Emergency Food Storage Guide

Emergency Food Storage Guide
Creating a deep larder of food in the prepper's pantry

New Prepper's Guide to Food Storage
Are you new to food storage? Feeling overwhelmed? No worries!
Start here with this happy and concise guide to food storage.

Prepper's Guide to Food Storage
Your food storage depends on what you and your family eat, not
what some book, chart or Web site tells you to stockpile. Even
our
popular article on the 37 foods to stockpile won't tell you
exactly how much food to put in your prepper's pantry, and with
that valuable list you'll still need to decide what you and your
family will eat. Thankfully there is only one rule of food storage,
and that's to buy what you eat, and eat what you store! In other
words, the best survival food is the food you're used to eating.

Phases of Food Storage
In building your emergency food storage supply, you will go
through several phases of stockpiling with foods you can get from
the grocery store. You'll stock up on freeze dried foods,
dehydrated foods, MREs, and food ration bars and more.

Here's a summary of the phases of food storage:

  • Phase one of food storage: Preppers start their food
    storage plans with their short term food storage needs. The
    goal is to get through the first 72 hours of an emergency to
    a month. They pack the kinds of foods they eat everyday.
    These foods include mostly shelf stable foods, canned foods
    or foods sealed in plastic that they can buy at the grocery
    and warehouse stores. These shelf-stable foods may include
    favorite soups, canned meats, pasta sauces, boxed cereals,
    crackers, and breakfast bars. It also includes stocking up on
    food storage ready made kits, which require only water to
    make complete meals.

  • Phase two of food storage. In the next phase of food
    storage, preppers fill their larder with freeze dried and
    dehydrated foods for their long term needs. This includes
    foods in #10 cans, dehydrated foods, buckets of foods
    packed in gamma lids. The goal of this phase of food storage
    is to ensure months of food in the larder to get through a
    long-term emergency. The goal in this phase also includes
    buying grains in bulk, stocking up on dried beans and
    legumes, and stockpiling other staples such as salt, sugar,
    baking soda, baking powder and the like.

  • Phase three of food storage: In the third phase of a food
    storage planning, preppers take even more control of their
    food storage by adding new skills and equipment. In this
    phase preppers may take on new kitchen tools, such as a
    pressure cooker, a dehydrator, a food saver, and a grain mill,
    for example. Preppers learn to can their food, dehydrate
    fruits and vegetables and make beef jerky and other kinds of
    dried meats and poultry. Preppers learn how to make
    pemmican, how to churn butter, how to make their own pizza
    crusts starting from wheat berries they grind themselves. In
    this phase preppers also explore survival food options, such
    as Meals Ready to Eat, ration bars, pilot crackers and more.


The H-A-L-T Method of Food Storage:
When it comes to food storage, there are four main causes of
food spoilage that can destroy your hard work: humidity, air, light
and temperature. Remember to H-A-L-T your food storage:

  • H-umidity is an enemy of your food storage.  Humidity (or
    moisture) is bad for your grains, particularly wheat. Moisture
    is bad for your cans, which will rust as a result of humidity.
    Moisture is the main reason NOT to store your food in the
    garage.

  • A-ir (oxygen) is an enemy of your food storage because
    with air comes vermin! Pests need oxygen to live in your
    food oasis. Mason jars can provide an airtight solution.  
    Plastic "breathes," which is why preppers employ mylar bags
    (to prevent mold and vermin from living in your food supply)
    with oxygen absorbers and seal the food in a food-grade
    bucket to help prevent rodents from chewing through. Plastic
    is a deterrent to pests, but rats have particularly strong
    teeth and have been known to chew through some plastic.
    Since rats are more likely to get into your garage than into
    your home, store your plastic food containers inside your
    home, not the garage.

  • L-ight is an enemy of your food storage because it degrades
    food and breaks down the nutrients. It is the natural process
    of decay. This is why beer bottles are brown and wine
    bottles are green.

  • T-emperature is an enemy of your food storage. Heat  
    causes nutrient loss and degrades the texture of food. In a
    sense, food that's too hot begins to cook, and food that's
    too cold begins preserving. A steady room temperature is
    best. In a garage or attic temperature may fluctuate
    between too hot and too cold because these places usually
    don't have insulation or controlled heat and air conditioning.

What to include in your food storage:
Start with our easy guide of the 37 Foods to Hoard, and
remember the one rule of food storage is to buy what you eat,
and eat what you store! Begin your quest by being flexible, but
have a cautious reality check:

  • Vegetarians are preppers too, but may need to resort to
    eating meat for survival! You can prep raw vegan! Another
    good way for vegetarians to prep is to look at the ancient
    prepper foods.

  • Kids may live on mac and cheese today, but tomorrow they
    may only want to eat tacos. You'll have to train them now to
    be flexible.

  • Stockpiling only rice and beans is a doomsday scenario in
    itself, if your family doesn't ordinarily eat rice and beans, but
    certainly it's a quick and inexpensive way to get your food
    storage going.

  • Freeze dried foods provide wonderful options for creating a
    deep larder, but your stomach may not handle eating them
    for weeks on end.

Just in time inventory: the culprit for panic buying.
Panic buying can strip store shelves in a few short hours. Anyone
who lived through Hurricane Katrina can attest to this. But why is
this so? The answer is Just-in-time inventory: a cost effective
management practice established in the 1970s that was borrowed
from the Japanese. In concept, Just-in-time inventory saves on
warehouse space and other expenses, and it generally provides
less risk and less capital, but requires more infrastructure. Mind
you this is a corporate benefit; it actually puts the general public
at risk! Happy Preppers don't rely on the public food supply.

In the good old days, grocery stores stocked back rooms with
inventory of canned and dry goods, and they replenished the
shelves as needed from this stock.  They did not have the luxury
of Just-in-time inventory. Conversely, supermarkets today have
virtually no back room warehouse. Managers order twice weekly.
Merchandise comes off the pallet and directly onto store shelves,
quickly and efficiently. What you see is what you get. Likewise,
Americans shop just in time.

Happy Preppers are optimistic for the best of times, and yet they
know that our fragile society can quickly cause an end of times.
While they have comfort in stockpiling food and water, they are
acutely aware of the masses who have not provided their own
food insurance.

Planning food supplies for a catastrophe, not just a
disaster
Happy Preppers know the difference between a disaster and a
catastrophe. It's not a matter of semantics, because there is a
fundamental and important difference, which will affect the food
supply strategy of a Prepper.

You see, a disaster is a local occurrence, such as a hurricane or
an earthquake, which affects a region. Disasters have the support
of various agencies that come in to mobilize and support victims.
A catastrophe is a much grander problem by scale. Most notably,
a catastrophe is outside the scope of ability for government to
mitigate and charitable organizations to respond. In a true
catastrophe, it's every man, woman and child for himself.

In short, planning for a disaster means having food supplies that
will last a couple of weeks; while planning for a catastrophe
means food and supplies should last a year or more. Newbies
should first plan for a disaster and then move towards being as
prepared as possible for a catastrophic event.

Buy extras of  foods you know your family will eat, and stockpile
a sort of self-funded and secured
food insurance plan in so doing.
Your family may have a diabetic or someone who is allergic to
gluten. Mature family members may have food needs different
from the younger ones. Your job is to plan for picky eaters and
palatable options to satisfy your family or group.
Canned food storage system
Prepper's Food Storage
Canned Ground Beef
Wise Foods Storage Milk
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Prepper's Guide to Food Storage
Food storage for self-sufficiency and survival
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Happy endings..
The ultimate emergency food storage article is our free guide to
the
37 foods to hoard. Also for your reference, here is the
prepper's shopping list.

Certainly it can be overwhelming as food storage has many levels:

Related articles..

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