Food Storage Basics - Are You Prepared for an Emergency?
How much food do you have in your home right now?
No really, I want you to take a few minutes to go look in your fridge, freezer, and pantry. Make a list of the items (and quantity) you have in the house. Now calculate how many days could you feed your family with what you have in your house right now. What’s your number?
If you are like most Americans, you probably only have a week (maybe two) of food available at any given time. And while in a normal situation that is more than enough, in an emergency situation that is absolutely NOT enough.
Today, we are going to take whatever number you came up with whether it was 3 days or 1 week and we are going to talk about how to get more prepared.
Why Should I Store Food?
Storing food is not something most of us think about before launching into the world of preparedness.
Based on a 2019 study, most American households utilize grocery stores an average of 1.6 times per week. Some families even shop daily for fresh items at their local shops or farmers markets. While this is a perfectly great strategy when things are running smoothly, relying on the stores for all your food can be dangerous.
Most grocery stores are now designed to stock their shelves based on a “just-in-time” shipping strategy. This method relies on computers updating stock numbers based on purchases, every time a checker swipes an item, and then placing orders as inventory gets low. This strategy helps stores reduce waste, but it also means they don’t have a big stock of items in the back-room.
In times of crisis, stores can quickly run low on essential supplies. COVID-19 was a great “case-study” in the limitations of our current shipping and stocking system.
This is a picture of our local WalMart the week after COVID-19 hit the US.
I am sure most of you remember what it felt like to walk into your local stores and realize they were out of some of the most basic supplies.
As weeks the went on, our local stores ran out of everything from toilet paper to milk.
Shelves were empty and anxiety was high…remember most Americans shop once or twice a week for groceries so of course they were stressing!
The good news is you can avoid the anxiety related to low inventory if you plan ahead.
A food storage plan ensures your family can stay healthy and fed in an emergency situation, regardless of what the store shelves look like in your local area.
4 Levels of Food Storage
In my opinion, there are four levels of food storage.
The first level of food storage is short-term food storage (this level is an ABSOLUTE MUST for anyone who wants to be prepared)
This is food storage that is designed to feed your family in a relatively short-term disaster or food shortage scenario. Think a minimum of 2 weeks of food available at all times for your family and up to a 30 day supply. This means you have the ability to feed your family without a trip to the grocery store!
The second level is mid-term food storage. This is where we start collecting supplies for 30-60 days (some experts extend this storage out to 90 days). When we start looking at this type of food storage it often includes dehydrated or freeze dried items as well as shelf-stable and canned items.
The third-level of storage is long-term storage this is where you can live for up to a year with what you have in your house. In this phase of food storage you’ll be storing items you can cook from scratch like wheat, rice, beans, etc. This level also leverages canned, dehydrated, and freeze dried food for your meat, vegetables, and dairy products.
The final level of storage, which is less about storage and more about production, is the self-sufficiency stage. This is when you have the ability to grow MOST of your own food and supply your family indefinitely.
In this phase we are really talking about having a homestead with livestock and a garden, something that will be tough for most of us to every really obtain.
Another important note…notice I didn’t say ALL your food even in this self-sufficiency stage. That’s because it’s virtually impossible to be completely self-sufficient. Even in this stage you will most likely need to trade and barter some items.
Now don’t panic! I’m not recommending we all get to level 4.
Today we are going to focus on the first stage of food storage because I believe it is an absolute must for your family.
How do I start?
Getting started with food storage doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming. It can be as simple as stocking up on some basic items that your family already eats on a regular basis.
One of the best places to start is canned food items, pasta, and other non-perishable items like peanut butter, bread, and snack items. However, just randomly grabbing some extra cans of supplies may not be the best strategy to really feed your family.
Here are the four steps I recommend to start your food storage:
Make a list of meals your family could eat for 7 days - use meals that can be made from your pantry. Try not to include fresh ingredients…the rationale for this is if you lose power or can’t use your refrigerator for some reason you will want meals you can still enjoy. Include meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner…don’t forget a few snacks and comfort food. Plan on repeating this menu each week to start, it may not be super fun or exciting, but it’s better than being hungry in a pandemic!
Once you have your menu, make a list of ingredients required for each meal - As you are making this list ask yourself which items are shelf stable. Make sure you don’t have too many items that would need to be substituted or left out if you couldn’t get fresh produce, dairy products, or eggs. If you realize one of your meals won’t really store well, come up with a new recipe.
Then calculate how much of each item you would need to last you two weeks to thirty days (depending on where you are starting on your food journey). This can be a little bit overwhelming at first, but it will help you feel more confident about what you are storing and why. A great example is if you plan on eating oatmeal for breakfast three days a week, calculate how many servings you would need for one week for your family and then multiply that by how many weeks you want to store food (again 2 weeks should be the BARE MINIMUM).
Start shopping! I don’t recommend that you rush out and stock up your pantry with everything you need for 30 days in 1 shopping trip (unless you have the financial freedom to do so). Instead, simply add a few items each week to your grocery list and start stocking up. If you find a great sale, you may want to get the whole month’s supply of an item. The most important part is getting started.
Stocking up on soups, canned beans, and “meals” like spaghettios (barely a meal, but it would keep us alive!) are great options for short-term (and even mid-term) food storage.
Make sure you throw in some canned veggies for critical vitamins and a little variety!
One of our favorite storage meals is rice, with canned black beans, rotel, and corn.
We serve it with tortilla chips because I love ALL Mexican food!
It’s a great option because all of the ingredients are shelf-stable and easy to cook.
A few additional storage tips.
Select meals your family already likes to eat. You don’t want to serve your family meals they don’t enjoy in an emergency situation, that will just add to the stress.
Add one or two of your “emergency” meals into your weekly rotation so you can keep your supplies fresh. You want to make sure you can rotate supplies, which is much easier when you pick meals your family likes to eat (see step 1!) and actually cook them on a semi-regular basis.
Try and buy ALL of the supplies for each meal at the same time. For instance you don’t want to buy 30 days worth of spaghetti during a great sale and then realize you never bought any sauce…unless like me you like plain noodles. Buying all of the items for one meal at the same time will help make sure you can actually cook an entire meal in an emergency situation.
Don’t forget to add non-perishable snacks, crackers, chips, chocolate, etc. Never underestimate how a little bit of comfort food can help you in times of stress. These types of foods also add valuable calories in a true emergency situation.
Soups, stews, and other canned meals are a great choice because they are easy to store and prepare.
Make sure you have a non-electric way to cook your meals (just in case you lose power). Grills and camp stoves are great alternatives to normal electric cooking that you may already have at your house…just make sure you don’t cook or grill in the house! (yes this is a thing in emergency situations that kills people!) And remember to stock an extra bottle or two of propane if you are going to use a propane grill or camp stove.
Don’t forget the manual can opener! If you are storing soups and other canned items like beans, vegetables, etc, make sure you have a manual can opener in your emergency supplies if you normally use an electric can opener.
Don’t feel like you need to get too creative with your meal planning. Our family stores oatmeal, cereal (that we like dry), and granola bars for breakfast. We plan on eating PB&J sandwiches, soup, and some canned meals for lunches, and for dinner we are relying heavily on pasta dishes as well as rice & bean dishes.
If it feels overwhelming to make a plan (and trust me it might), start with one or two meals you know you could store for your family and buy those ingredients.
We can’t expect Whole Foods inspired five star meals in an emergency situation, but we can make sure our families don’t get hungry!
How much food do I need to store?
Here is the reality, you will have a different comfort level with food storage than me or anyone else in our tribe, and that’s okay.
At a MINIMUM store 2 weeks for food for your family.
This is actually the amount of food storage that the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends for every American family. However, since most of Americans go to the grocery store a couple of times a week, I’m guessing most of our neighbors are NOT that prepared.
In a “panic” type of situation, sort of like COVID-19, you may not have the ability to stock-up last minute, so PLEASE don't wait to get started.
Your goal as a proud prepper is to get your family prepared AHEAD of the next emergency.
If you are committed to preparedness, I challenge you stock 1-3 months of food for your family. This might require the addition of canned, dehydrated, and/or freeze dried food, but we’ll talk about that more in another post.
My family started with a couple of weeks worth of food and then slowly added more as our budget allowed. I started researching meals I could make from long-term food storage items and I slowly stocked up. Now our family could eat for a few months without going to the store.
Food storage doesn’t have to be overwhelming or too complicated. Start with the basics, get to 30 days, and then keep going!
I’d love to hear some of your menu ideas. Share them in the comments below.
