Start Prepping Here: The Basics of Food Storage

We started this series in September and we’ve covered a bunch of different topics from sanitation, to water basics, to why we prep.  Did you think just MAYBE I was going to forget to cover………….food?  I mean this is A Year Without the GROCERY STORE.  Yea, we’re going to cover food storage.  And we’ll do that today.

So let’s talk food

There are several main categories of food when it comes to food storage.  Let’s break this down and discuss each category briefly.

Bulk foods for food storage

Bulk foods are the easiest and most economical foods to purchase.  I can purchase enough oatmeal to feed my family of 7 for every breakfast for two months for less than $30!   I can feed my family of seven dinner every night for a month for less $50 using this bean soup mix and seasoning mix.  If you purchase some canned ham or freeze-dried ham dices, it would dress it up even more.  These can even be packaged in buckets, lids, and Mylar that Azure Standard carries.

You can purchase flour, sugar, and rice in bulk from Costco or Sams.  You can purchase dried black beans in bulk from The Ready Store in buckets for $66/bucket.  They also have buckets of pinto beans, navy beans, and kidney beans.  Single ingredient bulk foods are the cheapest way to build up your food arsenal.

Freeze-dried foods for food storage

These are your convenience foods.  We even use a lot of the meat now because of the extreme convenience of it!  There are many different places that you can purchase freeze-dried foods from.  I use Thrive Life for my freeze dried foods because I like to automate my preps.  It’s sent to me each month, and as such makes life much easier.

There is also Auguson Farms.  They sell quality freeze-dried foods also.  It’s one of the better-known names out there.  I’ve never purchased from them, but I do know that they have a great reputation in preparedness communities.  I do know people in several of my group who have used them and swear by them.

So does Mountain House.  It’s a well-known name in the preparedness community when it comes to food.  They are best known for their #10 cans of prepared foods like Beef Stew, Chicken-a-la-King, Lasagna, Macaroni and Cheese and so much more.  Their prices are reasonable.

Store-bought foods for food storage

These are relatively cheap overall.  I prefer to buy my canned goods by the flat.  It’s easier to keep track of a certain number of flats than a certain number of cans.  It’s easier to rotate in flats than in cans (unless you have a rotating rack system called FIFO which stands for First-In-First-Out.

We even purchase things like pasta, salad dressings, ketchup, and queso by the flat (or large box) depending on what they come in.  Buying from Aldi makes this easier because they put the entire flat out instead of putting it onto shelves without the flats.

These can be relatively inexpensive to come by, but if you know, and I mean really KNOW how to use coupons, you can get things for pennies on the dollar or sometimes even free.  There was a time I fed my family (of then six) on $200 a month by using coupons.

Garden foods/garden canned foods

This is by far the cheapest way to gather your food, but unfortunately, it’s the way most fraught with chances to lose your food.  It also has a steep learning curve.  I don’t say this to discourage you.  I say this to encourage you to start learning how to grow your own food now.  There are wonderful resources out there such as Grow Your Own Groceries and 10th Acre Farm to help you on your way.  Don’t put this off.

Food Storage Menu Planning

Planning a menu will save you money on any regular week, but when it comes to preparedness situations, it’s the way you make sure all your ingredients fit together.  You don’t want to be stuck with pineapple, black beans, and Catalina dressing and you have to figure out what meal to make with it.

Even for your long-term food storage, put together a type of menu that you can make with what you have, so you aren’t saying, “I can’t stomach another bowl of oatmeal without a sweetener!”  Come up with creative ways to use mashed potato flakes, canned vegetables, and cream of mushroom soup NOW.   What fun and innovative ways can you put together ingredients of which you may not have thought before?

Create a Master Meal List for Your Food Storage

Create a master list of meals that you can make with food storage.  Shepherd’s pie anyone?  Chili works wonders.  When I work on master lists of meals, I start by the main meat ingredient.  If it’s a ground beef meal, it goes on the “Beef” page.  Chicken Pot Pie would go on the “chicken” page.  Ham and bean soup?  Put it on the pork page.  Vegetable soup?  Put it on the “meatless” page.  You don’t have to put the recipes down yet, just having a list of great food storage meals is HUGE.

Create a Short-term Food Storage and a Long-term Food Storage Menu

From your master list, create your menu.  The easiest way to know what you need to have on hand is to create one menu for an entire week and repeat that menu EVERY week.  Having both a short-term and a long-term food storage menu will also make life easier.

Write out each of your recipes, so you know how much it takes to make the recipe just once.  Then figure out how long you want your short-term menu to last and how long you want your long-term menu to last.  If you want your short-term menu to last three months or twelve weeks,  take your single copy of the recipe’s ingredients and multiply it by twelve.  Once you do that, you’ll know just how much you have to buy fill out your menu.

Learning to Cook from Scratch

Realize that when you start on this journey, it is going to take time.  It’s going to take learning, and it’s going to take effort.  If you are a stranger to cooking from scratch, now is the time to start working on learning.  Have you ever made biscuits and gravy from scratch?  Give it a try!  It’s an easy item to make, but it takes some getting used to.  You have to learn how the dough should feel between your fingers as you knead it.  You need to see how the flour and the butter mix together in the saucepan before you add evaporated milk to make the gravy.  It’s a simple and FILLING meal, but it does take some time to learn how to do these things.

If this all feels overwhelming like you’re drinking from a fire hydrant, I’ve got you covered.  I cover all this in an easy to read format and walk you through it step by step in my 4.5-star book on Amazon called A Year Without the Grocery Store.  If you need help implementing the book, I also have a Companion Workbook which takes your hand and gives you worksheets, printables, tutorials, and other helps to grow your food storage with minimal effort.

What About You?

Do you do food storage?  How well are you stocked, and have you ever considered putting together a menu from which to base your purchases?  I’d love to hear about what you feel is working well for you and where you are struggling.  Leave a comment below and let us know!

Remember, knowledge isn’t knowing something, it’s living it!

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.