Nov 09
7
Developing A Food Storage Plan When The Task Seems Overwhelming
When I decided to develop a food storage plan, I bought quite a few books. All of the information was great, but the idea of being able to do what these books recommended seemed impossible. Most talked about caloric needs and vitamin content necessary for optimum health. While this all sounded wonderful, the calculations were based on sex, age, activity level and a variety of other factors. This seemed way too complicated, especially with children, since their caloric needs were in continuous flux.
Even if I overlooked the variations and just tried to calculate the needs for 4 adults, there were too many factors, so I’d just put the book down and promise myself I’d get back to it later.
However later never comes, and disasters do not wait until you are ready for them. So I decided there must be an easier way to get started, and worry about the nitty-gritty details later on. Here are the steps that I took to get started and eventually hone my own personal food storage system.
Assess Your Current Food Supply
Before you ever make that first trip to the store, it’s important to check out what’s already in your pantry or cabinets. If you are like me, there are items that have been pushed to the back of the shelves and long forgotten that need to just be disposed of. My first recommendation is to take a thorough inventory of your current supply of food.
You may find that you actually have a lot of food on hand, although it might not match up into your favorite combinations for meals. The truth is, you probably wouldn’t starve to death if you had to stay home for a week or so.
To get a clear look at your current stock, take all of the food items out of your pantry. Try to group like-items together as you go like pastas, tomato products, canned fruits, canned vegetables, pre-packaged foods like potatoes, mac and cheese, etc…. This will just make it easier to take inventory and also to decide how the food needs to go back into the pantry.
TIP: While you have all of the items out of your pantry, take a few minutes to do some house-keeping. Wiping down the shelves with either a household cleaner or even a weak mixture of vinegar and water will give you a nice clean surface for your new food preparations.
Now it’s time to take inventory. Grab some lined paper or a spiral notebook and write down all of the items you currently have on hand.
As you inventory your items on hand, place them back into the pantry in an orderly fashion. At this point, you may discover that some shelf organizers would be beneficial—but don’t feel that they are a necessity at this point. Stay on task and don’t get caught up in the prepping, losing site of the primary task—stocking up on food.
Once you have a good look at everything in your pantry, it’s time to put on our thinking caps and decide what kind of items need to be in our long-term food storage plan. I decided with my own plan that it would make more sense to start out buying foods that I already purchase regularly, and then work to supplement the deficient areas as I went along.
For instance, my family loves all kinds of tomato-based meals, so we buy a lot of canned tomatoes and sauce. We also use a lot of rice and pasta, which are easily stored for long periods of time. By selecting items for your food storage plan that you already eat on a regular basis, you’ll be sure of 2 things:
1. You’ll have food on hand that you already like and know how to cook
2. The food in your pantry will be rotated on a regular basis
Sign up for our FREE Newsletter and receive access to our SUBSCRIBERS section.