I've seen many articles, books, and websites on food storage and they almost all have something in common. Much of what they sell or advocated for food storage are things I would never normally eat. Large amounts of dried beans and powdered milk. Things I may use here and there but not alot of at one time.
When you are making your food storage list, make sure it's items that you are going to use. That's why like I mentioned in the last post you should figure out what you need for your stockpile based on what you already eat and your current menu plan. If you eat alot of baked goods, stocking up on flour would be smart. If you don't eat beans every day, then 100lbs of dried pintos won't do much for you.
We will talk about packing our food storage in another post but something else to think about when you are buying what you need is knowing what packing you are going to keep it in and knowing that it's needs to be packaged in whatever size will fits your families needs. You aren't going to want to package wheat berries in a 20lb vacuum sealed bag unless you plan to use it all in a short amount of time.
Another way to make sure you are putting what you need in your food storage is by looking at your pantry now. I bet we all have items that we buy, thinking we need them and then they sit in the pantry because we really didn't need or want them. This is another way food storage planning off your meal plan helps because all the items on your actual meal plan are items that you actually use on a day to day basis.
Learn more about Practical Food Storage and Preparing for Price Increases. And make sure you check out how to save and live better in all areas of your life on the Making the Most page!
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I agree with you about the beans and powdered milk thing. We helped some friends move last year and they have a massive number of 5 gallon sealed buckets of pinto beans and rice ,powdered milk, flour and other like foods. That is all well and good but I know they are very picky eaters and they would not eat pinto beans or powdered milk so I don’t really understand why they bought all of that. Purchases like that are fed by fear and not common sense.
I agree with you about the beans and powdered milk thing. We helped some friends move last year and they have a massive number of 5 gallon sealed buckets of pinto beans and rice ,powdered milk, flour and other like foods. That is all well and good but I know they are very picky eaters and they would not eat pinto beans or powdered milk so I don’t really understand why they bought all of that. Purchases like that are fed by fear and not common sense.
I agree with you about not stocking up on a bunch of food you really hate. But if food is short or if your in a disaster type situation, it’s better to have food you normally would not eat than no food at all. I plan on stocking up on some cheap items (beans, rice, etc), but I also know we will need other things to help it not be so boring.