basic foods how much should you store for a year what to buy how to store hi it's
AlaskaGranny Alaska Prepper do you ever look over your prepper Pantry food stockpile and
wonder how much food do I really need how much food is enough if we look at just the very basic
foods which would be beans and rice there are guidelines of how much you should store for one
person per year food storage guidelines begin with grains they don't necessarily say rice they say
grains the amount of grains that you should store per person per year is 400 pounds grains now that
may sound like a ridiculous amount it sounds like who on Earth could eat all that but if you didn't
have a lot of other foods to eat probably that is what you would need I've also read that when
you're planning your food storage stockpile you should add an additional 10 percent just
because sometimes Foods get spilled packages get broken food get wasted having that built-in buffer
zone can help make sure that you don't run out food in the most critical times we also need
to realize a typical person needs approximately 2,000 calories per day now of course depending on
what size you are and how active you are that will vary but we're just using those as guidelines now
if you think about 400 pounds of grains don't just think that means one kind of grain it doesn't just
mean rice it doesn't just mean wheat you need to think about all of the different types of grains
that there are that you could have in your food stock pile one of the things we realize is that
we need a variety we want to have different types of nutrition come from different ingredients we
also want to avoid food fatigue nobody wants to eat the same thing over and over again
don't try to stockpile your 400 pounds grain all in one shopping trip no one is able to accomplish
that you want to think about the foods that you want every time you go to the store add
a package pick up one food you can add to your stockpile if you can add more than one that's
great you'll add to your stockpile you'll have more food it'll build up faster but if you can
only get one food item just get one the way I look at it every package of food that I set aside now
is an additional meal that I can provide for myself and my family sometime in the future
okay let's look over whether some of the varieties that we can get of course we know we can get white
rice white rice is going to last forever just like other grains and dried foods you want to store
rice in an airtight container you can store dry foods in jars store dry food in clean containers
that are food grade that you cleaned out yourself you can vacuum seal dry food use oxygen absorbers
add a bay leaf the most important thing is that you put it food in an airtight container and seal
it as well as possible and you always want to store your Foods in containers that only held
food brown rice is also a fine grain to have in your stockpile but it's not going to last anywhere
near as long as white rice brown rice has natural oils in it and the oils become rancid so yes you
can have brown rice but you want to make sure that you rotate it within a few years it's not going to
last for 30 years and the last thing you want to happen is in a real emergency you go to your food
stockpile and it's spoiled and it's no longer edible and that could bring a huge catastrophe
when you think you've prepared and realized that you made some critical food storage mistakes
oatmeal is also a great food stockpile can last for many years you don't even have to
cook oatmeal soak oatmeal overnight make overnight oats then you'll be able to eat
oatmeal another variety of grains that I like to store are pastas and macaroni I do the same
thing I put pasta noodles macaroni into airtight containers but remember storage container doesn't
have to be a jar just because I'm showing you jars you can store dry food in mylar bags you can add
oxygen absorbers you can store them in five gallon buckets there are lots of different ways there's
no one right way to store your food there are many ways to do it you want to choose containers that
fit into your pantry and the sizes that fit into your lifestyle lots of people don't want to open
up a 50 pound bucket and then they feel like they must eat their way through to the bottom of it and
that's not logical or sensible that you would do that unless you have a huge family so if you have
a smaller family or you live alone it's perfectly fine to store Foods in smaller containers and then
it's so much easier to rotate food because you can grab one of your jars from your stockpile you
can use that food then you can buy more refill it and put it in the back push the older food forward
just like they do in the store first in first out you add the newest food to the back so that you're
always consuming your food while it's still fresh and the foods with the longest shelf life will be
there when you need them after pasta and macaroni do you ever use barley maybe you like grits there
are different kinds of grains that you can look at that maybe they aren't as popular but you want to
check them out and add them to your food stockpile I also choose to store quinoa because it's a very
delicious and nutritious grain you can even pick up packages of quinoa at the Dollar Tree and it
is a very nice almost a Nutty flavor quinoa to pick up a small package quinoa try something you
haven't used before and see if it's something you want to add into your food stockpile if you
like Mexican food maybe you want to try your hand at making corn tortillas pick up some Masa flour
but I haven't stored this appropriately it needs to get into an airtight container just like the
other grain so it's going to last longer now when you pick up a food like this when you're still in
the store look around on the seams look around on the shelves make sure you don't see anything that
looks like weevils that would already have contaminated the food those weevils exist
naturally in grain products so you want to check it out before you bring food home you don't want
to bring home an infected package and have it go swarming through all of the food in your stockpile
and that's one of the reasons store food airtight bugs can't live in an airtight container bugs
can't then spread into other Foods occasionally you also want to inspect the shelves in your
pantry and make sure that you don't have any kind of pests that have come to invade your territory
did you realize popcorn is a grain I've had trouble with actual cornmeal that has gotten bugs
in my pantry and that is really the only grain that I've had a huge problem with so I will store
popcorn but if I do buy cornmeal that's something that I like to rotate far more frequently than
other grains you can also add grains to your prepper Pantry stockpile with the foods that are
already sealed to last a long long time you can buy foods from the LDS Mormon church I choose to
buy foods like flour wheat and oatmeal LDS mormon foods come in a box with six cans I also like to
pick up long term stockpile foods from Augason Farms Augason Farms foods very good high quality
foods and I like them but remember when you have other ingredients mixed in these are all single
ingredients they're going to last the longest but when you get something like Augason Farms pancake
mix it has other ingredients in it and so the it's only going to last for 10 years it probably would
last longer but be aware that whenever you buy a combined food item it can't last as long as these
other just single ingredients it's just the way it works if you look over all of the different kind
of grains and think about the varieties that you might want to add to your prepper Pantry
food stockpile the ways you might use them pick them up one package at a time before you know it
you'll be well on your way to having the amount of foods that you want in addition to your grains
in your prepper pantry food stockpile you also want to have beans because when you put together
your beans and rice you're getting a complete nutrition and those are foods that are eaten all
over the world they've kept populations alive for centuries the amount of beans that you would need
for one person for one year would be 60 pounds now you still can store beans the same way as grains
store your beans into jars you can store beans in mylar bags you can store beans into buckets the
better you seal the beans the better and longer they're going to last then you can also just pick
up beans one bag at a time and there's so many different varieties beans you can get red beans
think about split peas and lentils there's all different kinds of beans and the sad thing is
beans used to be a dollar a pound you could easily find beans for a dollar a pound and I just don't
find that to be true anymore beans nearly always higher cost more than that but that's okay you
can still get a bag beans at a time one pound at a time something to think about is beans require
a lot of water and a lot of cooking so I also have a large supply of canned beans the way you
want to figure it out is one pound of beans is equal to about three and a half cans of already
prepared beans so if you're trying to figure out how does that equal 60 pounds well just put
one pound dry beans plus three cans beans that's two pounds and then you're on your way to having
beans that you can use today if you need to or in the future when you have time to maybe soak
beans or cook them in your crock pot or cook them all day on your stove the one bean I try not to
store in my stockpile as a dried Bean is kidney beans kidney beans have some kind of an enzyme
or something that's in them that actually contains toxins that you absolutely must soak and cook your
kidney beans for longer than other beans so if you want to have kidney beans do what I do store them
in a can or pay attention when you're cooking them so that you realize that you make sure you
get them completely done I also like to include lentils and split peas because lentils split peas
don't have to take anywhere near as long to cook you can cook lentils split peas in an hour I love
to fill up my crock pot with beans I don't soak them ahead of time I cook them low and slow for
a long time and I just find beans are so simple to use as long as you have time it's not that you can
come home after a busy day and get some of your dried beans and have them for dinner they're not
going to be ready unless you have lentils or split peas but you can start the day ahead or start in
the morning with a little bit of planning you can have those dried beans for your meal otherwise
reach into your pantry and grab a few cans of beans and go ahead they're so versatile you can
make all kinds of recipes with beans so those are just the two most basic foods that could
really see you through that are a wonderful way to stockpile and add up into the foods that you
have on hand but remember you should also have a wide variety of everyday Foods in your pantry that
you can mix in or add to your beans and rice so that you get more nutrition more variety and more
filling meals that you enjoy in the summer time you also have the ability to grow some food and
add to your stockpile and even in the winter you could do some sprouting of your beans and peas and
seeds and things and then you can have additional fresh food because that's part of being a prepper
is figuring out how to be self-sufficient how can I add variety food how can I add
longevity food how can I continue to have food going forward if I have to only rely on myself
so it's a big responsibility to be a prepper but you don't have to go like overwhelmed with
how much there is to do you just start where you are add a package food add a can food add some
food get something and put it away the best you can and then look over ways to use your
food that you do have and then rotate food so that you will continue to have more prepping is
Lifestyle Insurance it ensures that we have the food and the things that we need no matter what
the Day brings and that's why I'm a prepper I want every day to be the best possible day I can have
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