There are classical myths such as those associated Hercules or Achilles or Persues. There are modern-day myths such as, according to Web MD that there is supposedly no actual correlation between giving children sugar and hyperactivity. Makes me wonder what their definition of “hyperactivity” is. You? But then there is a myth or belief that the fruit orange was named after the color orange. Did you know that it was actually the other way around? Or my personal favorite myth that I looked up (I had a good belly laugh when I saw it because my husband claims it ALL THE TIME), there really is no such thing as “a five-second rule.” Have you ever heard of the “five-second rule?” It states that if food falls on the floor that it’s okay to eat as long as it hasn’t been on the floor for five seconds. But there are food storage myths too.
Food storage myths are commonly held beliefs (even if they aren’t outwardly stated) that hamper our food storage efforts or derail us from gathering enough food storage. Let’s explore some of these.
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Food Storage Myth 1 – If something happens and I can’t feed my family, I’ll just start a garden. 
It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Put some seeds in the ground, weed around them and pull the bounty out of the ground a month or two later! Yea…if it was only that EASY. Gardening has a huge learning curve. When we were renting two different houses, we tried to ‘garden’ in buckets. Not as easy as you think. We had eaten from the foods we’ve grown; however, we haven’t harvested enough from these pots to use in an actual meal. The biggest part of these pots for me was the fact that we are learning. So we moved into our house last year. This year we put in three raised beds and started a garden. Oh my. Let’s just say we’re still learning. We grew more this year than last year though, so we are improving.
So this is my rule of thumb. This might not be a myth for you, but you can only claim this as truth and not a myth for your family based on the food you produced for your family LAST year. So if you gardened last year, you can figure what you got was the average food production of what you’re going to get from your current garden. Only then can you count the amount of food you grew and used.
Otherwise, start a garden NOW and learn how to garden so that if things get rough, you can use your garden.
If you are already gardening and having wonderful success, then this is a good plan. If you are already gardening, start looking at your garden as a food storage resource. What foods does your family need if you couldn’t get to the grocery store? Are you growing these? Are there new foods that you need to start growing? Can you get more out of your harvest by tweaking your production methods?
On a related, but different note . . .
Myth 2 – If something happens, I’ll just go hunting.
There are a couple of problems with this plan. Let’s start with the most obvious. Have you ever hunted before? AND have you ever dressed your own game? If the answer is no to either of these questions this food storage myth is applicable to you.
Let’s say that you have hunted before, caught food, and dressed your own game. Are you able to process your game yourself? Are you able to preserve it yourself with and WITHOUT electricity? Something to think about.
Something else to think about is that there is a new disease among deer called Chronic Wasting Disease or more commonly known as “Zombie Deer Disease.” It can potentially be transmitted from deer to person, and at the moment, we cannot test for it with some kind of “home kit.” Any deer caught should be tested before it’s butchered, cooked, or eaten. Most meat processing plants can test for it.
Even if you look at what I’ve written and can say, “Check, check, check, and check,” consider that meat is only a small part of our diets. It is an important part, yes! But it is only a small part of what we eat. Our body needs nutrition from fruits and vegetables as well.
Food Storage Myth 3 – If we can’t afford to go to the grocery store, I’ll forage for food. 
Is it possible to forage for food? Absolutely! The problem lies, again, in have you ever done it BEFORE? Have you fed yourself and your family a foraged meal? Do you know how to cook foraged food? Have you practiced at it? Do you know the difference between look foods that are good to eat and their dangerous look-alikes? Even if you did, could you feed your family on what you found long-term? Probably not.
If you want to add the skill of foraging to your arsenal (while not depending completely or even mostly on it), I have this book and the accompanying DVD really love them both.
So even if you got out of the first three myths in this article unscathed, I’m wondering how you’ll do on this one.
Myth 4 – Having stored food is enough.
In the past month, how many meals have you cooked from your food storage? In the past six months, how many of your meals have you cooked WITHOUT using your typical kitchen equipment i.e. stove, oven, refrigerator, freezer, electric food processor, etc? How many new items have you learned and practiced making? Even if you just follow the items that I am teaching you to make on the blog like ketchup, barbecue sauce, pizza sauce, tomato sauce, bouillon mix, evaporated milk, alfredo sauce, cheese sauce (for macaroni and cheese), oat milk, mayo, granola bars, whipped cream, fermented pickles, or many more recipes I’ve posted. Have you tried making them?
You can only say this isn’t a myth for you if you have lived off of your food storage and cooked it without power or conventional appliances – small or large. Or if you have learned how to make items from your food storage, then this isn’t a myth for you. Keep it up! If you can’t say yes, to each of these things though, the good news is that you can start NOW. Jump in and learn or practice along with the rest of us!
Food Storage Myth 5 – I can’t do anything about my situation. 
It’s amazing. I’ve heard something similar to this from people who read my book. Some people have communicated to me that I only cater to people who live in houses and have basements and excesses of money. Do those things help? Absolutely! But no matter where you live, whether in an apartment, a house without a basement, on a plot of land under 1/4th of an acre, or on the top floor of a high rise, you can ALWAYS change your situation for the better.
Even if you live in an apartment, you can find room to expand your food storage. Looking for practical ideas? Read my book, visit Ikea, or read my article where to store food on The Organic Prepper website. If you think you lack land on which to grow food, visit the site of a couple that homesteaded on a Tenth Acre Farm. Or learn about a family that earns their entire living off of 1/4 an acre urban farm, The Urban Homestead. If you live in an apartment, there are even ways that you can work toward a homesteading mindset. Check out this article on “How to Be an Apartment Homesteader” from the Prairie Homesteader.
What About You?
Which myths have you been believing? What items have your perspective changed on? What skills are you going to acquire to take your food storage to the next level? Leave a comment below as a commitment to what you plan on doing next.
Together let’s Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome
There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. Some of the links may not be. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. These are the items that I have bought for my own family. You can feel free to use my affiliate links, of which I will get a small amount in compensation, or you can choose to search out your products on your own.
This is an edited and updated post of an original post from February 26, 2018.
very good article, to those that refuse to prep, I feel very sorry for you. ohio farmers only got 20% of their crops in, iowa only 4% and the list goes on. we may have reserves in this country but they won’t last. if next year is as bad we will have a major crisis on hand. I doubt there will be a lot of emergency food available next year if any. remember you were warned.
Tim, I agree! This is about stocking up in these times of plenty for the lean times to come. I.will never stop prepping. Learned the lesson of the importance of self sufficiency when I saw what happened with Hurricaine Katrina. I am 67 years old now so if I can do this (along with my 60 yr. old husband) anyone can do it!
I have done a lot of prepping & now I need to practice making some things (like bread from scratch) using my alternative cooking methods. I am going to use my Coleman oven on the camping stove:)
Excellent reminders that there really are no quick-and-easy solutions to feeding yourself and family. “I’ll plant a garden” seems to carry the mistaken notion that a small plot of ground will yeild up a ton of food. People selling “seed banks” play on that mistaken notion. As you said, it takes practice to raise garden crops. It also takes time. You plant in the spring and eat much MUCH later.
The myth about hunting and foraging is the assumption that “there’s a lot out there.” As you said, it’s not that quick and easy. Animals have a nack for avoiding people hunting them. If a great many people are hunting them, there won’t be any left in pretty short order.
Same goes for foraging. Wild edibles very seldom grow in dense farm-field abundance. A mushroom here, a lambsquarters there. It could take you all day just to find the day’s food, leaving no time for anything else. And, once you’ve eaten them, they don’t grow back for a long time. Foragers have to keep moving to new, unforaged, areas.
The take away should be that there won’t be any quick-and-easy solutions. Plan on working hard. The trigger should be, if you catch yourself thinking, “all I have to do is…” that you’ve got a problem coming.
suppose you want to forage to add to your available edibles. and suppose you actually recognize a goodly number of wild foods native to your region. and suppose it is not the dead of winter with snow on the ground. and there aren’t too many other foragers tromping about. where are you finding these foods? if you are urban, is it in a park, along a little creek? an empty lot? you may find a bit. but not enough. foraged foods are usually not providing a lot of calories. rather, they provide vitamins, antioxidants, and perhaps immune support. great stuff. so how about finding likely spots now and over seeding the sorts of herbs and plants that would be valuable for an urban prepper. i have “guerilla gardened” an overgrown local park and a natural area along a creek, adding local wildflowers, healing herbs, garlic, onions, willow, hazelnut, rosa rugosa, currants, miners’ lettuce, purslane, alexanders, and other healthy greens. these are helping to hold the creek bank, slowing erosion, adding beauty, and providing food for local people and animals.
Good article, good advice. You missed the part about 3 hours without proper shelter in severe weather. That one is often left out but is really important.