Starting a proper long-term food storage is a very daunting task. How much food do you really need to store? What foods are good for long-term storage? How do you plan for a balanced diet? There is a lot to learn. The good thing is that there is no need to panic. Start slowly, work consistently on your storage, and you will be well on your way. In fact, just by working on keeping a food storage you are in better shape than the majority of the American population. So, how should you get started in a long-term food storage? Here are the main categories of food you should include in your food storage and formulas for how much you should store for your family.
Grains
Grains is a large category and is what you need to put a lot of concentration on. For a full one-year storage you will need 300 pounds of grains for each family member. That does not mean you need 300 pounds of wheat for each family member. You can spread that amount across wheat, corn, oats, pasta, and rice. It would be a rather bland diet but you could live on your grains storage alone for quite sometime in an extreme emergency. Focus on building your grains first. Most grains have a storage life of thirty years when stored correctly.
Beans and Legumes
Add some protein and variety to your grains storage by adding beans and legumes. You can store all kinds of dried beans: pinto, black, red, and white beans. The great thing about beans is that they very high in nutrition and very low in cost. Beans are low in fact and high in protein and fiber. In fact, when combined with rice beans create a complete protein. Beans and rice are one of the cheapest and most nutritious meals you can eat. How much you should you store? You should have a combined (of all the types of beans you like) amount of 60 pounds of beans and legumes per family member for a full year’s storage. With grains and beans alone, you could live for a very long time.
Powdered Milk
Another important nutrient to keep in mind when building your food storage is calcium and, of course, the best thing for calcium is milk. How in the world do you store milk for the long-term? You store powdered dry milk. It will store for thirty years or so without refrigeration. When water is added to make liquid milk it will need to be put in the fridge and consumed within four days. The key point is to be sure you are storing real powered milk and not a milk alternative. The milk alternative is made to taste like milk but it doesn’t have nearly the same nutritional value. If possible, you also want to store powdered ‘non-instant’ milk instead of ‘instant’ milk. The non-instant milk retains more vitamin D and other nutrients. It does take longer to mix thoroughly but the nutritional value in an emergency is worth it. You need about 16 pounds of non-instant (32 pounds of instant) milk per family member for a year’s supply. That is a bare minimum. Most families, especially with small children, will need more than that.
Fruits and Vegetables
Believe it or not, fruits and vegetables are not necessary to sustain life. However, they are extremely nice for the added nutrients they provide and the variety they provide to an otherwise boring emergency diet. That’s why it is a good idea to plan to keep dehydrated or freeze dried fruits and vegetables in your long term food storage. Dried fruits and vegetables are no different than the fresh option nutritionally and the good thing is that dried fruits and vegetables store for a very long time. Only the moisture is removed from them, not the nutritional value. There really is no rule of thumb of how much you should store of fruits and vegetables. Just gather what you can afford and what you like. Don’t buy types of fruits and vegetables that you don’t like anyway. That is a waste of money and resources.
Baking Ingredients
You will want the ability to bake because that increases what you can do with your food storage exponentially and expands your variety incredibly. You want to gather fats and oils, leavening, sugars, and other dairy type foods. You should have cooking oils, peanut butter, and mayonnaise for the fats and oils. The sugars can include generic white sugar, molasses, brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup. The leavening are items like baking powder, baking soda, and instant and non-instant yeast. Finally, the other dairy items are things like powdered eggs and powdered butter. These are the items that will really pull the rest of your food storage together and give you a good repertoire of recipes.
Comfort Foods
Even in the most dire emergencies, when you have to really hunker down and get serious, there is a need for comfort. You need something to help relieve the stress of everyday survival. That is what the comfort foods are for. They are the last in priority for your food storage but they are still important for your overall well-being. These are things like cocoa so you can make brownies or chocolate chips for cookies. Think of popcorn, nuts, seeds, flavored drink mixes, spices, tea bags, or coffee. Think of the most basic treats you like to enjoy sometimes or what you know you would miss and then gather those things as you see them on sale. Or whenever you replace an ingredient buy two and put the extra into storage. A lot of these comfort foods won’t store for nearly as long as the previously mentioned foods so you will need to make a point to rotate them through your regular diet.
Good Luck on starting your food storage. And remember, don’t panic. Take it slowly and consistently. Enjoy the simple pleasure of knowing that you are providing for your family even in the worst of circumstances.