Planning for Food Storage

[Blake]

For the record, I don't think that Armagedon is on the horizon, I'm not a conspiracy theorists, but I do believe (like many here) that it is wise to be prepared. With the beginning of this forum, as well as a recent article in SWAT mag, I have realized I need to create a food and water reserve. The question is where is a good starting point. The extra money I want to put towards food storage, should it be in canned foods and rice? What are the bare essentials that I should accumulate first?

[Vic303]

I suggest you take a week or two week span and write down everything you & yours eat. That will give you solid info on your food consumption. Then decide what of that, will store well on shelves/in buckets, and begin to buy extras of it.

Some examples:
Wheat to make flour (needs a grinder)
vitamins
sugar
milk? buy powdered and learn to love it, or that irradiated shelf stable milk
rice
beans
other dry legumes
canned meats
canned veggies
premade canned meals (stew, hash etc)
oils
spices

There is an adage: Eat what you store; store what you eat.

[Spade]

What I started doing (before I moved :( ) was stock up on can goods during sales. So you can do it every week with out a big hit. I also would pick up a flat of water every week. Until the cost of moving kicked my but I was saving up to buy some MREs. I still plan to do so. You can also look into buying freeze dried foods, & if you are a hobbist you may want to look into doing your own canning.

[MarshallDodge]

+1 on what Vic303 said.
Canned goods are the way we started but dry is definitely cheaper. Beans, rice, wheat, corn, etc. are very inexpensive when bought in bulk. A year ago we bought some hard red wheat for $4 a 25 lb. bag, and black beans for $7 a 25 lb bag. If you buy bulk, learn how to cook with it and eat it, so you aren't trying to learn if an emergency came about.

I like variety so I purchase accordingly. For instance, you may want to think twice about going out and buying 10 cases of tuna fish. If I had to eat tuna everyday for a month I would hate myself.

I don't know if it is a Utah thing but the local Walmart has a preparedness section now.

[Gutshot John]

How about a garden? I'd make sure to invest in mason jars. Having a few weeks of MREs (that you cycle through as they expire) will get you over the hump.

Rice and beans are a good staple to have plenty of dry storage on hand and relatively efficient to transport if you have to. Canned goods don't last forever.

Oh yeah and plenty of hot sauce. :D

[RWBlue]

1. Store what you eat, Eat what you store. This means that once you get setup, it will actually be more cost effective. This means that you will not have an emergency need for X on christmas and not be able to get it because the stores are closed. This means that if the SHTF you don't have to change your diet and worry about being plugged up or having the runs. This works for short and medium term storage.

2. Long term storage, expand on the first idea. I like rice. I don't like beans.

3. Mobile food, if you are going to pack a BOB, think about your mobile food. I went with commercial freeze dried. Some people like MREs.

4. Water storage. I like 2 liter bottles.

What I will not do.
I will not buy a pile or MREs or commercial dehydrated food to eat at home. It is not cost effective. It is not something I want to eat.

[Gentoo]

^ I echo alot of the above sentiments, especially the eat what you store one.

I've started to transition over towards bulk buying and storage because with my family size it is more efficient. So I get dual benefits out of it.

Storage is also a factor. Keep that in mind. Don't put rice, beans, grains or God forbid liquids into any old plastic container. The chemicals in the plastics can leech into the foods. Go to a restaurant supply store and purchase food grade bulk storage containers.

MREs / freeze dried camp food is OK if you can find them for sale / are willing to pay the price. If you are going to get them, make sure you feed them to your family (see eat what you store). Better yet, make it a 'camp night' or something if you have little ones, go into the backyard and eat the MREs there, that way if you have to do it for survival, it isn't the first time.

Keep comfort food at hand. Cookies / chips store pretty well, and hard candies last almost forever. It is a nice morale booster. On that note, get things like zipfizz or flavoured drink mixes to break up the monotony of drinking water.

Vitamins are important too. I'm glad someone else mentioned them. They keep for a pretty long time, and will be important if your nutritional intake goes downhill.

[Joe_Friday]

Well I guess I am on the same page with everyone else. My wife and I started stocking up on different types of canned goods last year and then thought about dried goods and started buying them also.

One thing that we do though is rotate the canned goods. For example, if we see we need lima beans we will buy a few cans and put it in the stash and use a few cans that are already there. This way we always have "in date" canned goods in the stash and in the cupboard.

On a side note, on Thanksgiving 1999 we were at my in-laws and had just finished eating and probably 15 or so were sitting around talking when the conversation turned to planning for Y2K. Me and my wife just sat there quitely listening to stories of water and food storage that would have taken care of a battalion for a month when someone finally said "Joe, what are ya'll stocking up on?". Just as matter-of-factly as I could I said "ammunition". After a few looks someone said "you can't eat ammunition" and I quickly told them "no I can't, but I can eat what you have though". After a few minutes of silence everyone agreed and we left shortly after. A few days later my father in law (retired Army) told me he loved it and had never seen them that quite before in his life. :D
(We did have a little stock pile of food, water and ammo, but I was right when I thought it was going to be nothing though.)

[Gutshot John]

I like rice. I don't like beans.


I mostly agree, but rice and beans together make protein. It's a staple food.

[RWBlue]

I mostly agree, but rice and beans together make protein. It's a staple food.

I fully understand. Rice and beans makes a complete meal.

But this goes back to "store what you eat and eat what you store". I have a hard time getting it down rice and beans for more than one setting. What I find is on days I have rice and beans I eat more crap as snacks.

The question I have is, "Could I eat nothing but rice and beans for a week if that is all I had?" I am not sure. I think if I kept busy, maybe. If I had to sit still or do my normal day to day stuff, no.

[lallhands]

I agree with the canned food. I also stock up on flats of bottled water, rotating them out monthly with new ones. You can live more than six weeks without food, but lack of good drinking water can take you down in one week. I also augment my long-term canned food storage with six cases of MREs.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be prepared for the unexpected. It is not too crazy to think that with all of the money printing going on, hyper-inflation could cause our economic system to falter in a major way resulting in shortages at stores (See Zimbabwe).

[LippCJ7]

Pretty much all that has been said I agree with except the water issue but my situation is somewhat different and it goes along with preparedness. My sisters house is 15 miles from my house and she has a well so water is no problem and I have learned and tested how to power it without commercial power via generator. On another note I'm in CO so streams and rivers are common and I have a katadyne filter that provides plenty of drinking water as well as water to wash up with. Once again train train train goes right in line with eat what you store and be prepared and all that stuff.

[Beat Trash]

I don't have a direct link, but the Mormons (Church of Latter Day Saints) has a huge pamphlet on the internet that is a wealth of information on how to start a food storage program.

It is set up for a year's worth. Cut that down to what you're personal goal is. It is based around basic foods, so if you don't cook outside of a microwave, then never mind.

But this plan skips meat, and in my personal opinion, is kind of bland.

I'm not a Mormon, by the way.

Can goods are nice, but you have to watch the shelf life. Rotate your stock.

Rice and pasta are also good, as well as dried beans.

But most importantly, if you don't like it now, or don't eat it currently, don't stock it for an emergency. During a major incident, you'll have enough issues without finding your food stock is filled with things you hate...

[LippCJ7]

I don't have a direct link, but the Mormons (Church of Latter Day Saints) has a huge pamphlet on the internet that is a wealth of information on how to start a food storage program.

It is set up for a year's worth. Cut that down to what you're personal goal is. It is based around basic foods, so if you don't cook outside of a microwave, then never mind.

But this plan skips meat, and in my personal opinion, is kind of bland.

I'm not a Mormon, by the way.

Can goods are nice, but you have to watch the shelf life. Rotate your stock.

Rice and pasta are also good, as well as dried beans.

But most importantly, if you don't like it now, or don't eat it currently, don't stock it for an emergency. During a major incident, you'll have enough issues without finding your food stock is filled with things you hate...

Thats funny you mention that, I too have looked at the LDS sites and they do have quite a lot of info on food storage. I am also NOT mormon, while I know only a select few do it I cannot in my wildest dreams envision why anyone would want more then one wife at a time!

[k_cheerangie]

During the cold war era I think at lot of this was on peoples minds and I have been getting more and more interested in the topic of being self-reliant for myself and my family.

I stumbled upon this (http://www.tacda.org/academy/academy_basics.htm) web site and it seems to have lots of useful information on it.

[Barbara]

Don't worry about tackling everything at once.

Decide, within reason, what you're planning for. You can't prepare for Armageddon. You can prepare for a natural disaster, an extended bout of unemployment due to the economy or health reasons, or even some sort of disaster scenario when food, in general, may become scarce.

So, start on that basis. What is most likely?

Say, natural disaster, If you live in a hurricane, tornado or earthquake prone location. this could be your biggest risk. Think about scenarios. If there's an earthquake, is natural gas going to be interrupted? Can you eat whats available in your house? How do you prepare it? Are you better off finding an alternative fuel source, or storing foods that require little preparation? Maybe some prepared canned foods, like pastas or soups, that can be easily heated and eaten, out of the can if necesary, if a lot of water isn't available to clean up. This is an expensive type of food, but also the most convenient.

How long is this scenario likely to last? A few weeks? That's probably a maximum for most situations. How much does your family eat? Even in a situation like a relatively large natural disaster, you'll probably be able to supplement your stored food with groceries you purchase. But plan accordingly and buy a few things each grocery trip until you get a realistic supply of prepared foods.

Or, maybe, depending on your location, you have to be prepared to leave quickly. If you live in a hurricane prone area and are forced to evacuate, have a plan for foods that you don't have to shop for at the last minute, that can be kept in a tote and put into the car, and eaten without much in the way of utensils or dishes, while you're on the road.

The next risk, maybe, is prolonged unemployment. If you're living on a greatly reduced income, how do you adjust your food budget? The items you're going to want to eat during a period of time when your money is tight are going to be a lot different than what you have in an emergency situation. You're going to want to get as much as you can for your money, and you can usually expect to be unemployed for longer than the couple weeks maximum a natural disaster is likely to last. Think staples that you'll use. Flour, sugar, pastas, peanut butter, canned vegetables. Longish, but limited shelf lives, and things you probably already use regularly. Again, watch for sales, stock up on items that store well as they become inexpensive, and use these items in every day cooking, rotating the stock. Get used to having "more" than less. I very rarely buy anything that's not on sale these days, besides fresh fruits and vegetables. I don't have to. I can wait for a sale. Personally, this kind of storage is where I'd put the bulk of my resources, and make the biggest adaptions in my lifestyle, but it depends on what is realistic for your life.

Then there's the holy shit, the immediate world has come crashing down, food has become scarce, and there's roving bands of zombies situation. Or, let's just say, some sort of very serious situation, pandemic illness, Yellowstone blows and screws up farmland,nuclear disruprtion, whatever. A lot more far-fetched but a probability greater than zero.

So, if that happens, what then? You eat what you can eat and you get a lot less choosy about what that is and probably about how its prepared. This is probably the area you'll want to put the least resources, but also where you can get a lot more bang for your buck. Whole grains are cheap. Rice, beans? Dirt cheap purchased in bulk, and packaged well, they'll keep for years. For $10.00, you can get hundreds of servings of food. So, is it prudent to spend a small amount of money for a potentially large payoff? In my opinion, sure. Use these foods in day to day cooking, too..they're good for you and inexpensive.

[lallhands]

Here is a link to a good calculator. It is based on the Mormon preparation guide which should feed your family for 1 year. It gives a great idea of the types of food to store for the family size you specify.

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm