Food storage and reasons to have it:
We now have water plus running water, ways to cook, ways to start fire, now we need food.
Food for short term power outage: Why is it, when a hurricane is approaching or a severe freeze warning is issued, people run to the grocery and clean it out? Because they only have from one to three day's food in their house. They are no more than three days from starving. One would think that might make an impression to keep more food in the house all the time, but it doesn't happen - every time a warning goes out, the same behavior. Look at this another way; stores use a "just in time" method of re-stocking. If a food item is cleaned off the shelf, there's no more in the back of the store - no more will be on the shelf until a truck brings it there and if the truck can't get there, that shelf stays empty. This fact alone should push you to keep more food in your house. If you want to be scared into storing food, read, "Light's Out" by David Crawford - that will do it - superior book and scary as hell, set right here in Texas around San Antonio.
From experience, I can say the first food you will eat after power goes out, is food in your freezer as it defrosts. Wow, that's a lot of food at one time that needs to be cooked and eaten. If you know power is likely to go out due to an oncoming event, and have prepared with ice in a large cooler, you will be able to keep this food from spoiling for days as it defrosts. and can eat this "stash" until it's no longer safe. You know which canned goods to get for several day's power outage - the usual tuna, Spam types, chili, fruit, etc., etc. If you have room in freezer, put in a loaf or more, of bread. I say this due to bread being the last food to come back after five days of loss of power. I suppose it's because bread is a fresh item, has to be baked every day and those bakeries have to get up and running again. So, freeze some if you have space. Always assume you have no power, and keep five days of canned food and packaged food such as your cereal, etc., in your house You can do that easily and you need to do it now. If you can't live for five days right now without going to the grocery, fix that problem. Put a post on this thread when you've done it and we'll all celebrate.
Longer term power outage and/or it isn't safe to go to a grocery store: Why would it not be safe to go to the grocery? Answer: public unrest resulting in riots, stealing, killing. The majority of people are calm, rational, law abiding, civilized, all the time because they have water, food, shelter. Take any one of those away, and life is threatened causing the thin veneer of civilized behavior to disappear. Perhaps you think you wouldn't resort to rioting or stealing or worse - yes, you would after no more than two days without water and if you had water but no food, you would do it a several days later. If something happened to shut down banks, loss of power or other reason (taken a look at our economy recently plus the cost of food?), and there was no money to be had or food cost so much people couldn't buy it, they would storm grocery stores and take what they needed to stay alive. There's not enough law enforcement personnel to stop that behavior and you don't want to be in the middle of that. Again, read, "Light's Out" to scare you into preparing.
Perhaps you say, FEMA loves me and will give me water, food, shelter. Surely your TV works and you've seen long lines of people waiting for hours for a FEMA bottle of water and a few MRE meals. I beg you to forget government assistance to save your life - that is depending on someone else to save you and do you know one FEMA official who would make sure you survived over the 300+ million living in this country?? I don't want to be one of those millions - do you? I might have been able to get a bit of special treatment when George Bush was president, but I'm not on Obama's Christmas card list (more likely on his "dirt" list, but I digress). Staying alive is not a political issue - take a pledge to be responsible for the safety of your family and store water and food, okay?
How to choose and store food:
There are three major ways to accomplish this if you don't have a self sufficient veggie garden and can your own food and raise food providing animals. I have gone over and over food storage for years and tried methods that worked and didn't work. I've thrown out stored food because I screwed up one way or the other. I've studied the shelf life of every canned food item known to mankind (well maybe not every canned item but it feels that way). Here are three major ways to store food:
1. Buy everything in regular grocery store or places like Sams/Costco (no fresh food included). Re-package anything not in cans so it won't spoil for years (flour, cornmeal, rice, dried beans, etc.). Buy it over time or mega amounts several times.
2. Buy it all from a long term food storage company and you're done.
3. A combination of 1 and 2. That's what I did.
First, determine the amount of time for which you want to prepare. If you're just beginning, the easiest method is to prepare for one month of sustainable food. That one month will give you some security and stop those feelings of panic because you have nothing now. It also gives you experience in making a plan. You will screw up somewhere - too much of this and not enough of that - forgot to get this and that. It's just easier to deal with one month. Once that month is done, make a plan for another month; you'll likely adjust the first one month plan you made. A notebook will help you keep your act together.
What is food anyway? It's what you put in your mouth to give you power in order to breath, move, repair/build cells and resist disease, so foods are made of good chemicals our body uses. Categories of these foods/chemicals and their state for long term storing, are:
Vegetables - canned, dehydrated, freeze dried
Legumes - beans, canned and dried
Meats - canned, jerky
Fruits - canned, dehydrated
Grains - flour including pasta, cornmeal, oats, rice - especially stored for long life
Nuts - canned, jars peanut butter, peanut butter powder
Eggs - powdered, plus egg substitute for recipes calling for eggs
Dairy - instant and powdered milk, butter powder, canned butter
Sugar in some form for quick energy and sweetening (regular sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, candy bars, granola bars, etc.).
Sauces such as bottled/canned pasta sauce, salsa/picante, gravies, ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc.
Plus chemicals to make flour/cornmeal rise (baking powder, baking soda, plus yeast if you want to make regular bread presuming you have a working oven), iodized salt for iodine and taste appeal, plus seasonings for taste appeal,
Try this: Assume there is no power but, due to your smarts and planning, you have water and a way to cook (but no oven). Make a menu for one day, using no fresh food, choosing one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner and any snacks the family might eat in a day. Record how much of each food you used. Done that? Now, make another day's menu and continue until you have 7 days of menus. Try to vary your meals as much as possible. Add up the amount of each food you used for that week. Be sure to add in the amount of sugar, flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, seasonings, sauces you used. You can take that week's menus and multiply the amounts by four and have a month's amount of food. For good measure, add another week's worth.
Discussion of each food category and how best to store it follows.
