Food Storage: Maintaining a one year supply of long term storage foods

Have you heard you should store a one year supply of foods? It is a good idea. It has been said that the day will come when a bushel of grain will be worth more than gold. (It might be hard to find a lot of nourishment when you are eating that gold!)

It is wise to have food around and to store it properly.

I've read about and like the recommendation to store things that are easy, simple and have the ability to feed many people - in order to prepare for the worst possible situation.  I feel that probably soups and stews are the best solution for longest term storage - and there are so many different variations to them - it doesn't have to be the same old soup every day. Plus, soups only use one pot!

You can put in them anything you grow in a garden, hunt and fish for, or scavenge could potentially all go towards a soup/stew.

You could use and easily store our favorite four main filler items: white rice, dried potatoes (diced or sliced), pasta noodles (macaroni / elbow, spaghetti, any kind of egg noodle), and beans.
For example, the 10 bean mix gives a variety of different nutritional values. You can add dehydtrated veggies (carrots, corn, peas, green beans, onions, etc.) and meat or TVP.  The key to this will be your seasonings. You can add bouillons, green or red peppers, slat, white cream sauce, tomato powder or ay other seasoning you have on hand. The more stored, the better when it comes to seasoning soups and stews!

For breakfast, you could use boiling water and adding something to make one pot - like oatmeal, cream of wheat, 6 grain rolled grains, or a 9-grain cracked cereal. You could also store pancake mix to throw in some variety. Don't forget you will need some kind of sweetener such as honey, sugar and powdered milk.

We also suggest fruits, desserts, drink mixes and kitchen aid items, such as baking soda, salt, dehydrated eggs, dehydrated margarine, etc.) Don't forget the basic supply of wheat as well!


I know it is well worth the time and effort to get this done and best of all - find a place to store it!


p..s. If you need some help figuring out a very space efficient way to store your goods, I recommend checking out Timberline Storage Solutions- they just redid my storage area and I LOVE IT!!!!

Food Storage - How do I Start?

Food storage is one of the most frustrating things you will do or be involved in. You may wonder where to start, what to store, how much to store, and where to put it? These are only a few of the concerns you may have.

The following suggestions will help to take some of the frustration and confusion away.

Putting your food storage together:

To start, we recommend maintaining a three to six month supply of the foods you are already eating.  Later, I'll talk about how to maintain a month or two month supply of ready to eat foods (No water/no cook type, grab and go foods) and a one year supply of long term storage foods – bulk grains, dehydrated or freeze dried foods.

To start: How to store a 3 to 6 month supply of the food you already eat:

I recently went to a food storage class and learned this. It helped simply things for me. So, get lots of scratch paper or your Excel spreadsheet out to figure this out. Make a list of 7 different breakfast menus, 7 different lunch menus, and 7 different dinner menus you eat and love the most (hopefully, for storage sake, they are also fairly simple recipes). For each menu, list all of the ingredients you need for each meal. Once you have done this, simply multiply the number of items per meal you need to last you for either three to six months.

Example:

Breakfast:  2 cups raisin bran, 1 cup milk, 8 oz orange juice, 1 piece toast, 1 tablespoon jelly. This will be eaten once a week, or 4 times a month, or 24 times in 6 months. 

So, for 6 month supply, multiply your original meal ingredients by 24. So, I would need to store for one person:  48 cups raisin bran, 24 cups milk, 192 oz (or 1 gallon + 2 Quarts) of orange juice, 24 slices (or 2 loaves) bead, and 24 Tablespoons (or 1 ½ cups) jelly. This will definitely take some math work and a little planning, but once you figure this out, keep all your notes. If you add more people, just add on to the original figures, or remultiply from the original numbers.

Review:

1. Figure out each of your menus and write down all ingredients (including water if your recipe needs to be cooked or boiled with water.)
2. Multiply out the quantity of ingredients needed. You will need to decide how long you are storing your food and how often you are eating it.
3. Multiply each ingredient stored by the number of people you will be providing food for.
4. Do this for all seven meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner through the week.

Before you know it, you will have 6 months of food stored for any kind of emergency!

(Please let me know if you need more ideas or suggestions on this.)

p.s. I have more ideas, so I'll get those published in a day or two from now... check back for more!