How to Stock Your Pantry For Hard Times

To properly stock a food pantry takes planning and preparation. You don't want to find out in the middle of an emergency situation that you forgot some crucial food item for your family.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a plan
• income for stocking your pantry
• a pantry or other place to store your food supply

1. 
    
   food storage pantry

   For many people the hard part of stocking a food pantry is trying to figure out what foods to buy, and how much of it. There is no exact way to figure this out, but if you know your family loves green beans and hates carrots, for example, you would obviously buy cans of green beans and no carrots.
   
   There are emergency preparedness companies out there who will do your thinking and planning for you; they sell survival foods for a month, three months, six months, or one year. The problem though is these programs are very expensive and many of us just can't afford to go that route.
   
   However, if you want to, in the resources section below you will find links to emergency preparedness sites that will help you stock your food pantry for hard times, the easy, if expensive, way. One of the best is a company called Emergency Essentials.

2. 
    
   mashed potatoes made from dehydrated potatoes

   For most of us, the above year supply of food from the emergency preparedness companies is just not an option, because of the upfront cost. So we will have to do the planning and put together our own three month or one year supply, whatever we decide on.
   
   This means making lists of what your family actually eats each week, or month. You might find out that you use a lot of non-essential food items in your family, and frankly these items will have little or no place in your food pantry for hard times.
   
   So, skip the potato chips, omit the sodas, and sugary cereals, for the most part, and concentrate on good wholesome food that stores well, and will keep your family healthy during an emergency.
   
   Canned vegetables and fruits are a good start because they store easily and keep well. You'll need a variety so don't only buy cases of green beans, your family may love them but not at every meal. A rough guide would be to stock up on from seven to 14 cans per week of vegetables, and the same with canned fruits. It's better to have too many than too few.
   
   Continue to estimate what your family actually uses in the way of condiments, baking supplies, pasta, rice, and beans and other legumes, each month. Try to estimate a little high if you can because it's far better to have food left over after an emergency that to under stock your food pantry for hard times.

3. Once you've got a rough idea of what your family eats each week or month, then you need to start actually buying the food. You can make this a regular part of your families monthly budget, spending say five or ten percent of your net income each month on your food pantry for hard times.
   
   Or, if you are really broke, maybe five dollars a week spent on food storage, or two or three extras of something each grocery trip. It will add up and it's better to make a start and have some food stored than have nothing at all stored because you think you can't afford it.

4. Once you've bought your food storage, you need to properly store it so it will not deteriorate. That means somewhere cool and dry. Extreme cold or heat are equally bad for your food storage, and so is moisture.
   
   A kitchen pantry is ideal or, if you don't have that, turn a spare or underused closet into a food pantry. If you're really short on space, get creative and store food under your bed, behind your couch, in a bookshelf in your kitchen, or where ever else you can find room for it.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't be intimidated by the idea that you're buying a months worth of food at a time, or more, just buy what you can now, and make a start.
• Label your food cans and bottles as you bring them home with the date, then put the newest purchases behind the older ones, so you're always rotating your food and none of it will go bad on your shelves.

Resources

• Emergency Essentials
• Food Storage 101
• Backwoods Home Food Storage
• Food Storage Made Easy
• Building Your Pantry

[jadedragoninbc]

on 12/1/2009 If you stock up a job loss or illness will not wipe you out. Good directions here.

[natlog]

on 10/17/2009 Good article, with several good points, especially advising not to buy things nobody likes. I have seen people stock barrels of dry beans, but who wants that many beans? Don't forget water. That is often the first thing to go during an emergency such as a flood. It can be stored in a garage or basement in anything from gallon jugs to 55 gallon drums that had food as their original contents.

[trvlarrngr]

on 9/18/2009 Thanks for the tips. It can help in the case of a pandemic, epidemic, or catastrophe. 5 stars

[withinreason]

on 8/25/2009 Great article. 5* I recommend you.

[cerio23]

on 7/29/2009 That was a great article. I am going to do it! It would be easy to do without spending a lot of money at one time. That was a good point which sold the validity of the subject you chose for this article.