Food Storage - How to Begin
Barbara Henderson
Wouldn’t it
be nice to have so much food stored that you could eat comfortably for weeks or
even months without going to the store or spending money? Farm families from generations past used to
do that all the time. They managed it by
growing food, preserving food, and storing food. It was a lot of hard work! So, we aren’t going to really get into how
hard they had to work. We are just going
to consider how they managed it. This
would be your ‘Bug In’ infrastructure
where you get to stay in your home as opposed to a ‘Bug Out’ scenario where you
actually have to leave your home.
Surviving at home is much easier and more likely than actually leaving
home so this is the place to begin prepping.
In planning home food storage you are making a very real effort to
provide for the needs of your family in everyday life and in case of an
emergency situation where food is not readily available or your budget has
taken a cut. A word of caution here is
that you do not want to go out and start spending money without a plan. You will wind up with a lot of food that no
one likes, no real meals planned, and hardly any better off than if you had
spent the money on a night at the movies!
To begin ask yourself, ‘How did farm families manage their ‘bug in’ food storage?’
They counted
how many meals they had to eat from harvest to harvest.
They counted
how many people had to eat at each meal.
They took
into account how much food was needed per meal.
They looked
at the food supply that was available.
They canned
or dried enough food for the number of meals they needed. They put up as much as they needed with as
much extra as was possible. (My
grandmother explained all this to me.
She even counted how many jars of fruit she needed for desserts from
harvest to harvest.)
Today a
prepper has the option of setting a modest goal for food storage. Let’s say you are starting with the goal of
having an uninterrupted supply of food for four weeks. Begin your food storage project by taking a
week or more paying careful attention to the meals you do eat at home. If you
happen to notice that you use a jar of spaghetti sauce two times a week then
you would need to have eight jars of sauce stored in the pantry. I use spaghetti sauce instead of tomato sauce
or ketchup. I even use it in chili and
taco meat. You may not use it all. The point is to notice every single item
necessary to make the meals you and your family eat on a consistent basis. Then you need to count up enough of all
ingredients to last a month.
You also
need to consider that you may be eating more meals at home. Unfortunately there may be at least some time
that you don’t have electricity. To be
on the safe side you need to have four weeks of canned food! It needs to be canned food that you actually
eat now.
Breakfast
items are easy in that you can use cereal, instant oats, pop tarts, and other
things that are not expensive and really easy to prepare. They can be
nutritious or empty calories. For this
to work, it has to be things you eat now.
You can’t store a month’s worth of healthy foods if you aren’t eating
those foods now. You may begin now
gradually making a shift to foods that are considered healthier. Just don’t waste your money on Healthy Choice
cereals if what you eat is Lucky Charms.
There is no question that the
ONLY pantry that is going to help you is a working pantry. That means you are constantly using the food
you have and replacing what you use.
You and your
family may only use a can of salmon every couple of weeks or even once a
month. If it makes a major part of a
meal that everyone likes or at least tolerates it would be a good idea to have
extra because that can be the main part of meal that doesn’t require
refrigeration.
Let’s say
that you want food for 3 meals a day and two snacks for 28 days.
Breakfast –
one box of raisin bran makes ten bowls of cereal. You need 2 bowls for breakfast – so a box
lasts 5 days. You need approximately 6
boxes of that cereal. Or 3 boxes of raisin
bran and 3 boxes of captain crunch for variety.
Milk is a potential problem unless you have a goat in your backyard that
someone milks every day. Powdered milk
or canned milk is a good alternative.
You can actually get used to either one.
Lunch is
often something as simple as tuna or peanut butter on crackers. Often people buy their lunch. There may be times when that isn’t possible
so you do need to consider how many lunch meals you would need if you were
unable to buy groceries for a few weeks.
Supper is
normally the meal with the most variety.
No one can actually give you a list of what needs to be in your
pantry. You have to personalize it. Count the ingredients of your favorite meal,
and try to have enough on hand to make at least eight meals just like you
usually do. Then count the ingredients
of you and your family’s second, third, and fourth favorite meals. Try to have enough ingredients on hand to
make these meals eight times. That is
your four favorite meals eight times which equals 32 meals, so you are a little
ahead of your 4 weeks goal. This is also
a good time to look closely at the cheapest meal your family is willing to
eat. You may want to store enough
ingredients to make that meal eight times first! It is simple enough when you break it down
like this. If you have refrigeration you
can cook a double meal for supper and use the rest for lunch the next day. My grandmother said she usually cooked a big
meal at lunch and they had left overs for supper. It was approximately the same amount of food
as two meals, but she only cooked once.
Snacks are
necessary to most people. Your snacks
can be as easy as popcorn with or without butter. Snacks can be pre-packaged or homemade. What are you eating for snacks now? Things that are handy all the time are mixes
that require water as the only ingredient you need to add. If it is a snack that everyone loves a little
too much you may have to store that somewhere besides the regular pantry.
Refrigerated
items are more difficult of course. You
can keep a four week supply of eggs if you have refrigerator room by paying
careful attention to the freshness date on the carton. Butter, sour cream, and cream cheese are also
things that refrigerate well over time.
However, they can be expensive if you don’t actually use them.
Bread can be
frozen, but it doesn’t taste as good. If
you toast it tastes pretty good. Bread mixes have long shelf lives so they are
an option. Pancakes make a nice
bread. You don’t have to drown them in
syrup. Just eat plain or with butter
like you would hot biscuits out of the oven.
Cheese
stores well, so can you think up any meals that have cheese as a main
ingredient? Grill cheese sandwiches or
cheese nachos or cheese quesadillas are options that make a reasonable meal any
time of day. What kind of cheese do you
like and how much do you use when making a meal? Try to keep enough on hand for at least eight
meals.
Don’t forget
soup mixes like baked potato soup. They
have a long shelf life and can be the starting point for fancier dishes like
‘cheesy baked potato soup’, clam chowder, or chicken soup. If you use crackers at all you need at least
four week supply of crackers. It is
simple. How many crackers do you use in
a week times 4. Crackers have a long
shelf life so this is something that can be stocked for fairly long periods of
time. If you prefer to make your own
soups you need to have enough ingredients on hand to make at least eight meals.
If you have a
cool place you can store potatoes for a month easily.
Rice, beans,
quinoa, and flours of many kinds store well for months.
For me, meal
planning is the beginning of food storage.
Setting a goal of having four weeks of meals is a doable goal.
I suggest
you group the ingredients for each meal together in your pantry. I know some ingredients will overlap with
other meals. Of course refrigerator
items and freezer items can’t be stored in the pantry, but you get the
idea.
Remember the goal isn’t to store food that
you never use.
The goal is to store food that you use all
the time.
Always put
your newer goods to the back of your storage area. You will automatically use the items at the
front which will be your older items.
That way you won’t have to worry about freshness dates being expired.
Don’t worry
about sticking to my suggestions list. Do what works for you. You may want to gradually build up eight
meals of all your favorite meals, or you may want to start with one meal and
buy the necessary ingredients for that meal first. A good way to go is to buy what is on sale or
items that have good coupons that week.
Your personal shopping style and budget will direct you there.
You probably
won’t have the budget to go out and purchase twenty eight days of meals in one
trip to the grocery store! Write down your
own master list of groceries and do what works for you. It won’t take that long once you get started.
Once you have a solid four weeks of food
stored, your goal is to at least maintain that amount of food. You may decide you want to step up to eight
weeks or even twelve weeks of stored food.
Honestly, a full year is not a ridiculous amount of food. You never know what the future holds. It could be something as simple as an
unexpected expense like paying for a wedding, or a decision to take a nice
vacation. Just eat the food you have on
hand and spend your money on something else!
In the meantime take food storage seriously!
Barbara
Ps – get a good manual can-opener – get two!
Get my book
‘Everyday Prepping for Beginners’ ebook at
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