Food Storage Basics

People talk about having a food storage plan for emergencies, but where do you start? How much should you store? Where, and how, do you store it?

I recommended that you keep one month of food on hand for emergencies. To some this may seem like a ton of food and to others, not enough at all.  Regardless of your view, keeping a well-stocked pantry is a very good idea with many benefits.

Having a well-stocked pantry means that you have food in the event that you lose your job and money is scarce.  It means not being caught with bare cupboards when a fierce snow storm blows in and you can’t get to the store. It means you can whip up dinner without having to make a fast run to the store to pick up that one key ingredient you need but don’t have. A food storage plan doesn’t just help you in the rare event of a national disaster that destroys the infrastructure of the county, but it also helps you in the day to day events of life. A well-stocked pantry will save you money since you can slowly build up your stock as items are on sale.

Basic Guidelines for Food Storage:

1. Only stock food in your pantry that you like.  If you load up on canned beef stew because it is easy to use in a power outage but you don’t like it, you will end up tossing it in the garbage once the expiration date has passed.
2. Only stock food you know how to use.  It is pointless to load up on fifty pound bags of wheat if you have no way of grinding it and no idea how to prepare it.
3. Don’t stock excessive amounts of something simply because you found it on sale.  For example, you don’t need twelve bottles of mustard in your pantry even if you did buy it half off.  There is no way you would go through that much mustard before it expires, even if you ate it every day!

How much food should I store?

The size of your family and your location play a large part in how much food you should keep on hand, however one month's worth of food is a great place to start. 

I would also highly recommend having at least one week's worth of food stored in portable totes that you can grab if you every have to evacuate your home.