Yesterday I got an email from the producer of the KSL news and she said they wanted to come out to my house and do a news segment on food storage for National Preparedness Month. I thought, ‘Sure, why not?!” Until…I went down to my food storage room and realized I had done major case lot shopping and hadn’t put anything away for quite awhile. Ah! So, with help from my hubby, we spent the entire day cleaning my food storage room and had a lot of fun today with Devon from the KSL news team. She just moved here from Seattle and she probably thought I was nuts (well, okay..I am a little :). She had never heard of food storage before so I was quite the character for her! I talked her ear off for nearly 90 minutes and told her everything and more she wanted to know about self reliance. She was super sweet and patient with my long windedness. Click here to watch or read the story ๐
As a refresher, in our interview I explained the three EASY steps to getting your food storage. The hardest part to preparedness is starting. Once you begin you will find it all comes easily and working on your preparedness efforts a little at a time will bring BIG rewards! Here are the basic steps to getting prepared:
Store as much water as you can in the space you live. Water is inexpensive if you purchase large water barrels, or fill up emptied out 2 liter soda pop bottles. Besides the 14 gallons (about 3-4 24packs of water per person) you will need lots of washing and cleaning water. I store my cleaning water in my emptied out liquid detergent containers (keep the leftover soap in the container to give you soapy water). Besides having a sufficient water storage, have a good quality water filter. This will broaden your abilities for clean drinking water.
A common misconception to food storage is you have to have a basement filled with wheat or other grains your family will not use. Although these items are important to have in your storage, begin first by building a supply of foods your family is used to eating on a daily basis (cereal, peanut butter & jam, spaghetti & noodles, etc.). Plan your food storage around meals, so you will have complete meals & recipes to feed your family from your food storage.
Once your 3 month supply is complete, it is time to work on your long term food storage items. These basic items will help you make all of the recipes you love from scratch. These basic food storage items include the following (amounts are per person for a one year supply):
*Click on the links below to find more detailed information and recipes on how to use each of these items.
GRAINS:
Wheat 100lbs. per person
Flour 75 lbs. per person
Oats 20 lbs. per person
Pasta 40 lbs. per person
Rice 40 lbs. per person
SUGAR:
Granulated sugar 50 lbs. per person
Brown sugar 6 lbs. per person
Powdered sugar 6 lbs. per person
Jam 2-3 jars per person
Honey 8 lbs. per person
Syrup 2-3 jars per person
DAIRY:
Powdered milk 16 lbs. per person
SALT & SPICES:
Salt 8 lbs. per person
1-2 extra jars of each spice your family enjoys cooking with
Baking items (baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, vital wheat gluten, etc.)
OIL:
Cooking oil 2-3 containers per person (48 oz.)
Olive oil 1-2 jars per person
Shortening 1-2 tubs per person
Butter–as much as you can store in the freezer…it would be a sad world without butter ๐
LEGUMES:
Peanut butter 4 jars per person
10 lbs. or cans per person of EACH type of bean (black, kidney, refried, white, pinto, etc.)
I loved it! You honestly are amazing that being on the news is NOT a big deal. You are an inspiration to us all!!! Loved it!
Your food storage room is so inspiring Girl. And it makes me crazy jealous ๐
Emily B.
What a wonderful news clip- and you looked beautiful besides!!!
Thanks! That is sure sweet of you all ๐ Don't worry, my food storage room doesn't always look like that. The day before they came it was a disaster!! Don't worry, your room will fill up like mine soon enough. Just be patient, do a little each week and pretty soon you will have everything you need ๐ Keep up the great work and thanks for the comments!
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Any meal suggestions for all shelf stable items? I can only seem to come up with a few and would like to expand out storage.
I love your website. Do you use all the food in your storage and rotate it before it expires?
Thank you Spendwisemom (I like your name by the way ๐ for your comment. Yes, I really try and rotate through all of the items in my storage. The only items I don't go through quite as quickly are the canned vegetables and the cream of mushroom/chicken soups. I don't use these a lot in my day-to-day cooking, so I sometimes have cans that are 2-3 years past the expiration. The good news is most items can last 2-3 years PAST the expiration without any problems. They don't go 'bad', they just loose their nutritional value. I practically NEVER throw anything away..expired or not. I keep my super-expired items in a certain section of my food storage that I will be happy to share with neighbors who didn't take the time to prepare ๐ Beggers can't be choosers, right?
The main thing to remember is to NOT buy items you are know you will not use. If you do this, it will be a waste of money ๐ The only exceptions to this for me is wheat, powdered eggs, and powdered milk. These you need to buy no matter you think you will use them or not. You will want them eventually in an emergency!
Do you have any suggestions for people who don't have a food storage room? I don't have any extra rooms or closets in my home for food storage. I live in Casper, WY and the summers get up to about 95, I'm wondering if the garage is a safe place for food storage?
Amber, Yes! I have several all shelf stable recipes. On the top of our blog and website there is a link for Food Storage Free Downloads. Click on this link and there will be a link for food storage recipes that can all be made with food storage ingredients. They are broken down into breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert recipes to help make meal planning easier. Let me know if you can't find it.
Rhonda,
The garage will be fine for canned goods but I would not put extremely perishable items out in the heat….oils, peanut butter, bottled/preserved foods, etc. Wheat would be fine (it can last through anything) and other hard grains (oat groats, steel cut oats, etc.). Just make sure and keep the items in the garage in sealed, insect and rodent proof containers. It would be sad to have your food infested with mice or insects.
One tip..if you have any non-food items that you are currently storing inside your home, try and put those out in the garage to give you more space inside (camping gear, toilet paper, detergent, sleeping bags, holiday decorations, etc.)
One other idea is to put items under your beds, in the corners of rooms, under tables with tablecloths, etc. The more places you can find to store food in doors the better. HOwever, you will be glad you had it somewhere, rather than not having any at all ๐
Good luck and thanks for your great question!