Discouraged About Food Storage? Make a Plan

August 08, 2008 Comment

As with most things there is not only one way to accomplish a goal. This is the just another approach, while much like the one we have been using. Hannah and Abbie have concentrated on food storage on their blog so they have some info I have not yet addressed since I am concentrating on all aspects of preparedness, but you all know how I feel about food storage for preparing..it’s a must!

We could talk all day about the importance of having food storage: temporary job loss, natural disaster, flu pandemic, etc. And heck, it’s a great way to save money too, because you can just buy certain foods when they go on sale! The point is, however, that while it’s smart to have food set aside, it’s also daunting. That’s where this article comes in—here’s one method of organizing and collecting food storage that has worked for us and perhaps will work for you, too.
The first thing to do is decide how much food you want to store. We have a goal to store 3 months of food in our homes, so that’s what our focus will be here. We recommend that you store at least 1–2 months of food.

Second, see how much food you are going to need. In breaking down three months, we have 13 weeks of food: 91 dinners, 91 lunches, and 91 breakfasts. (This is an approximation based on 1 month being 31 days and the other 2 months being 30 days.)

Next, draw out a 2-week chart. This is where you’re going to plan your meals. The first week is “Week A,” and the second is “Week B.” Now, for each day of the week, plan one breakfast, lunch, and dinner that you can make using food-storage items only (for many, this is the hardest part). This makes a total of 14 different dinners to plan. If planning all 3 meals is too overwhelming, start with just dinner and go from there.

Essentially, instead of planning 91 food-storage dinners to store, you are only planning 14. If the time came that you had to live off your food storage alone, you would be eating the same meal once every 2 weeks—not too bad, especially since these should be meals that your family truly enjoys. In fact, if you don’t mind eating the same meal once a week, just plan 7 different meals. Likewise, if once every two weeks is too repetitive for you, plan 21 dinners and rotate every 3 weeks. It’s really up to you.

So, if we were living off food storage alone, we’d have 7 weeks of Week A and 6 weeks of Week B food.

For example, my Monday meal for Week A is spaghetti with a side of veggies. Over a three-month period (and planning 2 weeks of meals to rotate), we would eat this meal 7 times. So, according to how much we eat, for this meal alone I would need to store about 7 boxes of pasta, 7 cans of spaghetti sauce, and 7 cans of veggies.

My Tuesday meal for Week A is chicken pot pie. Like I did above, I need to write down all the ingredients for this meal and multiply by 7, and then I’ll have 7 weeks of Tuesdays planned. Next write down what goes into each meal—all the ingredients. Don’t forget spices and oil and things like that; there’s no need for your food-storage meals to be bland.

Like we stated above, planning these meals may be the most difficult part for many. Use the food guideline recommendations to make sure that the meals are balanced and healthy. Please plan for your own family’s needs and likes. These are simply examples. We prefer to use only nonperishable food items in our meals because they store longer and there is less risk of them spoiling. If you have trouble coming up with meals, try searching the internet. We also have a good number of recipes on our website that you are welcome to check out.

Finally, add everything up and make a master shopping list. List how many jars of spaghetti sauce you need, how many cans of fruit, etc., for the entire 3 months (don’t forget breakfasts and lunches!). Once you have this completed, check your current food storage to see what you already have so you can cross those items off your list.

Obviously you will not go to the store and buy 94 cans of fruit at once, but you can buy little by little. Take advantage of the sales, and keep track of what you buy AND what you eat. It might be helpful to have an Excel spreadsheet or a chart to help you keep track of what you are buying/storing and what you are using.

I hope this walk through has helped you become a little more confident about gathering a 3-month supply of food. It really is doable if you have a plan.
For more information, or to check out our food storage recipes, visit our website at http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/ .

Thanks Hannah and Abbie!