Cucumbers

Mistake #1: Having no variety in your food storage will lead to menu fatigue
A month or two ago I met a cute little gal who was talking to me about her newly begun food storage. "You know," she began, "I've dreaded doing my storage for years, it seems so blah, but the way national events are going my husband and I decided we couldn't put it off anymore. And do you know, it really hasn't been so hard. We just bought 20 bags of wheat, my husband found a place to get 60 pound cans of honey, and now all we have to do is get a couple of cases of powdered milk. Could you tell me where to get the milk?" After I suggested several distributors, I asked, "Do you know how to cook with your wheat?" "Oh," she laughed, "If we ever need it I'll learn how. My kids only like white bread and I don't have a wheat grinder." She had just made every major mistake in storing food (other than not storing anything at all). But she's not alone, through 14 years of helping people prepare, I found most people's storage starts looking just like hers. So what's wrong with this storage plan? There are seven serious problems that may occur trying to live on these basics: 1-Variety - Most people don't have enough variety in their storage. Ninety five percent of the people I've worked with have only stored the four basic items we mentioned earlier: wheat, milk, honey, and salt. Statistics show most of us won't survive on such a diet for several reasons. a. Many people are allergic to wheat and may not be aware of it until they are eating it meal after meal. b. Wheat is too harsh for young children. They can tolerate it in small amounts but not as their main staple. c. We get tired of eating the same foods over and over and many times prefer to not eat, than to sample that particular food again. This is called appetite fatigue. Young children and older people are particularly susceptible to it. Store less wheat than is generally suggested and put the difference into a variety of other grains, particular ones your family likes to eat. Also store a variety of beans. This will add variety of color, texture and flavor. Variety is the key to a successful storage program. It is essential that you store flavorings such as tomato, bouillon, cheese, and onion. Also, include a good supply of the spices you like to cook with. These flavorings and spices allow you to do many creative things with your grains and beans. Without them you are severely limited. One of the best suggestions I can give you is buy a good food storage cookbook, go through it, and see what your family would really eat. Notice the ingredients as you do it. This will help you more than anything else to know what items to store. 2-Extended Staples - Few people get beyond storing the four basic items but it's extremely important that you do so. Never put "all your eggs in one basket." Store dehydrated and/or freeze dried foods as well as home canned and "store bought" canned goods. Make sure you add cooking oil, shortening, baking powder, baking soda, yeast and powdered eggs. You can't cook even the most basic recipes without these items. Because of limited space I won't list all the items that should be included in a well-balanced storage program. They are included in the The Cookin With Home Storage cookbook, as well as information on how much to store, and where to purchase it. 3-Vitamins - Vitamins are important, especially if you have children, since children do not store body reserves of nutrients as adults do. A good quality multi-vitamin and vitamin C are the most vital. Others might be added as your budget permits. 4-Quick and Easy and "Psychological Foods" - Quick and easy foods help you through times when you are psychologically or physically unable to prepare your basic storage items. "No cook" foods such as freeze-dried are wonderful since they require little preparation, MRE's (Meal Ready to Eat), such as many preparedness outlets carry, canned goods, etc. are also very good. "Psychological Foods" are the `goodies' - Jello, pudding, candy, etc. - you should add to your storage. These may sound frivolous, but through the years I've talked with many people who have lived entirely on their storage for extended periods of time. Nearly all of them say these were the most helpful items in their storage to "normalize" their situations and make it more bearable. These are especially important if you have children. 5-Balance - Time and time again I've seen families buy all of their wheat, then buy all of another item and so on. Don't do that. It's important to keep well-balanced as you build your storage. Buy several items, rather than a large quantity of one item. If something happens and your have to live on your present storage, you'll fare much better having one month supply of a variety of items than a year's supply of two or three items. 6-Containers - Always store your bulk foods in food storage containers. I have seen literally tons and tons of food thrown away because they were left in sacks, where they became highly susceptible to moisture, insects, and rodents. If you are using plastic buckets make sure they are lined with a food grade plastic liner available from companies that carry packaging supplies. Never use trash can liners as these are treated with pesticides. Don't stack them too high. In an earthquake they may topple, the lids pop open, or they may crack. A better container is the #10 tin can which most preparedness companies use when they package their foods. 7-Use Your Storage - In all the years I've worked with preparedness, one of the biggest problems I've seen is people storing food and not knowing what to do with it. It's vital that you and your family become familiar with the things you are storing. You need to know how to prepare these foods. This is not something you want to have to learn under stress. Your family needs to be accustomed to eating these foods. A stressful period is not a good time to totally change your diet. Get a good food storage cookbook and learn to use these foods! It's easy to solve the food storage problems once you know what they are. The lady I talked about at the beginning of the article left realizing what she had stored was a good beginning but not enough as she said, "It's better to Replace out the mistakes I've made now while there's still time to make corrections. This makes a lot more sense." If you're one who needs to make some adjustments, that is OK. Look at these suggestions and add the things you're needing. It's easy to take a basic storage and add the essential items to make it livable, but it needs to be done. As I did the research for my cookbook, I wanted to include recipes that gave help to families no matter what they stored. As I put the material together it was fascinating for me to learn what the pioneers ate are the type of things we store. If you have stored only the basics, there's very, very little you can do with it. By adding even just a few things it greatly increases your options, and the prospect of your family surviving on it. As I studied how the pioneers lived and ate, my whole feeling for food storage changed. I realized our "storage" is what most of the world has always lived on. If it's put together the right way we will be returning to good basic foods with a few goodies thrown in.
Food storageFood storage tips

11 comments

Emergency Essentials

Emergency Essentials

That is a tough one. Coconut oil is known for its longer shelf life, but even then it’s only around 2 years. When storing oil, keeping it dark and cool will help extend shelf life. Also consider clarified butter, such as Red Feather butter. While not exactly oil, it can still be useful. I hope that helps.

Karen Morris

Karen Morris

This is in response to Terry Jeanette above: how do you get oil that stores longer than 18 months? It WILL go rancid very quickly when opened if a year or 2 past due date!! I want to store more oil, but can’t use in rotation fast enough! Any suggestions?

LaVerne Merrill

LaVerne Merrill

I have had oil in my basement for 10-20 years and it is not rancid. You can squeeze vitamin E from capsules into it once it is opened to help preserve it. I have never had a problem.

Bruce

Bruce

Lard has an unbelievable shelf life, Kept in unrefrigerated, cool, dry location. Usually in 1# box, I’ve heard that it’s also available in sticks like butter but never seen any myself.

It may not be any good to butter crackers but it fries foods up just fine.

Do a little research, I have also read that bacon grease is same, if saved a certain way. We save it (but in the fridge) for making popcorn and other things where that mild bacon flavor is an extra treat ;)

Jennifer Harvey

Jennifer Harvey

You can get tinned butter (Red Feather) and also tinned ghee, butter powder and lard powder. And don’t forget how our ancestors got their oil – they killed an animal and used its fat for cooking. If you get tinned bacon such as Yoders, keep the fat from cooking it, and use it to cook other things. Plus, rotate and swap out your stored oil. Most tins of oil, lard etc. will last two years, so if you use it up and replace, how many emergency situations are likely to last longer than 2 years, realistically speaking??

Jennifer Harvey

Jennifer Harvey

During the Black Friday sale, I got one of EE’s “do it yourself” food pail/mylar bag/oxygen absorber kits. That’s 8 pails. I also got some smaller 1 gallon bags and oxygen absorbers. I have made up several “grain and bean” pails – rather than an entire pail of white rice, another entire pail of beans, and so forth, I make up mixed pails – several 1-gallon sealed bags put into a 5 gallon bag, so a double layer of protection and oxygen absorbers. A typical pail has individual sealed packets of white rice, quinoa, grits (got bags of those at Walmart), cornmeal, navy beans, and lentils. I forgot about the chia seeds (plus hemp and flax seeds) so thank you for that reminder – I need to add some of those. Millet is another good one to store – it is easy to cook and the most digestible of all grains, so very good for young children and the elderly.

Bruce

Bruce

Lard has an unbelievable shelf life, Kept in unrefrigerated, cool, dry location. Usually in 1# box, I’ve heard that it’s also available in sticks like butter but never seen any myself.

It may not be any good to butter crackers but it fries foods up just fine.

Do a little research, I have also read that bacon grease is same, if saved a certain way. We save it (but in the fridge) for making popcorn and other things where that mild bacon flavor is an extra treat ;)

Chris

Chris

Over the years, I have watched video after video on food prep. Often, when folks so proudly show off their storage, I have noticed that they tend to get the “goodies” over the more nutritional choices. It is a great thing to have treats to normalize a bad situation, but not to the near-exclusion of healthy foods.

Quinoa and Chia are amazing superfoods that provide a good cross section of vitamins as well as an impressive amount of protein. Sure do wish my favorite supplier would start offering those 2 superfoods (HINT HINT) and while I’m at it- where are my grits guys? It is a Southern staple.

Don Kobus

Don Kobus

I have a vacuum sealer, how long can I keep my rice in storage in the plastic bags, or do I need to use Mylar bags

Sybil

Sybil

I have stored my rice and other dry ingredients for close to 10 years now with my vacuum sealer. However I do have one word of advice I put them inside a ziplock bag and then put that in my mylar bag because you need that extra layer of protection. Eventually the small broken particles of whatever your store will poke a hole through your bag. Yes, I learned that the hard way so I have found that with a double bagging process like that they haven’t poked through.

Terry Jeanette

Terry Jeanette

The Dutch people learned during WW2 that young children and elderly people would not eat at all if they had nothing familiar to eat and would starve to death. They also learned two very helpful tips. If you had even a little bit of oil to cook potatoes in, they became much more tolerable and people would eat them. They also learned that just one piece of hard candy to give to people kept their morale much higher. Buying hard candy during the after Christmas sales keeps the cost down and they can be stored in a glass bottle or jar for years. I just put an entire bag into a bottle and set it aside.

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