Pantry Keeping 101, Part 1 in a Series on a Keeping Prepper's Pantry

   There are many ways to manage long term storage foods. Some people purchase a certain amount of food, like a 1 year supply for a family of 4, from a company that sells package deals of freeze dried, prepared foods.These foods are purchased for the sole purpose of supplying the family food in an emergency, but will not be used as part of their present diet. Others buy large quantities of staple items in 5 gallon buckets that have oxygen absorbers in them to keep them viable for 15-20 years, but the plan is to leave those items in buckets as insurance in case it is needed in some future crisis or food shortage. Both of these forms of food storage are more stock piling than pantry management. There is absolutely nothing wrong with stock piling food for hard times, it is a prudent and responsible thing to do, but there are some drawbacks to both buying prepared freeze dried meals, and buying 5 gallon buckets of staples to save for later.
 

There are some very good companies out there that provide quality foods, that will feed the family 3 meals a day, (Legacy is one that I have heard good things about). For some that is just the ticket, quick easy meals that require very little preparation. But for my family, it just wouldn't work...The prepared freeze dried foods are OK if we were are going on a back packing trip, where light and easy to prepare foods are necessary, and won't be consumed for any length of time.  but if it was the only food I had to offer my family for a long period of time, the limited choices, and relatively bland flavors, would lead to a familial revolt, or worse it would cause food fatigue, ( where people can't stand to eat the same things anymore and just stop eating). I would also have concerns about the lack of dietary fiber, high salt and preservative content in a steady diet of freeze dried, processed foods. Another consideration would be the cost. The freeze dried, packaged foods are kind of pricey.

 I do use freeze dried foods in my food storage plan though, I just buy the freeze dried ingredients, instead of the prepared meals, That way I can control how much salt and other things go into the foods we eat and it just works better for my family.. Honeyville Grains has quality freeze dried foods, like organic sweet corn, organic peas, asparagus tips, and more. Plus some very good quality dehydrated foods like tomato powder, mixed vegetables, carrots etc. All their foods are guaranteed to be non-gmo (with the exception of a few of their soy products), and they have a growing number of organics available. Honeyville has the absolute best shipping offer of any online food supplier, $4.99 flat rate shipping, whether you buy one #10 can or an entire truck load! It just doesn't get much better than that!  I use the freeze dried and dehydrated foods in combination with my long term storage staples like wheat, rice and beans, for our long term storage pantry, but I also use them in my daily meal planning. This insures that our food supplies are rotated on a regular basis, but also makes sure that our storage foods are familiar to us so there is less shock  or balk about eating them should they be all that there is available.

  The stock piling of 5 gallon buckets of staples would take care of the basics, but how long would my family be willing to eat the same few items and really... how long would it take a family of four to eat their way through a 5 gallon bucket of rice or beans? It would probably begin to sprout bugs before it was all consumed. The cost is better and the foods that are stored are more wholesome than the prepared foods but for my family it would still leave a lot to be desired.

So this is what we do... For starters, I prefer to call our process, "Pantry Keeping" rather than "stock piling", since we are not just purchasing food and holding it in long term storage, but we are using it and rotating it onto our table and then periodically replacing what we use. Our method of pantry keeping has several layers, Layer one is an Open Stock, comprised of the staple items that are in my kitchen cupboards, large glass jars on my counters,  fresh foods and condiments in the fridge, plus spices, dried fruits and sprouting seeds.

   Layer Two is a Three Month Pantry, which has a 3 month supply of goods we will use in daily food preps, like home canned vegetables, juices, canned goods purchased from the grocery store, packages of coffee and tea, honey that has been dipped out of the 5 gallon long term storage bucket into 1/2 gallon Mason jars, bottles of tomato sauce and salsa, etc. We call this the Three Month Pantry, because it holds the 3 month supply of some of our most often used items, but it also holds our larger stock pile of olives, pickles, jams, jellies, maple syrup, almond butter, coconut oil, shelf stable meats, cans of salmon and tuna, as well as the medicinal herbs that are not in LTS. We use this as our "grocery store". When I make out my menus, I shop here first for whatever I will need to prepare the week's meals, then if I don't have something I need, I will mark it down on the list I will take to the grocery store.

Finally, There is the Long Term Storage, (known from now on as LTS), which is packaged to last 15-20 years or more, if stored properly and left unopened. Since we store what we eat and eat what we store, our long term storage foods play a daily role in our diet. Although LTS foods are able to be stored for 20 years or more, I try to keep my supplies as fresh as possible by using them to prepare our daily meals. I store supplies of staples that I package myself, in mylar bags that are stored in 2 gallon buckets with a gasket lid. The 2 gallon bucket size is optimal for my family. We can go through a 2 gallon bucket in a reasonable amount of time, so there is less risk of it going buggy or rancid. Since I don't have to focus on using up 5 gallons of something, I can have a variety of things open at one time, giving me more flexible menu options. We have food stores to last us several years, all packaged in mylar with oxygen absorbers to make sure the contents will stay viable for 15-20 years,  but I try to make sure that most of the things we store are cycled through to our table and replaced within 3 years. That way we can be sure to have a fresh, safe stock of food if the regular supply lines are not available.

  The fact that the foods I store are also the foods we eat on a regular basis, means that there will not be any major dietary changes made, should we have to depend solely on what we have in LTS. I also store herbs, seasonings, spices, salt, sweeteners, condiments, vinegar, liquor, (for tinctures and other medicinal purposes), home canned goods, home dehydrated goods, some quality freeze dried ingredients, (not prepared foods...), ingredients like freeze dried corn, peas, broccoli, asparagus, dehydrated tomato powder, dehydrated potatoes, dehydrated cooked beans, sprouting seeds, and raw supplies for making other life sustaining foods like miso and tempeh. We also store dried fruits, which sadly have a short shelf life, but we eat them regularly so the supply is rotated out in a year or less. If we couldn't go to the grocery store for a period of time, we would still have a fresh supply to last a year.

  Since the foods we store are the foods we use, I know that I can create meals that are healthy and that my family will eat. Since they have been rotated and replaced I know that they are going to be edible when I open them, and that they will have retained their nutritive value, and I am almost always eating at last year's grocery prices! A recent example of this savings is: in 2008 I bought three 60 pound buckets of honey, for $100 each. Since honey never goes bad, and it is one of the few sweeteners we use, I bought a large quantity when I found it on sale through my co-op. We just opened the last bucket the other day, so I ordered a couple more on my last co-op order, the price is now more than $200 a bucket. So for 5 years we were eating honey at 2008 prices, (while setting aside money each payday to purchase replacements when we needed to replenish our stock in the future.

  So that is the basic run down of our Pantry Keeping system. In future posts I will go into more detail about each of the levels of storage, outline how we decide what to store, how to calculate what a family would need for a give period of time, how to store foods for long term storage, and how to begin an LTS pantry of your own.

Are You Prepared - Part Two of What Has Gone Before

This post was made during January of 2013. It gives a small glimpse of our 3 month pantry and some various thoughts on food storage.

We are having an ice storm today. In this area, that could mean downed trees, no power, (or water for those who are on wells), and it could be days before electricity is restored. North Carolinian's are also notoriously bad drivers in inclement weather, so we will be staying off the roads... Actually there will be little reason for us to be on the roads. After Hurricane Hugo destroyed our cottage and we lived in the shell of the house for 6 months, (starting in Sept. so we spent the winter in it), I decided to never, never, never, be unprepared for an emergency again.

Hugo blew into Waxhaw, (180 miles inland), with 110 mile an hour winds, it sat over our area for hours. The winds from the hurricane were bad enough, but the storm also spawned tornadoes, at least one of which tore across our property, twisting the tops of the trees off 18 feet up the trunk and ripping our roof and siding to pieces, throwing most of it into the woods. Fortunately, we were staying with my brother that night, or we may have lost more than our house.

Extensive damage done to the power lines all over North Carolina left us with no power,(and no water), for 3 weeks. Then the day they restored power to our area, there was an accident while clearing pieces of our destroyed roof, which caused our power service to fall to the ground. An electrical crew working down the road came to help and ended up cutting the power at the pole. We were unable to get our power back until after our electrical inspection 6 months later. This meant that most of the reconstruction was done without on site power. We borrowed a generator from a neighbor when he wasn't using it, another neighbor put an extension cord over the fence for us to use, and we worked by propane lantern, using hand tools when it was necessary. With just the two of us working, (and an infant and 7 yr old that needed tending), it took us a long time to get finished enough to get inspections.

 During all this time we were living in the only room in the house that wasn't exposed to the outdoors. We all slept there, my husband, our 7 year old son and I slept in sleeping bags on the floor. The baby, who was 4 months old when the hurricane hit, slept in his crib, swaddled in snow suit, and covered in a goose down comforter. We had an old Franklin Stove that we could use to warm our hands by during the day, and I used it for cooking, but it had draw problems due to damage done to the chimney, so it smoked terribly, and wasn't safe to burn while we were sleeping. It was a long winter and an uncommonly cold one, but we managed, and I'll just say to make a long story shorter, that we all survived. We got the house closed in and had power by late April. But it still took more than 5 years before we could really say we were finished.

After that experience, it became one of my missions in life to research and procure all the things we would need to live comfortably and safely through whatever life threw at us. We now have multiple ways to heat, heat pump, propane wall units, and a wood stove. We have enough water in 55 gallon drums, treated, sealed and sheltered from the elements, to last 3 people for a month. We also have a hand-held water purifier, that will purify water from a mud puddle if necessary. A "bug out bag" is packed and ready at all times. Our camping gear is kept close at hand with lanterns, propane cook stove, sub zero sleeping bags, light weight tents, backpacks and everything we would need to set up housekeeping away from home if need be. We have a "working" pantry for daily use, a 3 month pantry, which has enough food to feed four people for 3 months, and a long term storage pantry that contains enough to feed 6 people for a year. We keep these pantries up to date and rotated and we use what we store and store what we use.

Now... back to 2015!
The world as we know it doesn't have to come to and end or manure hit the fan, for an emergency preparation plan to make good sense. Natural disasters, economic hiccups, personal financial problems, loss of a job or illness can all be very difficult to deal with if you aren't prepared both practically and financially. But if you are like the ants who put away all summer to see themselves through the winter, you can find yourself well equipped to face difficult times, without worrying about how to shelter and feed your family. Are you prepared?

Part of our 3 month pantry which includes freezer, canned, bottled and dehydrated foods as well as bulk medicinal herbs, staples like pasta, rice and dried beans and comfort foods like tea and organic sugar.

In the near future I will be doing weekly posts on Pantry Keeping and Preparedness. I will start from the beginning and outline how to get started and what to do first, from there I will have tutorials on canning, dehydrating, emergency nutrition, natural medicine, first aid, wilderness survival, foraging, non electric cooking,  packing your own food for long term storage and much, much more. I am also hoping to do a Prep Deal of the Week on Tuesday mornings, listing some of the best deals of the week on pantry goods and other preps. Until next time never leave to tomorrow what preps can be done today, step by step, little by little...

Why Pantrykeeping? Part One of What Has Gone Before

This post was originally posted on www.aviewfromthecottage.blogspot.com in March of 2011. Much has changed around the Cottage since then, but we still use the same pantry management practices so I thought I would share this one with you.

One of the ways that we have learned to "sway" when the economic winds blow,is to be prepared for hard times by putting up and putting by when times are good so that life goes on fairly normally even if our finances or life situations are in flux.

My husband was a Boy Scout scoutmaster for many years, so the motto, "Be Prepared", was frequently heard around our house. My maternal grandmother was also fond of the motto and her daily life was an expression of its practical application.The thin years of the depression and the challenges of raising four kids on a coal miner's salary taught her the prudence of preparation.

From time to time throughout my childhood, my brother and I ended up living at my grandparent's house.At my grandmother's knee I learned that preparation was the secret to sustainable living. Much of daily life was spent trying to assure that there would be food on the table, not only for today, but for the future. At her house there was a large garden that supplied a steady stream of fresh vegetables for the table and to fill rows of jars in the root cellar for the winter. My father and both my uncles hunted deer and game, which was canned in the pressure canner or smoked and dried.My grandmother's efforts to make sure there was food in the larder was a big help in keeping the family on even ground, no matter what their economic situation might be.

Once I had a place where I could grow our food, I followed my grandmother's example.I gardened and made most of our food from scratch, I learned to can and made jellies and preserves from seasonal fruit, As time went by we had more growing space and I had more kitchen experience, so I started to put up produce from the garden. But it wasn't until the 90's that I started seeing that some canned goods and frozen produce from the garden weren't enough, I needed to plan farther ahead.

I knew about the Mormon's practice of having a years supply of food on hand and started thinking about how we might be able to do something similar. The logistics of such an endeavor required serious consideration. In order to have a years worth of food on hand I would need to have storage space that I didn't have at the time, I would need to do some research on how to store the food so that it wouldn't be lost to bugs, moisture or rancidity. There was much to think about and careful planning would be necessary to see our goals met.

I started out by just keeping track of what we purchased most at the grocery store. I kept all my grocery receipts together and then spent some quiet time with the receipts and a notebook, making lists of things that were consistently purchased. Then to this I added what staples I knew that I regularly keep on hand; things like flour, salt, honey, sugar, oils, rice, coffee, and the like. With this step well documented I moved on to charting how often I used these items.

I kept a composition notebook and pen in a drawer in the kitchen so that I could make note of the things I used as I used them. For example: Monday I made Challah French toast for breakfast, I used eggs, milk, bread, nutmeg, cinnamon, mexican vanilla, Loran hazelnut syrup and spray on vegetable oil to make the french toast. At the table to dress the french toast, there was honey, maple syrup, peanut butter, and some home made jelly, plus coffee, tea and juice to drink. Each of the ingredients, the condiments and drinks were marked in my notebook. This went for each meal and snack for a week. During this time, if I used something up and had to replace it I made note of it. At the end of the week some patterns were beginning to emerge, but I still had a long way to go before I could have a clear idea of what things I would store in my pantry.

While I was gathering information I also started looking for places that I could store extra food supplies. Our house is by purpose and design, compact so most of our storage space is already in service. There were a couple of places where I could put items that weren't needed to be immediately available, but not enough room for what I was intending. We don't have a garage and there is no basement, just a small crawl space. The attic is out of the question since it is way too hot up there for food storage, so some creative thought would be necessary.

I decided at that point, that the year of food idea needed to be taken on in increments. I would start with three months of staples and common daily use items and work from there. I should be able to store most of three months of food supply within the storage areas I had in the house. So I began Phase #1: Staples and basic daily use items for 3 months. I calculated how much of these staple and daily use items we would use in 3 months, example: spaghetti noodles would be used in some capacity probably twice a month, so for a three month supply I would need 6 lbs. of organic pasta. *[ As a side note Traders Joes has the best organic semolina pasta I have found and it is cheaper than I can get it from my wholesale or Co-op sources.] When I went to the store with my list, I purchased what I needed for meals this payday and then if the item was *starred* as a 3 month supply item I would buy one for immediate use and one for stockpiling, (unless it was on sale then I might get two!). I really didn't end up spending more than my food budget even with the extra purchases, I just planned simpler meals that use less expensive ingredients or cut out the meat in a meal or two and it made up the difference.

Before long I was storing my extra staples in snap top storage containers under my bed. I keep a kitchen ledger as a record of my menu plans, shopping lists, and recipes I make up along the way, so I just started at the back and worked forward to keep track of what we had in our storage and where I put it. It wasn't long before under my bed was full so I moved on to my son's bed and then I cleaned out one of our homeschool cabinets that just had "stuff" in it...egg cartons and paper towel tubes we were going to use for projects, misc. art supplies that we really didn't use, last years unfinished school projects (what? you actaully finish all your school projects!? Please do tell how you manage!), and we expanded to that cabinet. In no time we had a stock pile of our family's basics: pasta, rice, honey, sugar, salt, flour, vanilla, yeast, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, bouillon, tea, coffee, these were just the foundational things that we always need to have on hand.

Once I was satisfied that we had the basics under control, I moved on to Phase Two, filling in the blanks with shelf stable vegetables and proteins, seasonings and condiments that would finish out meals. This took a little more planning financially, so we started looking for areas of our budget where we could cut out some fat. We have lived pretty lean over the years so there wasn't much fat, especially when the kids were going through groceries and clothes like wild fire, but we found some extra that everyone agreed to give up in the entertainment budget. We played games instead of renting movies, packed lunches when we were out running errands so that if we got hungry we didn't spend on expensive fast food, cut out our "I'm too tired to cook" unplanned restaurant visits and cut down on the planned meals out. We also made granola instead of eating boxed cereal, consolidated trips out to save on gas...of course we did most of these things already to some degree, but during our stocking time we were just more diligent. That got us our three month stock of protein, veggies and fill-ins.

At this point, we had been focused on building our pantry for 3-4 months. The kids were tired of staying home so much and I really needed to be able to say "I'm too tired to cook" on occasion, so we gave ourselves a break and added some fat back into the budget. It was very satisfying to all of us to see our food supplies grow and know that if things got tough, for at least three months we could live off of our pantry stock. Now the problem was just to keep our 3 month stock maintained and then plan for the next step.

I am going into more detail than may seem necessary at the moment, but there is much to consider when taking on this project, so I figure more detail may be helpful to some. But for now I will end with the admonishment that on practically any budget you can put aside some food for a rainy day, it may take awhile but it gives such peace to see the fruits of your labor! The next time I write on this subject I will talk about the long game and what it takes to go from a three month supply of food to 6 then 12 and give you some tips and trick on making your grocery dollars go further.

Blog Hops this post is linked to:

Clever Chicks Blog Hop#121


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