Food Storage Basics - Getting Started

In my series, Simple Peace of Mind, I set a goal of working over the next 12 months to build up an emergency fund of three months worth of expenses. Part of that is saving up cash, part is making sure we have three months worth of food and household goods on hand at all times.

When I started really couponing in earnest, I discovered the idea of stockpiling when items are on sale and drawing from that stockpile as needed when prices are higher at the store. That way, you are always buying at the lowest prices. Because sales tend to be in 12 week cycles, the best strategy is to buy enough on sale to last you 12 weeks, or about 3 months. The longer I couponed, the more comprehensive our 3 month supply became.

Then I happened upon the site Everyday Food Storage. This site is an amazing collection of all sorts of foods made using easily stored items like dry milk, powdered eggs and flour. I loved that I could use less expensive ingredients to make great food. Crystal is peppy and fun and you cannot help but be as excited to try the recipes as she is to share them with you. If you are a visual learner, you are really in luck as Crystal has plenty of how-to videos in her posts. I loved Crystal's recipes, but I was still left wondering What the heck is food storage?!

From Crystal's site, I discovered Food Storage Made Easy, with Jodi and Julie. This site takes you through the baby steps of setting up food storage. They have a great tutorial and an excel spreadsheet that you can download to plan your own menus - this is super awesome, because it will tally up the ingredients for you and help you figure out what you need to get a three month food storage plan in place. When you look at the cute figures on the site, you think - yeah, right! Who is that cute? Then you watch the videos and darn it if they are not that cute! Just like Crystal, they are fun and excited about their projects - a pleasure to follow.

By now, I was really curious to learn What is food storage? From poking around on Food Storage Made Easy and a few other places, the best I can determine is that Food Storage is a system of preparedness in case of an emergency, such as a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. In the event that you lose power, you would have nonperishable foods, an emergency kit and safe drinking water stored that you could use to be self sufficient for a certain length of time. The basis for food storage appears to be religious (Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Mormon - please feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and many folks reference the entries in the bible that refer to safely gathering in your family and being prepared for what is to come. The religious guideline seems to be three months full food supply and twelve months worth of grains, rice, beans and similar items. Again, if anyone has more info on this, please feel free to comment.

I started to think about it and I figured that maybe I had enough food on hand for three months. Well, except for milk and eggs. And sugar. And flour. Hmmm, that would not be good. And really, we would be eating a lot of beans and tomatoes. A LOT of beans and tomatoes. And beef, depending on what time of the year it is. I realized that knowing exactly which recipes I would make and being sure I had enough on hand to cover not only dinners but breakfasts, lunches and snacks and (hello!) desserts was probably a smart thing to do.

During my search, I also happened upon Safely Gathered In, another good resource for food storage and recipes. This site does a great job of bringing you along the weekly plan, no matter where you start and giving you tiny steps to achieve each week. If you follow along for 12 months, you would have a complete 72-hour emergency kit, a three month food storage and the longer term 12 month food storage all in place.

I love the idea of being safely gathered in, as the site name so wonderfully captures, and having food on hand to weather the storms of life is such a comforting thought, isn't it? I am thinking more of an economic storm - caused by a lay off or illness, but if you live in an area that is vulnerable to hurricanes or other destructive weather, it would be useful and necessary in that situation as well. As we have witnessed in recent years, when a hurricane affects a region there is often a several day delay before help is able to rescue everyone in the affected area.

For my purposes (no hurricanes in MN, just the occasional tornado and large snowstorm), I am preparing for a financial hurdle and I am assuming that I will still have power (at least long term), so I am counting goods in my freezer as storage items (the plus side of living in MN - 5 months out of the year are cold enough to store frozen items outside or gather enough ice to use our freezer as a big cooler). I am also going to focus in on the three month supply, as I am a bit concerned about trying to save up and rotate through a 12 month supply and things like canning milk or putting up grains seems like a big task for me right now and I am not sure it is really necessary.

While I will never say never, for now I am good with three months. This works for me as I am not following guidelines for religious purposes. I also love that I can rotate through the food storage, since I do not want to waste any food and that way I know we will have food on hand that we actually eat. I am planning to store as much from our garden and local farmer's market to try to eat our fruits and vegetables from mostly local sources all year long, so some items would be stored to last longer than 3 months anyway, but not all.

So, onto the task at hand. Here is what I am specifically going to do in the month of January to set up my food storage supply:

First, I will use this spreadsheet from Food Storage Made Easy - (just scroll down to Helpful Tools and you can click on the 3-month Excel spreadsheet or click on the video tutorial of how use the spreadsheet) to help me figure out how much food I need to have on hand for 3 meals a day, snacks, desserts and beverages. I will see what I already have on hand and I will make a list of what I still need.

Second, I will inventory the household goods (toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, cleaners, etc.) that I have on hand and assess how much more I need to store to meet my 3-month storage goal. I will make a list of what and how much I need of each item.

Third, I will look at the lists as I plan my CVS and grocery shopping each week, taking care to stock up on sale items that I need and to set aside a small part of the weekly budget to slowly stock up on the missing items.

Fourth, I will keep tuning into Everyday Food Storage, Food Storage Made Easy and Safely Gathered In to learn new recipes and tips. As I find things that would be helpful (like making your own cream of mushroom soup - shut up!), I will write down the recipes and store them in a
Food Storage binder, along with my 31 day meal plan and the related recipes on the plan. I will also use the recipes to rotate my food storage so it stays fresh and we make good use of the food we have purchased.

Finally, I will clean out our root cellar area (yes, we have a root cellar of sorts thanks to my crafty husband. If you are building a house, it is SUPER easy to work into the plan (you use the foundation under the front steps - if you want more info, just leave a comment or email me)) and our utility room and set it up for our long term food storage.

I will have an update on my progress by the end of the month!

If you decide to join in, feel free to leave a comment about your goals or ideas - the more the merrier. Also, be sure to check out the sites I mentioned, as they have some great giveaways that can help you meet your food storage goals.