Food storage: One Bite At A Time

Let's start at the very beginning with food storage. Many of you become overwhelmed with food storage because you want to eat the whole elephant. However, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So start small. Be smart and pace yourself
If our family started all over again, this is what I would do:

START HERE:

Begin to store water (14 day supply),

start an emergency fund (put aside a little money each week),

and work on your 72-hour kits and emergency documents.

NEXT:

Gather a 3-Month Supply of Shelf-Stable Foods We Eat - create some menus of shelf-stable foods you can incorporate into your diet. This supply will help you if you were unemployed, had a longer-than-72-hour-disaster, etc. Include a 2-week to 1-month supply of easy prep foods you can heat up easily without electricity, but also foods you regularly cook with. Don't get hung up on perfection. I know I talk about menus, but in a disaster I would eat a can of soup and some crackers for a meal. However, if my husband were unemployed we would eat lots of cold cereal and cook more from scratch, and still buy milk. That's because I store about 30 boxes of cereal when I can get them dirt cheap.

Make an inventory of your food. Maybe count your stock pile every month. You shop every week at the grocery store already, so you probably look at your food storage or other supplies regularly.

Decide how much of each item to store. I want 30 boxes of cereal and you might want 6 because you live in a one-bedroom apartment. That's great! We are each keeping food storage. If you can't figure out how much, use the 3-month Food Storage Plan as a starting place. Or my monthly shopping lists on the right sidebar of my blog. You will be amazed at what you can do, and already have.

As you put aside food in your 3-month supply, don't eat it all up in three months. Buy 1 can to eat now, and put aside 2 cans for later. Move items to another cupboard or closet or basement. Eventually you will build a supply. It's like taking three steps forward and one step back. You are still moving forward!

THEN: Gather Long-Term (20 to 30 year shelf life) Foods - Once or twice a year buy more of these. I don't recommend buying them all at once because then they will have the same shelf life. Buy smart. Buy what you can afford and don't go into debt. There are many companies that want you to buy this kind of food all at once. Be careful. Learn to use these foods in your regular diet so it won't be a shock to your system when you do use them. Maybe start with 6 cans of the long-term staples. For some of you, these foods would be what-you-would-eat-if-you-had-nothing-else-to-eat. For us, we would be familiar with most of them because we use them regularly. Just so you know, we are a semi-homemade food storage family. Not a 100% only food storage family. We still eat fresh and frozen foods, but also canned and packaged foods so that our items get used or rotated.

Keep a small supply of everything in your kitchen, and store a larger supply in your basement, under beds, or in a closet, but not in the garage. The garage is a great place to store paper goods and possibly sugar, but not canned foods as the fluctuating temperatures can shorten the shelf life of your foods. So be careful. Ask someone in the food industry where they would store food.

Hope that helps! Remember, one bite at a time. :)