If one of your goals for 2009 is to get more serious about emergency preparedness and food storage, you may find this checklist helpful. It’s a list that was handed out somewhere that I made some changes to and retyped. (That is an awkward sentence, but anyhoo…) It’s designed to make building your food storage part of your weekly trip to the grocery store. By the end of the year you should have a nice, well-rounded supply of essential goods and foods for emergencies. At a minimum, it helps you to inventory your current supply. You can customize the weeks to suit your needs. I’d love to see any other forms that people have created to organize food storage. Please post them!
Jeanie,
I agree completely! I don’t store anything that I don’t know how to prepare or that my family in not used to eating. I plan my food storage around meals that our family will eat, and try to make meals that incorporate wholesome staples (wheat, oats, etc.) that have a long shelf-life. That way my storage is well-rounded and long-lasting. I also like to utilize both my freezer and my pantry for storage. We prefer meat and vegetables from the freezer versus a can (if we can’t have fresh), so we store both. That way if the power goes out, we don’t have to open the freezer; but, if the budget is tight we have foods we like to eat on hand. Thank you for your comments.
Nice list, Kim, thanks. Your sight is really helpful.
Kim – thank you for your website. It is nice to find such helpful information in one place! I have started purchasing items for my storage pantry by picking up two cans of an item instead of one – my problem is: when I look into that pantry, I can’t see many “full meals”. I am an planner by nature and was wondering what you think of the idea of planning out several meals (say 3 days supply), purchasing those items, and then building up from there. I worry that I will be in a situation that I will need to rely on our pantry items and I’ll open the door and say “why do I have 20lbs of flour and what am I supposed to do with it??” What are your thoughts? Thank you in advance! It’s nice to find people who understand the feeling of wanting to be prepared – sometimes when I talk to friends about this topic they begin to back away slowly 🙂