Food Storage Basics
By Laura Owsley
P
erhaps you’ve been working on building a good stockpile
for a while, combining coupons and sales. Your pantry is
looking full and so is your freezer. You wonder how long
you could go without shopping if you couldn’t? What if you
couldn’t go shopping? What if you knew your family would
be living off food storage for several months? What would
you make sure you had on hand? Some things would be
difficult to be without. The focus for the month of February
is breakfast foods. By using a monthy calander and focusing
on a certain food group help me to stay organized and not
become overwhelmed by the magnitude that food storage can
be. One bite at a time isn’t overwhelming! You’ll eventually
make it on your own and it will be amazing!!
One great thing about breakfast foods are that you can eat
them for other meals besides breakfast and they’re affordable.
Also, if you ever lose your job, your kids will thank you for
having some cereal in the pantry. And you’ll have some
reserves to get you through a few months.
Start with a goal to gather a 3 month supply of shelf stable
everyday foods in your pantry that your family will eat. So
for the breakfast foods you’ll need 3 boxes of cereal, 5 lbs. of
oats, 2 lbs of pancake mix and 32 oz or pancake syrup plus
8 oz of powdered eggs. I’ve checked to see how long fresh
eggs from the store last and the site foodsafety.gov says 3-5
weeks. You can freeze eggs too, but not in the shell (stir yolk
and white together and add 1/2 t salt or 1 t sugar to egg for
storage). Store in airtight container or heavy duty zip lock
bag. Label and your done!
Remember that the amounts listed are for 1 adult so change
the amount to purchase to fit