Food Storage: What to store?

I know that food storage can seem overwhelming when you don't know what to store. If I could just find a list, then that would be great! Well there are lists, with things like fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. You just need to tailor it to your family.

One really good idea is to write down 10 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and 5 snacks and desserts that your family enjoys. That way you can see what ingredients your family leans toward. You may have to make adjustments for meals that can be made with only pantry items.

I haven't done this exercise yet, so I'm going to try it:

Bay Area Mommy-nomics Food Storage Menu

Breakfasts:

1. Oatmeal made with quick oats and evaporated milk, a little bit of brown sugar, and bananas and cinnamon on top. If I didn't have fresh bananas, I'd use frozen blueberries or frozen peaches.
2. Steel cut oats made with water and a little bit of powdered milk, a splash of vanilla, and topped with jam or maple syrup.
3. Cold cereal
4. Pancakes. I make mine from scratch, so I'd need milk or water and eggs along with my dry ingredients.
5. Toast with peanut butter.
6. Blueberry Muffins
7. Pioneer Woman's Egg in a hole
8. Scrambled eggs with cheese and a little bit of green onions
9. Waffles
10. Cinnamon rolls with yogurt and fruit

Lunches:

1. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
2. Egg salad sandwiches
3. Grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup
4. Quesadillas with grilled vegetables
5. Macaroni and cheese
6. Bagels with cream cheese
7. Smoothies
8. Scrambled eggs
9. Chicken salad sandwiches
10. Soup

Dinners:

1. Chicken Enchiladas with rice and vegetable
2. Meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes and carrots
3. Spaghetti with vegetable or fruit on the side
4. Poppy Seed Chicken with angel hair pasta and peas
5. Black Bean Burritos
6. Sloppy Joes with sweet potato fries and fruit
7. Quiche with fruit
8. Pizza
9. Chili and cornbread
10. Hamburgers with sweet potato fries

Snacks

1. Popcorn
2. Crackers (wheat thins, Ritz)
3. Dried fruit (raisins, dried cranberries)
4. Banana bread
5. Tortilla chips with salsa

Desserts

1. Chocolate chip cookies
2. Brownies
3. Atomic popcorn (super sweet!)
4. Chocolate pudding
5. Cupcakes

Whew! That was kind of hard for me! How did you do? Come back week for the next step!

Food Storage: 3 month supply

A little while ago, I did a little post on food storage 101...an introduction to food storage, if you will. Last week, I did a presentation on food storage for some women in my church. Let me tell you, I learned so much from preparing for that night!

I went through our food storage and calculated that we had about two weeks worth of food and only three days' worth of water. Husband and I talked it over and decided that food storage was very important to us, so we are going to try to have a three month supply, as is suggested by our church leaders.

We determined that we would make a commitment to have 3 months' worth of food storage and two weeks worth of water in six months' time, by February 1st, 2011. I'm sharing this with you so that (a) I can be held accountable for this commitment and (b) maybe you'll get some idea of how this is accomplished.

I am not an expert in this area and am learning a lot as I go, so you are welcome to learn right along with me.

I've divided up what we need to store for each month, although depending on sales, some months I may get more of one thing and less of another. Here is my outline for this month:

Grains (wheat, flour, cornmeal, popcorn, oats, etc.): 49 lbs.
Legumes (beans and lentils): 3.15 lbs.
Powdered milk: 2.3 lbs.
Cooking oil: 0.79 quarts
Sugar or honey: 4.725 lbs.
Salt: 1.16 lbs.
Water: 9 gallons
Canned fruits: 37 cans (these are the 15oz. size)
Dried fruits: 0.75 lbs.
Fruit juice: 3.6 bottles (these are the half gallon size bottles)
Canned vegetables: 37 cans (these are 15oz. again)
Proteins (canned or frozen chicken, tuna, beef, etc.): 19.76 lbs.
Evaporated milk: 43 cans
Processed cheese (powdered and/or frozen): 5.9 lbs.

Now these may seem like crazy numbers to you, and it did to me, too. I got these numbers from a blog called Totally Ready. Our three month supply is supposed to be food that we eat on a regular basis, so I think that as I go through this exercise, I will see more of what we actually eat and can fine tune my storage for our family.

For example, I have a few cans of Manwich sloppy joe sauce. My family loves it and yes, I consider it a vegetable. : ) I also have a freezer in my garage and I have frozen fruits, meats, and vegetables and some grains in there, so I'm counting those items as well as the items in my pantry.

Another example: evaporated milk. 43 cans? I don't think I've even used 1 can in the last 3 months! But I've been reading another amazing website called The Prudent Homemaker and she talks about how you can use evaporated milk for a lot of cooking and it tastes better than powdered milk. I would definitely use it if I had no source of income to buy fresh milk, but I don't think I need that many cans to round out my three month storage.

So we'll see how things go. I'd love to hear how your food storage efforts are going as well!

I also thought I might do a post each week with what I think are good items to add to your pantry (at their best price) to help you fill in the holes in your food storage.

Food Storage 101

What do you know about food storage? What would you like to know about food storage? I feel like food storage and money saving go hand in hand. The leaders of our church have counseled us to have enough food storage for our family for one year. Does that sound like a daunting task to you? It does to me too. But it is to help us in case of unemployment, decrease in income for miscellaneous reasons, disaster, etc.

Recently, our church leaders have "lowered" the time period to three months, mainly so people don't get so overwhelmed with the idea of food storage. So that is my goal right now: to have enough food stored to feed my family for three months.

How long do you think you could feed your family on what you have in your cupboards? If you have seen the natural disasters in the news, you know that sometimes it's not always an option to run to the store. What about in times of storms or blackouts? Here in California, we are most susceptible to earthquakes and our cities being under strain (at the very least) in the aftermath.

I am not here to get on a soapbox about food storage. And I'm definitely not here to preach a sermon. But what a lot of other money-saving bloggers call "stockpiling" I call food storage. And I want to build mine up. I'm going to post about my endeavors every now and then, so if you're interested, follow along!

To get things started, I wanted to show you how I have my food storage set up right now. Although I have a "pantry" in my kitchen (a set of double tall cabinets), most of my food is kept outside in the garage, unless it would spoil too quickly from heat out there: salad dressings, sauces, stuff like that.

I have two large plastic shelving units that we bought at Target. I think we got them on sale for about $35 each. I try to group things that go together: cereals, crackers, juice, etc. and then I have a shelf with ingredients: cream soups, diced tomatoes, chicken stock and another shelf with "meals", like chili, tuna, soups, and things like that.

On the very bottom shelf I have a storage of water. We have filled cleaned used juice bottles with water. We will rotate those out every 6 to 12 months. In an emergency, they say you should have a gallon of water per person per day. Obviously this is not enough water for my family of 5 for 3 months. But that is something I will have to work toward. I think here we have enough for our family for three days, which should be the bare minimum.

I hope this is not totally overwhelming. Sometimes when I think about it, I wonder how it can be accomplished. But we have been advised to do it slowly and thoughtfully, and not to go into debt to do it.

I'm interested in your thoughts on food storage and welcome your questions. Look forward to more posts on food storage!