FOOD STORAGE

We all have various types of insurance to protect our families. You have probably have health insurance, car insurance, life insurance, and homeowners' insurance. There is no guarantee that you'll ever need these policies (hope you don't!). But you invest in them because you understand that should you ever need them, they will be invaluable. On the other hand, you know for a fact that your family will need to eat. How stable is your current food supply? How many months of food do you currently have stored? Food storage can be considered a form of insurance, and should be valued as highly as any of your other policies. And this policy is edible! Food storage as "insurance" is necessary because of the interdependencies built into our society. The food on your plate depends on all of the following working perfectly: * your bank * your job, health, and paycheck * your supermarket * the local delivery trucks and their warehouses * the manufacturer's shippers and the plant itself * the farmers and their harvesting equipment and delivery trucks * the crops themselves, and * the weather. If any one of these links breaks, your family will begin to notice it in a just few days, and will be seriously hungry very quickly after that. By storing food, you can guarantee food on the table for a year (or more). Without stored food, we are vulnerable to a break in any of these links. I have always kept a well stocked pantry; if I am truthful it is because I absolutely detest shopping, so to buy bulk and only have to venture into the stores once a month for the groceries was a blessing to me. Of course having recently moved means I can’t get the fruit from the backyard now (a couple of years yet before they are fruiting enough to can) so the trips for that and dairy produce continue. A basic food storage calculator HERE can be used to help determine how much of these staple foods a person would need to store in order to sustain life for one full year. In addition to storing the basic food items many people choose to supplement their food storage with frozen or preserved garden-grown fruits and vegetables and freeze-dried or canned produce. An unvarying diet of staples prepared in the same way can cause appetite exhaustion so it is said, personally I believe if you were starving you wouldn’t care how many times you had eaten it, you would simply be grateful for food. An additional benefit to having a basic supply of food storage in the home is for the cost savings. Costs of dry bulk foods (before preparation) are often considerably less than convenience and fresh foods purchased at local markets or supermarkets. Food is stored by almost every human society and by many animals. Storing of food has a variety of purposes: * preparation for periods of scarcity or famine * taking advantage of short term surplus of food as at harvest time * enabling a better balanced diet throughout the year * preparing for special events and celebrations * planning for catastrophe or emergency * saving money by buying in bulk * providing short season foods all year round by canning or dehydrating And of course there are many more reasons why you would have a well stocked pantry; the reasons are as individual as the people who maintain them. Always make sure you keep a list of foods removed, you need to ensure you replace them in due time. Make sure you rotate your pantry or you will end up with food that will need to be disposed of. I keep a black marker pen in my pantry, I mark anything that has a use by date too small to see at a glance with a larger more legible date and I store new goodies to the back always using from the front first. Keep bay leaves and lavender throughout the pantry. I find they keep all the pests away. When bringing home rices etc, store it in the freezer for a few days first, if there are any larvae in there it will kill them. Store your soaps unwrapped. The drying out over time will ensure they last longer. I keep mine in a large plastic tub with small ventilation holes in the lid. Mark all the foods you have canned or dehydrated very clearly and rotate as you do for all other stock. Make sure your pantry (ours is a spare bedroom) is dark and cool. We blocked the window completely with white foam, bubble wrap, roller blind and curtains and then placed large wardrobes we store linen in right in the front of the window. The outside will later have shade cloth added over the whole side area. Store dehydrated and/or freeze dried foods as well as home canned and “store bought” canned goods. Make sure you add cooking oil, flours (if you don’t plan on grinding your own wheat) shortening, baking powder, soda, yeast, and powdered eggs (if you don’t have your own chooks). You can’t cook even the most basic recipes without these items. Vitamins are important, especially if you have children, since children do not store body reserves of nutrients as well as adults do. A good quality multi-vitamin and vitamin C are the most vital. Others might be added as your budget permits.

And the MOST IM0PORTANT RULE OF ALL: Store what you eat and eat what you store.

For food storage questions & answers see HERE For food storage recipes see HERE Hope your week is going well!

Take care of you and yours......and the planet:)