Wanting to have a 1 year supply of food on hand is one thing, getting the supply together is another. It might seem like a tough task to accomplish but it’s a lot simpler than you think. To achieve a 1 year supply of food that you can rotate and eat on a regular basis is probably going to require you to change some of your eating habits. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to have to eat beans and rice for every meal. Most meals you already eat can be made with ingredients that will store long-term.
The first step to creating your working food storage is to develop a meal plan. This shouldn’t be too hard because most families eat the same meals over and over. You need to sit down with your family and create a list of meals that everyone likes to eat. The more meals you’re able to write down, the better, because variety is the key to any food storage. (There are also a number of books out there that have recipes for food storage items. These might help when planning meals.) This should include meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Once you have a good list of meals now it’s time to start figuring out what ingredients will go into these meals that will store long term.
Most meals can be created with ingredients you can store long term. One good thing is to find commonalities between your meals; ingredients that would go with a number of your planned meals so you can store a lot of that ingredient. You can find a lot of your long term storage items at any supermarket, but some items you will need to improvise on, or purchase from a supplier. Your food storage needs to be independent of everything other than water and a heating source to cook with. Recipes that need things like cheese or milk that require refrigeration can be replaced with powdered cheese and powdered milk.
Some things such as meats can be home canned for long term storage, rather than relying on freezing them, which keeps you attached to the grid. Creating a long term food storage isn’t hard, but will take some planning and work on your part. The use of a dehydrator can help you when creating your food storage. There are a lot of things you can do on your own (dehydrating and canning) rather than buying it all from suppliers which is going to be expensive. The idea is to create the storage, and not be out anymore money that you usually would when buying food.
3 comments
Dean
January 13, 2010 at 8:59 pm (UTC 0)
so many issue's to discuss here.I noticed your last post regarding sale ad's..10 for 10 is not a sale in my area! 2 for a buck is a good deal to me! Now,you mentioned fruit rather than veggie's,so I let it slide.But even canned veggie's are not a good deal,as they are mostly water.I prefer to buy frozen veggie's at 1.19 a pound and dehydrate them.
For the fruit in my diet,I buy pie filling.A bit pricier,but it has a lot more use.Top your pancake's or waffle's,ice cream,use as jelly in a pinch!
I'm not bothering with wheat.Too much work.Too much to carry.I'll buy bisquick or instant pancake mix…oatmeal,easy stuff.
Dean in az
idahobob
January 14, 2010 at 2:58 pm (UTC 0)
When planing for long term storage, meal planing is a great idea! Just remember that when you plan meals, plan how MUCH of what you will need for each meal. It makes the planing list for bulk buying much easier, and much more accurate.
Remember that when planing, folks under stress and duress usually need more caloric intake that "normal".
Bob
III
matthiasj
January 14, 2010 at 3:10 pm (UTC 0)
Good point Bob.