How To Get Started With Food Storage
People ask me all the time how to get started with food storage, I get it. It may seem overwhelming and expensive; you may even say where in the heck do I start? You may ask yourself what on earth should I buy? How much should I buy? How can I afford it? I get it. Here’s the deal, just start with a few cans and then add a few more cans as your budget and space allow.
I’ve always felt the need to have some food stashed away in case our family is faced with an emergency or natural disaster. Every family should have an emergency food supply just in case. Actually, it doesn’t take a disaster from Mother Nature to prompt the need for short-term or long-term food storage. The breadwinner could get caught up in a company layoff. You could have an accident or illness that keeps a family member from going to work. Life seems to be full of surprises, so it’s good to have food stored away for that “rainy day.”
What is food storage?
The thing you must think about is what the future may bring you and your family. I feel a very urgent message in my heart I MUST share; please get some food storage and store some water today, not tomorrow.
If you can order a few cans of this and a few cans of that and have them delivered to your home every month, you will sleep better every night knowing you are prepared for whatever comes your way. As mentioned, it could be a job loss, income reduction, health issues, a disaster, or an unforeseen emergency. If you can only afford one or two cans of green beans or two bags of rice to start, that’s awesome!
- Water Storage: How Much Do You Really Need?
- Is Tap Water Safe to Drink?
- Creative Water Storage Solutions for Emergencies
- How to Barter with Food and Water
Icy Road Story
I can still remember a young mother sending me an email and stating the area where she lived that week had roads closed because of the severe ice storms. She wondered what she was going to feed her family. I suggested she go to the neighbors, if possible, to see if they had food to spare. She said the neighbors lived too far away. I’m not sure what she did, but I can almost guarantee you that when the roads were finally safe to travel on, she stocked up on instant milk, cereal, pancake mix, canned meats, vegetables, fruits, and other staples. Be sure to stock up on things you know your family will eat.
I truly believe God gives us a few chances, I guess you could say, to get prepared. Maybe this young mother and other families had a wake-up call to be prepared based on some of our recent severe weather storms. You need to be prepared even if it’s only for three days worth of meals. If you make food storage part of your life plan, as in using it every day, you will be prepared for almost anything. Then store for seven days, thirty days, or more long term so you can feed your family and sleep at night knowing you made goals and followed through to help protect your family.
Get Started With Food Storage
Here’s a PRINTABLE I hand out when I teach classes about food storage: Where do I Start? I made this printable sheet so people could write down what they eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You fill in the lines with what you eat for the different meals. Then, you purchase the items needed to make those meals. It’s actually fun to involve the whole family in choosing the different meals. You can make up your own spreadsheet, but I like this one as a starting point.
Breakfast Ideas:
Pancakes, cereal, waffles, biscuits, scrambled eggs, whole wheat cereal, oats or oatmeal, toast, French toast, to name a few. So, if you choose those items, you can always make them from scratch if you have the necessary items on hand. If you have chickens, that’s awesome! If not, you can store eggs; these are the only ones I will purchase: Ova Easy Egg Crystals; when you look for food storage items, particularly online, in #10 cans, compare the price, plus shipping per ounce, to find the best price.
I suggest you store some instant milk and some cereal and you are on your way to having one breakfast choice. Just remember, water is critical to store in containers because we need it to prepare meals and keep ourselves hydrated at the very minimum. We need water to make the instant milk and make the pancakes below.
Homemade Pancakes by Food Storage Moms
- 2 cups Freshly Ground Whole Wheat Flour or 2 cups White Bread Flour
- 2 tablespoons Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 4 teaspoons Honey
- 4 Eggs
- 2-1/2 cups Milk
- 1/2 cup Oil
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Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk it until blended.
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It will be a medium-thick batter, or add more milk until you reach your preferred thickness.
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I use approximately 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake and cook each side until golden brown.
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Serve with maple syrup or caramel sauce.
Ready Made Pancake Mix
You can buy a #10 can or store the basic ingredients above to make them. Add some maple syrup to your stash, and you are set. Please check the shelf life; they typically have a long shelf-life and last 8 years.
Lunch & Dinner Ideas:
Take your family to your local supermarket and let them choose a few items of canned food that you will eat today, but also after a disaster. If after a year you do not eat those cans and they are not expired donate them to your local food bank. I realize people do not want to eat processed food, but if the grocery store shelves are empty you may not have a choice.
Buy some canned meats and some small jars of mayonnaise and you have lunch. Store some crackers, or make them if you do not make bread. I love the chicken salad on crackers at Costco when they hand out those samples. Easy peasy lunch. Add some hot soup if you have a butane stove, lunch is ready in no time. My four daughters all received one of these for Christmas or birthday gifts: A Butane Stove with Fuel
More Food Storage Ideas
- Food Storage Tips for Your Groceries and Leftovers
- Popcorn for Food Storage
- Which Methods of Food Storage are Correct?
- Survival Food And Emergency Food Storage
Final Word
I hope you enjoyed my post today about how to get started with food storage. We all have different budgets and tastes. Please only buy what your family will eat. You can do this, one can at a time, I promise. May God Bless this World, Linda
Living in Florida you know that you need to store food/water/gas/money because of hurricanes. You don’t know if you can get out to a store/gas station/bank, and if they’ll be available. With the events happening about the world, the illegals coming into our country, and the headlines from the WH be prepared. Since Obama it has been very clear to be prepared. When shopping pick up an extra can of tuna, peanut butter, or seeds – grow your own vegetables and fruit. We are Sweet Potato growers in our containers.
HI Barb, you are so right. I love hearing you are growing sweet potatoes in containers! LOVE this! We must be self reliant, no one will deliver food or water to us. Great comment, Linda
Thank you Linda, I love your articles.
HI Brab, thank you for your kind words. Linda
After the Pandemic I would hope it woke people up. Buy things one or 2 at a time. Like you said you don’t have to buy a case at a time. If you can find them use coupons, store shoppers cards even certain convenience stores has reward programs. Don’t think I don’t have time, it really is time is money. You take a few minutes to use you reward card and you will save money on what you buy.
Hi June, oh you are so right I have The Smiths card here in Utah. Yay! The savings help us so much!! Time is money, good one! Linda
I love your posts, Linda. Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge. I learn so much from you.
One approach I like is to find shelf-stable meal ideas and buy the ingredients to try them. Over the years of storing food and using it/rotating it, I have found several favorites my family will eat that are totally shelf stable. Such as Speedy Spaghetti, Easy Chicken Pot pie, Simple Tuna casserole, Chicken Gnocchi soup, Seasoned Lentils over mashed potatoes, Pantry Pizza, Beefy gravy over rice, Oatmeal w/freeze dried fruit, Libby’s canned sausage gravy over homemade biscuits. I strive to make shelf stable meals at least once a week so we can decide if they are tasty enough to put on our menu permanently.
My other approach is cooking with wheat, whole grains, dry beans, lentils, dry milk, the Basics that we store, and integrate them into meals so our bodies are used to the fiber and we are used to the taste. Such as Blender wheat pancakes, Whole wheat bread, Lentil tacos, Black beans n’ sausage over rice, Using dry milk in baked goods, Oatmeal pancakes, Meatless meatballs w/sauce, Corn muffins using stone ground cornmeal….that type of cooking.
I have found that it becomes easy to make meals because of thinking/planning ahead and using leftovers since I am sooo frugal…hate to waste food. For example: we had chicken parmigiana made with frozen chicken patties from Costco, and side pasta; cooked extra pasta and made another meal we call Cheeseburger pasta. Or cooking extra rice when we make a stir fry and that extra rice is another meal of Fried rice. It saves time and work and takes just a bit of planning ahead. I do the same with cooking extra chili, then we have chili one night, later in week we make Navajo tacos or chili salad with the leftover chili….plus chili freezes well so the extra gets frozen for a ‘fast food meal’. I have this down to what works for us, thus I am thinking ahead when cooking to save steps and time later. When I find ground beef on sale, I cook it, divide in 1 cup amounts, put in snack baggies, put a few of those into a freezer gallon bag. Then it is ready to add to meals or make sloppy joes, etc.
HI Janet, thank you for the 5 stars, my sweet friend! Oh my gosh, Costco has frozen chicken patties, I’m going to look for those!! Love this! You do so many wonderful things with different foods items, it makes me smile!! I’ve been living with my daughter now for 2-1/2 years, and hope to have the house done by July 4th (picture fireworks going off!) LOL! I miss my wheat grinder and whole wheat blender pancakes! I love Navajo tacos, you cook so many of my favorites!! This family can’t survive without rice, it can make so many recipes!! Life is so good when you can cook from scratch and stretch our budget. LOVE LOVE LOVE your comment, Linda
I used to provision our sailboat for 4 months for the out islands of the Bahamas. That’s how I knew how much of everything we need. Out there if you don’t have it, you can’t get it. When we got home I would always have non-perishable food we would eat and I’d put it in the pantry. When I started on food storage 4 years ago, it was simple (and still is). Just add onto what you have or need.
I am the least domestic person in the world. I knit. That’s it. When I graduated college I could field strip a weapon, but cooking, sewing? WHAT? Mother, who was a Marine Sgt in WWII gave me a cook book and a sewing machine for college graduation. “Mother, what am I to do with these?” She questioned- I just spent a lot of money on your education. Did they not teach you to read and THINK? “yes of course” Well, then you can do those things.
She was right. I’m still not what you would call domestic, but by golly I can DO stuff. Backpack and camp in the snow to making the best baked goods you can imagine…and if someone needs killing, I might be up to that. I’m retired LEO from a high crime city.
So, I read about all these people getting processed food stuffs and thinking they are getting FOOD – and I wonder. Buy ingredients. READ a cook book. With ingredients you can make anything and it will be far more nutritious without chemicals. And, it takes up less space.
Buy a bread machine. Simple to use and much cheaper bread with no chemicals.
I wouldn’t put those packaged dinners into my dog’s stomach.
There are countless sites that give us lists of what to buy. Then, get in some freeze dried buckets for the END of the disaster – maybe a year or more away. Use the pantry.
Your advice is spot on. Thanks for all you do.
HI CAddison, thank you for your kind words and the 5 stars, my friend. You have done a lot of thing in your life, college, you knit, you learned to stock food for your sailboat, you retired as a LEO from a high crime city and more! I totally agree buy ingredients then you know what you are making and feeding you and your family or friends. A bread machine or bread maker is the best thing you can buy for your family. You advice on the buckets of processed emergency food is spot on! Love your comment, Linda