Well, not like with wood and nails and stuff. I'm assuming that you've got a good pantry spot, are being creative by putting cases of soup and toilet paper under the bed, or can figure out for yourself that you could put some shelves under the stairs. After all, I can't see into your house. (Yet.)
What I'm talking about is, what should you store?
The answer depends a bit on what kind of person you are. When you sew, do you try to make your product look like the one on the pattern picture? When you cook, do you follow the recipe exactly? Or are you daring enough to substitute?
If you like following lists and instructions, you can look at any of the lists I have on the sidebar. If you're an average American, the $20 per week one will probably be the one with the most familiar foods in it. (Although, it's an old list and will cost more than $20 per week. Also, if you do the list, will you tell me what the canned ham tastes like? I've been curious, but I haven't bought any in case it's textured like Spam.)
The downside with following someone else's list, though, can be summed up in two words: Mustard Greens.
That's right. Most of the lists on the sidebar, as well as the ones you'll find around the internet or in books, contain canned mustard greens. Which, I mean, is okay; they are there because they supply necessary vitamins and a teeny smidge of fiber, and there aren't that many shelf-stable cheap vegetables that can do the same. But do you know any five-year-olds who eat canned mustard greens? How about any thirty-five-year-olds?
All the lists you will find have this problem, more or less--they contain stuff you don't like, don't have access to, or don't know how to cook. They are not, for this reason, awesome to simply follow blindly.
They are good, however, for demonstrating exactly how much food it takes to feed someone for three months. (Hint: a lot.)
So I'm going to help you out, here, with an idea I stole from this blog. (Disclaimer: I'm not Mormon. Don't go to her blog and figure that I am asking you to convert. I'm not.)
Here's what you do, if the whole concept of putting food away is overwhelming:
1. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and write down 14 dinners that your family already eats and likes.
2. Write down 14 lunches.
3. Write down 7 breakfasts.
So my dinner list looked something like this:
1. Chicken enchiladas
2. Spagetti
3. Mac and cheese
4. Black beans and rice
5. Biscuts and gravy with fruit
And so on.
Next, on another piece of paper, start writing down ingredients. Like, for chicken enchiladas, the ingredients would look like this:
Chicken
Tortillas (flour, baking powder, salt, lard/shortening)
Green chiles
Enchilada sauce
Cream of mushroom soup
Cheese
As you go down your list some of the ingredients will start to overlap--baking powder, for instance, will be in both my tortillas and my biscuits. Guesstimate quantities for each item--err on the side of having too much. For instance, it's possible to make enchiladas with 1 cup or 1 can of chicken, but my family likes it better with more chicken, so I put 2 cans.
If you come across some ingredients that aren't shelf-stable (like cheese), think for a bit about what you could do to make it shelf-stable. In my case, instead of the fresh shredded cheddar we normally use in enchiladas, I substituted 1/3 of a brick of shelf-stable Velveeta. You could also buy the fancy cheese powder, or just have enchiladas without cheese.
So the list of ingredients now looks like this:
Chicken - 2 cans
Flour - 20 lbs
Baking powder - 1 can
Shortening - 1 can
Salt - 1 pound
Green chiles - 1 can
Enchilada sauce - 1 can
Cream of mushroom soup - 1 can
Cheese - 1/3 brick Velveeta
And so on. What you now have is a list of ingredients and quantities for 14 days of dinners (you'll do the same for lunches and breakfasts). Here's the beauty of mathematics: now take your quantities and multiply them by 6, and you will have how much you need for 3 months of dinners.
(Yes, this will involve rotating the same two weeks of meals, but realistically most people tend to do this anyway. How many dinners do you routinely cook? You might as well make it official.)
So now your list looks like this:
Chicken - 12 cans
Flour - 120 lbs
Baking powder - 6 cans
Shortening - 6 cans
Salt - 6 pounds
Green chiles - 6 cans
Enchilada sauce - 6 cans
Cream of mushroom soup - 6 cans
Cheese - 2 boxes Velveeta
And so on.
Repeat this process for lunches and breakfasts. If your family is like mine, you really don't have to come up with as many different breakfasts as you do dinners--I came up with a rotating five, given that most days we eat oatmeal, eggs and toast, or pancakes.
There! Now you have a pantry list adapted to foods that your family already likes and eats, and you only need to add a few things to round it out:
Multivitamins - 180, adult or children's, whatever kind you like. You may also want to throw in a bottle of chewable vitamin C tablets.
Any other medicines you need, such as prescriptions etc. If you tell your doctor that you want to have an extra supply of medication for emergencies, they may let you fill 3 months at a time. (This will not work with narcotics or ADD medication for obvious reasons, but I know of no black market for blood pressure medication or fluoride tablets.)
Batteries for flashlights etc. - I like rechargable ones, especially if you can get a solar charger.
Water - you should store some in jugs (2 liter pop bottles, washed out first, work well), and probably you should also have some way to filter it. If I were to store enough water for 3 months for my family, this would be close to 500 gallons, and that would be with just enough for drinking, cooking, and a wet washcloth to wipe off with now and again. So a filter is useful-- in case you wind up with frozen pipes, contaminated local water sources (like in New Orleans after Katrina), or a note from the water company that they can't filter as much as they used to because they've had to lay people off. You may not need a filter if you live where the major concern would be biological contaminants--in that case, boil your water for 10 minutes per every 1000 feet you are above sea level. But in my neck of the woods, we have to worry about heavy metals and mine contamination--we need a filter.
Toilet paper - a roll per week per person. For my family this is 1 roll x 12 weeks x 5 people = 60 rolls.
Pet food - if you have animals, you have to consider them, too. My dog (a big lab) goes through about 25 lbs of dog food per month, stretched a bit by the fact that he eats a lot of kid-dropped food.
Now that you've done your multiplying, you have your shopping list already made. Sit down and figure out how long you're going to spread your buying over, and make weekly or monthly shopping lists. (I take it as a given that you are not going to go buy all of this at once, but if you have a tax refund in hand or something and want to get it all at once, go to Costco and load up.)
This process should at least get you started. There is more you can do, of course--you can venture into the realm of powdered eggs, you can think about how you would entertain yourselves if you had unreliable electricity, you can think about storing some extra for your aunt who might move in with you or the little old couple next door--but we're just beginning, today.
Cheers,
Breanna
What I'm talking about is, what should you store?
The answer depends a bit on what kind of person you are. When you sew, do you try to make your product look like the one on the pattern picture? When you cook, do you follow the recipe exactly? Or are you daring enough to substitute?
If you like following lists and instructions, you can look at any of the lists I have on the sidebar. If you're an average American, the $20 per week one will probably be the one with the most familiar foods in it. (Although, it's an old list and will cost more than $20 per week. Also, if you do the list, will you tell me what the canned ham tastes like? I've been curious, but I haven't bought any in case it's textured like Spam.)
The downside with following someone else's list, though, can be summed up in two words: Mustard Greens.
That's right. Most of the lists on the sidebar, as well as the ones you'll find around the internet or in books, contain canned mustard greens. Which, I mean, is okay; they are there because they supply necessary vitamins and a teeny smidge of fiber, and there aren't that many shelf-stable cheap vegetables that can do the same. But do you know any five-year-olds who eat canned mustard greens? How about any thirty-five-year-olds?
All the lists you will find have this problem, more or less--they contain stuff you don't like, don't have access to, or don't know how to cook. They are not, for this reason, awesome to simply follow blindly.
They are good, however, for demonstrating exactly how much food it takes to feed someone for three months. (Hint: a lot.)
So I'm going to help you out, here, with an idea I stole from this blog. (Disclaimer: I'm not Mormon. Don't go to her blog and figure that I am asking you to convert. I'm not.)
Here's what you do, if the whole concept of putting food away is overwhelming:
1. Get a piece of paper and a pencil and write down 14 dinners that your family already eats and likes.
2. Write down 14 lunches.
3. Write down 7 breakfasts.
So my dinner list looked something like this:
1. Chicken enchiladas
2. Spagetti
3. Mac and cheese
4. Black beans and rice
5. Biscuts and gravy with fruit
And so on.
Next, on another piece of paper, start writing down ingredients. Like, for chicken enchiladas, the ingredients would look like this:
Chicken
Tortillas (flour, baking powder, salt, lard/shortening)
Green chiles
Enchilada sauce
Cream of mushroom soup
Cheese
As you go down your list some of the ingredients will start to overlap--baking powder, for instance, will be in both my tortillas and my biscuits. Guesstimate quantities for each item--err on the side of having too much. For instance, it's possible to make enchiladas with 1 cup or 1 can of chicken, but my family likes it better with more chicken, so I put 2 cans.
If you come across some ingredients that aren't shelf-stable (like cheese), think for a bit about what you could do to make it shelf-stable. In my case, instead of the fresh shredded cheddar we normally use in enchiladas, I substituted 1/3 of a brick of shelf-stable Velveeta. You could also buy the fancy cheese powder, or just have enchiladas without cheese.
So the list of ingredients now looks like this:
Chicken - 2 cans
Flour - 20 lbs
Baking powder - 1 can
Shortening - 1 can
Salt - 1 pound
Green chiles - 1 can
Enchilada sauce - 1 can
Cream of mushroom soup - 1 can
Cheese - 1/3 brick Velveeta
And so on. What you now have is a list of ingredients and quantities for 14 days of dinners (you'll do the same for lunches and breakfasts). Here's the beauty of mathematics: now take your quantities and multiply them by 6, and you will have how much you need for 3 months of dinners.
(Yes, this will involve rotating the same two weeks of meals, but realistically most people tend to do this anyway. How many dinners do you routinely cook? You might as well make it official.)
So now your list looks like this:
Chicken - 12 cans
Flour - 120 lbs
Baking powder - 6 cans
Shortening - 6 cans
Salt - 6 pounds
Green chiles - 6 cans
Enchilada sauce - 6 cans
Cream of mushroom soup - 6 cans
Cheese - 2 boxes Velveeta
And so on.
Repeat this process for lunches and breakfasts. If your family is like mine, you really don't have to come up with as many different breakfasts as you do dinners--I came up with a rotating five, given that most days we eat oatmeal, eggs and toast, or pancakes.
There! Now you have a pantry list adapted to foods that your family already likes and eats, and you only need to add a few things to round it out:
Multivitamins - 180, adult or children's, whatever kind you like. You may also want to throw in a bottle of chewable vitamin C tablets.
Any other medicines you need, such as prescriptions etc. If you tell your doctor that you want to have an extra supply of medication for emergencies, they may let you fill 3 months at a time. (This will not work with narcotics or ADD medication for obvious reasons, but I know of no black market for blood pressure medication or fluoride tablets.)
Batteries for flashlights etc. - I like rechargable ones, especially if you can get a solar charger.
Water - you should store some in jugs (2 liter pop bottles, washed out first, work well), and probably you should also have some way to filter it. If I were to store enough water for 3 months for my family, this would be close to 500 gallons, and that would be with just enough for drinking, cooking, and a wet washcloth to wipe off with now and again. So a filter is useful-- in case you wind up with frozen pipes, contaminated local water sources (like in New Orleans after Katrina), or a note from the water company that they can't filter as much as they used to because they've had to lay people off. You may not need a filter if you live where the major concern would be biological contaminants--in that case, boil your water for 10 minutes per every 1000 feet you are above sea level. But in my neck of the woods, we have to worry about heavy metals and mine contamination--we need a filter.
Toilet paper - a roll per week per person. For my family this is 1 roll x 12 weeks x 5 people = 60 rolls.
Pet food - if you have animals, you have to consider them, too. My dog (a big lab) goes through about 25 lbs of dog food per month, stretched a bit by the fact that he eats a lot of kid-dropped food.
Now that you've done your multiplying, you have your shopping list already made. Sit down and figure out how long you're going to spread your buying over, and make weekly or monthly shopping lists. (I take it as a given that you are not going to go buy all of this at once, but if you have a tax refund in hand or something and want to get it all at once, go to Costco and load up.)
This process should at least get you started. There is more you can do, of course--you can venture into the realm of powdered eggs, you can think about how you would entertain yourselves if you had unreliable electricity, you can think about storing some extra for your aunt who might move in with you or the little old couple next door--but we're just beginning, today.
Cheers,
Breanna
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