Steps to Preparedness #1:Food Storage

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Welcome to the first installment of Steps to Preparedness.

Steps to Preparedness will be a series of posts covering a wide range of topics that are important to survival & preparedness in the event of a long-term TSHTF situation. My hope is that once this series is complete – all Steps to Preparedness posts could be printed, placed into a binder – and you will have a “Preparedness Guide” for reference.

This installment will focus on Food Storage.

First – Why store food? There are many reasons why it is beneficial to store extra food. Numerous life events can impact the ability to provide for your family. These events can include unemployment, inflation, sudden unexpected expenses, and of course some catastrophic disaster (man-made or natural). The bottom line is – you will always need food. Period.

This post will focus on short-term, medium-to-long term, and long-term food storage options.

To read this post – please click on this link HERE- you will be able to download the post in PDF. I apologize for the inconvenience – for some reason people were having problems viewing in FIREFOX.

If I am able to get it repaired – I will re-post as normal.

Take care all -Rourke

Tags: food storage, survival planning

food storage, Supplies, Survival & Preparedness | Rourke January 10, 2011

19 Comments to “Steps to Preparedness #1:Food Storage”

By GoneWithTheWind, January 10, 2011 @ 12:45 pm

Good job, in a small amount of space you covered most of the bases. Good graphics too. I love wheat (the idea of it) and I have wheat stored, but in a worst case scenario my rice is going to be so much easier to use. I would love to hear more from wheat proponents. Don’t focus on grinding it into flour because if you have a flour mill and an oven etc. then it isn’t a worst case SHTF scenario. If I’m on the road in a freezing rainstorm what do I do with a handful of wheat? Just a suggestion.
By Badvoodoodaddy, January 10, 2011 @ 1:03 pm

Rourke, Excellent post, covered all the questions I had. I just posted a link to your site for this post on my blog at http://www.prepplace.blogspot.com so all the readers can come over and see this article. Wonderful post as usual. Keep up the great work.
By Ted, January 10, 2011 @ 2:29 pm

I liked your take here, but what I find works best for me is :
Stockpiling an entire years worth of food is impractical (cost but mostly storage space) but 30 days in a survival situation is do-able. The short version is, we like tuna and eat about 30 cans a year, so I keep a minimum of 30 cans but not more than 36, 2 jars of PB with a third one open,(when the open one is used up I open a stored one and buy another). minimum of 3 DAK plus a fourth 1 lb. canned hams. And so forth with unopened packages of flour, sugar,honey, soups beans,fruit,etc. An amount that we would eat in one year but would be compressed down to 30+ days in a survival situation. I keep water in 5 gallon jugs and every month I empty one on the plants and refill so the water never gets really old. I currently have six jugs and looking for a few more. I also have a water heater so there is 40 more gallons. When I have told this to other people they usually reply that they have that much food around. Then I ask them to actually take a survey of their food and almost always they don’t have more than a weeks worth of continual eating. If I thought things were really getting bad I would add as much as possible.
The important thing to remember is to set the minimum amount of food you feel necessary and are able to stockpile (one week,two or more) and have that amount PLUS what you’re going to eat that week or month. Finally as the author pointed out… store what you eat and eat what you store. The only exception to that rule I should make is powdered milk, I don’t use it but it would be handy without refrigeration or resupply possibilities. Guess I’ll get some and keep it till it gets close to expiration and then dispose of it and buy some more.
By Mike P, January 10, 2011 @ 5:09 pm

@ GoneWithTheWind,

Try this sometime –

Use a 1 to 3 ratio of cups of wheat to cups of water in a crock pot over night. I usually do 2 cups of wheat with 6 cups of water for me and a few other family members for breakfast. I actually had this for breakfast today. I like to mix in some brown sugar and chop up a banana in there too and maybe poor some milk on it, and eat it like oatmeal or any other hot breakfast cereal.

In an actual SHTF scenario you probably won’t have a crock pot handy, but you can find some way to just cook the wheat in water. It’s got a lot more nutrition in it than rice does too.

But yeah, all you need to do cook it in water and it’s edible. It’s not what most people are used to eating, but it’s good, and getting into the habit of eating stuff like this is a good idea so that if you ever do live off your food storage it won’t be a complete shock to your system.

I hope that helps.
By sclindah, January 10, 2011 @ 9:07 pm

If anyone lives in South Carolina like I do, one reason to store it what happened today . . . a snowstorm that closes everything down. I’m so glad I don’t ever have to rush to the store to get bread and milk and whatever when this happens. That should be enough to scare people!
By Prepper, January 11, 2011 @ 12:49 am

Great post Rourke! I completely agree with you about stockpiling what you like to eat. It definitely makes sense when one considers the fact that the foods should be rotated to extend shelf life. Your selections were good too … easy to prepare under less than optimal conditions, yet tasty to most of us.

Side note … I would love to get my hands on some of those Campbell’s soup can holders shown in your pictures. I saw them at our local Bi-Lo grocery store months ago and nearly began salivating. The retail can rotation systems available are pricey, considering how little expense must go into making them.
By sdawgarmy, January 11, 2011 @ 9:17 am

Ted im kinda in your boat as well bout a 30 day supply which i feel could be stretched. Its usually more a cost saving thing n my wife would flip if I tried storing more food n supplies in her laundry room than already is. I can tell you though she at least believes keeping the pantry stocked brim full is a good investment since prices are always going up. My goal is to buy all other type supplies so if it hits the fan I can just run for food n not things like weapns n ammo or camping supplies. I think people must realize if it truely goes end of the world as we know it, people will have to learn to become self sufficient n it wont matter if you have 10 yrs worth of food your kids n you will never eat those supplies 15 yrs down the road will they? the quicker you can adapt the better. I know 3rd world countries never got to stock up n if we are to become a poor nation as well, we better learn to adapt. My future garden will hopefully quadruple n size n my garage which held my vehicles will hopefully hold future livestock ive barttered for etc. If I had my way n the money though n my wife allowed my basement would make sams club jealous!! LOl Good luck everyone in their Preps.

Oh just read One second after in an entire weekend AWESOME!!! They need a movie !!!
By Patriot One, January 11, 2011 @ 1:38 pm

FYI Sam’s Club now has a Auguson Farms 1 year food supply kit for $950.00. The price was up $71 since last night. I have not tried this brand but the reviews were good.
By Prepared N.D., January 11, 2011 @ 2:02 pm

This is one of the better posts I’ve read on food storage. I like taking the approach of beginning by storing what you eat. I for one do not plan on eating freeze dried food or MREs (unless I have to). I would much rather get a good idea of what we eat and then store the ingredients for those recipes. There are a lot of perishable items in most recipes but if you dig around on the internet a bit you can usually find shelf stable replacements for those ingredients and stock pile those.
By Ted, January 11, 2011 @ 2:05 pm

Note to Prepper, Campbell’s soup can system works great for those soup cans but not for hardly anything else. (same is true for soda dispersing systems) Those cans measure about 4″ X 2-1/2″. Most other cans are 4-3/8 X 2-7/8. Tuna is about 1-1/2 X 3-1/2. I’m currently trying to design a dispenser rotation system to hold about 14 standard cans or 36 tuna sized cans. Soup cans may also be adaptable to this system, just held a little looser. The hard part is finding a way to reassemble the system into an enclosed transportable system able to carry the cans.
By Rourke, January 11, 2011 @ 3:31 pm

Prepared N.D. –

Thanks for the comments.

By the way- interesting site you have.Just left you a message.

Thanks – Rourke
By Mark, January 11, 2011 @ 7:57 pm

Great article! I’m new to all this and this has really helped me out.

The “$500″ link doesn’t work in the PDF. What is the URL that link is supposed to direct to?

Thanks!
By Jen B., January 12, 2011 @ 12:30 am

Great post, Rourke. I like the feeling of having a safety net of food stored if I really had to produce all of my own. I have a good sized garden now, but it would be very hard to suddenly switch to self-sufficiency. My food storage would enable us to have the calories needed to make that transition.
By Sean M, January 12, 2011 @ 10:18 am

Has anyone ever thought about canning hot dogs or sausages? I wonder if that’d work. I see sales pretty frequently on packages of either and I know they can be frozen for a period of time, but thought it would last longer if they could be canned. There is also the possibility of SHTF scenarios like brownouts, power shortages, EMP’s, etc. that would make canning a better choice. What do yo think? Canned franks?
By Rourke, January 12, 2011 @ 1:13 pm

Sean M –

I have seen canned hot dogs before for sale on different websites. It has been awhile – not sure if they are still available.

Will have to do some research on this. Sounds like a good idea.

Rourke
By Ted, January 12, 2011 @ 5:37 pm

Hello Rourke, You need not publish this comment unless you want to. I mean no disrespect but I’m having a little problem with your “store what you eat and eat what you store” philosophy. The above comment on canned hot dogs for example. One should be buying foods that they EAT and then replace them with new stock. If one cannot find those foods regularly at the store, they don’t belong in your survival foods. The hot dogs appear to be a onetime purchase if you can find them unless you’re talking about Vienna sausages (?):-) and then you need to open them and eat them regularly and replace. My 30+ day food will all be eaten and replaced easily within one year and almost all of it has a longer storage life than one year. If I think/sense something is in the wind I will try to buy anything I can get my hands on but to continually maintain a full one year supply is difficult at best. It certainly can be done but it is a lot of work to continuously rotate and replace it. One additional point about sugar. I see you added an ADDITIONAL 16 pounds of sugar. I personally don’t use one package of bulk sugar in a year. I realize sugar has a VERY LONG shelf life and would be a useful trade item but I am not sure that it belongs in the survival food category, I would prefer to add a few cans of protein instead unless of course when SHTF you are planing on baking a lot of sugar cookies and making a lot of fudge when company comes a calling. I’m not saying I don’t keep one unopened bag/box and some opened containers of sugar but 16+ pounds of empty calories seems like overkill.
Now maybe I am overlooking something and I’m always willing to learn. Have I missed something?
Thanks Ted
By Rourke, January 12, 2011 @ 6:33 pm

Hi Ted –

Ok – where do I begin.

First off – all comments are welcome.

The “Store what you eat and eat what you store” philosophy that I practice does not mean that all I purchase is related to preparedness. I often will post about saving money on foods – and sometimes those foods will be cake mixes, chips, etc. Someone asked about the canned hotdogs as another addition to their food stockpile. I garden – and currently have about 10 jars of pickles (canned cucumbers) in my pantry. Canning allows me to extend the life of my produce – rather than only growing what I can eat right then and that is all. Canning hotdogs may very well be a very inexpensive method of adding protein and calories to one’s food supplies.

Consider the sugar. My household does go thru quite a bit of sugar. I added 16 pounds of sugar to my stockpile not in anticipation of the end of the world – but as a reaction to the current inflating food prices. Being able to buy 4 pounds for under $1.00 now rather than about $3.00 later saves me money and provides valuable dollars to spend on something else.

I think maintaining a one-year food supply of “store what you eat, eat what you store” foods – for me – would be impossible. I just do not have the space.

I don’t think there needs to be any “written in concrete”rules regarding food storage. I think what is most important is that it is done.

Hopefully this answers any questions you may have.

Take care – Rourke
By GoneWithTheWind, January 13, 2011 @ 2:17 pm

I have tried wheat the way you described. Many years ago when Kurt Saxon was one of the few voices out there I tried his recipe for wheat berries for breakfast. It was passable I suppose if you had nothing else. I guess I’m looking for more. Wheat has such great potential. It can be stored for a lifetime and with the right equipment you can use it to make so many things. But without the right equipment what do you do with it? I can cook rice in a tin can so it is an excellent and compact food for rough conditions. I know how to do pretty much the same thing with cornmeal and dried beans. But wheat is more problematic and I was hoping for some ideas. I have my hand grinder and if I’m buggin in at home I can make meals with wheat. But what do you do if you are on the road/trail with a handful of wheat?

As for sugar I also use a lot of it and it has the primary redeeming quality all storage foods must have in that it can be stored forever. It isn’t full of vitamins and protein it is simply pure energy (carbohydrate). And it is cheap. I have a lot stored and intend to store more. I doubt I would want to eat oatmeal without it.

Regarding storing what you eat; it is just common sense. Although storing food is not rocket science lets face it we all need help/ideas. For someone new to food storage for TEOTWAWKI what could be simplier then storing those things you eat anyway. Later you can “graduate” to storing foods that are: more compact, can be stored for a long time, are cheaper then canned or prepared foods. I have plenty of both. We could eat well for about six months out of the pantry alone and another year or so from the long term storage cache. I am still adding to my storage.