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.

[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.
(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.