools, hammers and nails which I strongly feel will be critical to have. Fuels for running things may be quite scarce. I wonder if fruitcake can be used as fuel?
Good point. I have a 25 pound bucket of screws, and two same-size buckets of nails (cheap in the large buckets), and a gallon of wood glue. I also have 100 2-by-4s, 8 ft long, that were $1 each. I don't know exactly what they are for, but I can make just about anything with them, and it will be strong.