How To Start Prepping It's Not Too Late Keep stockpiling foods add to prepper pantry food prepping supplies
stockpile hi it's AlaskaGranny Alaska Prepper are you a beginning prepper and
you're wondering how do I get started with food storage prepping supplies wondering what best foods to
get started with are you concerned because food shortages seem to be a reality that isn't going
away prices are rising foods are less readily available and there may be food on the shelf but
maybe it's not completely full the shelf it's only the front row of the shelf or the selection and
the variety of foods is just not there the shelf may be loaded for half of the aisle but it doesn't
include any variety it's all of the same food whether you like it or not that's what's available
I like to spend time at Granny Camp which is my Alaska off-grid cabin
when I come out here I spend a lot of time alone and it doesn't have any electricity doesn't have
any running water it doesn't have any of those things it's basically just a cabin in the woods
I need to have basic foods that are simple to prepare just using something like a camp stove
or a fire pit what are some foods as preppers that you can stockpile that are long lasting
easy to prepare and don't require something like refrigeration well they always talk about beans
and rice and yes I have some beans out here but it's not likely that I would want to prepare dried
beans because they take a long time to cook and I'm cooking on like a camp stove but I have them
out here because if that's all I had yes I would certainly learn to figure out how to make them
with limited resources along with your dried beans and rice make sure you have some cans of
beans it may not always be practical to cook the dried beans you may not have the fuel or the thyme
but you can still make a meal using your beans if you have some that are already fully cooked
in a can rice is great because you can basically put it into the boiling water put on the lid and
allow it to just sit and it will finish cooking by itself beans are a little more complicated however
I do bring lentils out here lentils are a great type of a bean they're legumes and they
are faster cooking yes they still take probably half an hour 45 minutes but they don't take
as long as regular dried beans you can put a handful of lentils into a can of Italian style
stewed tomatoes or diced tomatoes and simmer it on the pot and the lentils will cook
think of it like risotto stir it occasionally if it needs more liquid add some water but there's
quite a bit of water already in the can and you can usually prepare the lentils that way
then if you want more spices spice it up and that's an easy thing that you can serve
over pasta the lentils are sort of like what the beef would be and you may not have meat
or a way to keep meat refrigerated or frozen and you can substitute something like a can of meat
or you can use lentils pasta is also a great food to have on hand it lasts nearly forever
I always store it into jars so because it's airtight sometimes I vacuum seal it but you need
to be careful because dried pastas have little sharp corners and sometimes when you vacuum seal
these types of foods it makes a little pin hole and you may not even realize that there is a hole
and air is still leaking in so it's easier for me to store them into glass jars or hard sided
plastic containers with tight fitting lids the spaghetti is just too long I just break it in half
and pour it into the jar if space is a concern look for shapes of pasta that are the most uniform
something like spaghetti linguine fettuccine angel hair least amount of space compared to something
like rotini pasta or penne pasta which it's all basically tastes the same it's just the shape
but if you have something that's twirly or hollow in the middle you need more space to store
that kind of pasta in your food storage it's nice to have those different varieties it may not be
practical if you live in tight quarters oatmeal is great you don't even have to cook it you can even
make oatmeal as overnight oats pour some of the oatmeal into a clean jar add some water you can
even add the regular toppings that you like I have some brown sugar some raisins craisins whatever
you like on top of your oatmeal then just allow it to soak overnight and your oats will become soft
and they're ready to eat I never buy the instant oatmeal I think they're very expensive and they
don't have anywhere near the amount of food that you get if you buy oats I also prefer to buy
the long cooking oats simply because I feel like you're getting more nutrition more food yes they
take a little longer to prepare but if you're soaking them or you put them on to boil cook
regular old-fashioned oatmeal a little longer than the quick cooking it's finished cooking in just
a few more minutes another easy food that can go into your prepper pantry is something like pancake
mix this one's by Krusteaz's it's the blueberry pancake mix you just add water I can measure it
into a bowl stir it up and cook it right in a little pan over my camping stove I store these
types of foods in the container and I just write the measurements on it to make one or two servings
and then it's ready for me to measure out and begin to prepare whatever I want if you want
toppings to go like syrups or something make sure that you have that with your pancake mix when I
buy boxes of things like pasta roni Kraft macaroni and cheese stove top stuffing suddenly salad I
like to take those out of the package because I don't want to store them in a cardboard box and
I put them in a ziploc bag and then I store them inside a canning jar with a tight fitting lid then
when I want to make one I can pull out and here's an entire package ready for me to prepare see how
much less room that takes up than a big old box full of air plus the box can get chewed on by
critters it doesn't keep your food air tight and you're just wasting so much space in your pantry
this helps the food last much longer I have in each bag I have the seasoning pack and the pastas
and several of them will fit into a jar I've had these types of foods last several years past the
date on the package and they're still perfectly fine the only thing that would actually go out
of date in these would be the seasoning packet maybe the macaroni and cheese packet wouldn't be
good to eat anymore or the seasoning packet in your pasta roni but the macaroni or the pasta is
going to stay fresh nearly forever so don't throw the entire thing out if you think that the sauce
packet is no longer good to eat cook the macaroni or the pasta and then just top it with something
else one thing I did discover I couldn't buy I couldn't find enough metal lids a few years
ago so I bought some of the plastic lids which I thought were great but I realized that they just
don't keep things as airtight as the regular lid so one thing that you can do is put a metal lid
over it the regular metal canning lid and then add the plastic lid to help keep it airtight but just
the plastic lid isn't going to keep your food as long term as a metal lid look over your canning
jars some of them actually have the measurements on the side so that you can fill this up then you
know do I have a half a cup one cup having that built-in measuring cup can help you know how many
servings might be left in your dry ingredients you can also use it as a measuring cup to add water
into your mixes if you like beverages get some tea bags how about some powdered milk
this one is the Nido Fortificada which is my favorite powdered milk I've done videos about
how much I like Nido powdered milk it's the only powdered milk that I do store I'll put a link to
that video in case you're interested to learn more about what's my favorite kind of powdered milk
I also have hot chocolate mix which I made up myself from foods I have in my prepper pantry
I'll put a link to a video on how to make the hot chocolate mix if you're interested I have a jar of
granola this is granola that I made myself in the crock pot I'll put a link to that video of how to
make granola in the crock pot if you want to learn to make it yourself it's really simple and then
you can control the flavors and the ingredients so that you're eating foods that you actually enjoy
in addition to your basic foods you need some easy to open foods that you can make a
meal in a hurry because sometimes an emergency means having something to eat today right now
at this time you don't have time to start cooking any of these items then you want to have instant
things that are already prepared ready to eat you can get pouch meals you can look for the hormel
compleats that come in a little dish they're designed to be heated up in the microwave but
if you don't have a microwave some of these I've heated them up in a pot of hot water
but you don't even need to heat them up they're completely cooked and you can just tear them open
and eat them if you don't have time to heat them up if it's summertime you could probably just
put it on the dashboard of your car outside in the sunshine and that'll heat it up in no time
you can also look for things that don't need to be heated up at all like this quinoa artichoke
cup it has two different cups and you just stir them together they don't have to be heated up
it's an easy ready to eat meal it even includes a little spoon which isn't the best spoon I've ever
had but it's nice to have it because otherwise you're going to have a harder time eating this
then think about snack foods you can have peanut butter and crackers you can make meals out of
canned food have some canned fruits and vegetables but make sure that you rotate those they don't
last forever some people say canned foods last forever and it just isn't true fruit and tomatoes
don't last nearly as long as other foods do the meat can last a long time lots of foods can last
longer but you're supposed to be buying foods that you're willing to eat and you're rotating them
and especially with the things like fruits and tomatoes pay attention to the date because
the acidity in the fruits and the tomatoes can actually start to deteriorate the can you always
want to look over the can and see does it have anything that's bulging anything that looks weird
and if it does throw it away just because it's out of date though you don't need to throw it
away when you open it it shouldn't spurt it should smell good it should look right and you can even
take a little taste but if you have any doubt at all throw it out that's what my mother always
said when in doubt throw it out it's not worth getting sick over a few dollars worth of food
you can get a can of chicken a can of mixed vegetables a package of instant potatoes you can
put that together and make a meal and it's simple you just need to heat it up you just need to add
water to the potatoes and that's all there is to it I like the Idahoan instant potatoes they're
very good you only need to add water some of the packages require you to add milk
and butter Idahoan instant mashed potatoes just require water we may not always have all of the
additional ingredients to make the meal stock up on canned ready to eat meals like chili and soup
you can even take a can of soup and heat it up and serve it over mashed potatoes you can serve
it over pasta you can serve it over rice there's a lot of different ways and combinations that you
can have to make your meal more filling make sure you have the basics to make your meals flavorful
I have oil cinnamon pepper garlic and onion I buy the onion powder garlic powder I don't buy them as
salt there's already too much salt in everything and that's an expensive way to buy salt why would
you want to pay for salt when you could get all onion or all garlic and add any salt that you need
salt is another food that they will tell you just leave it in the package and I have had a bad luck
with that I left salt out here at Granny Camp over the winter when I came back it was hard as a rock
it had absorbed too much moisture just from the humidity in the air and then it was basically
no good nobody wants to sit around chipping away and grating at a box of salt when you could store
it properly so that it's going to stay dry and last longer the better you store your food the
longer it lasts these are some basic foods and ideas to help you get started with food storage
if you haven't started begin immediately it's very important food shortages are on the horizon
whether we want to admit it or not nobody likes the idea of it but you want to make sure that
you'll have the things you need if you have started your food storage look it over make sure
that you have foods for breakfast lunch dinner and snacks and that your food is being rotated so
that it's fresh if you see a new food you think you'd like to try buy one take it home and try
it if you like it go buy more don't stock up on something you don't know what it is it's a waste
of your money and your food storage pantry space to find out nobody wants to eat it trying new
meals putting foods together in unique ways might help you just find a few new family favorites
if there's foods that you think we should include in our stockpile share it in the
comments below we can learn a lot from each other to help make the road ahead as smooth as possible
if you enjoyed my video I hope you'll share it with someone else you think might like it
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