Pantry Preparedness: A Sustainable Approach To Food Security
Being prepared for an emergency is something that every family should strive for. No matter where you live emergency situations happen! Natural disasters, severe weather, power outages, medical emergencies, and unexpected job loss are just a few of the unpredictable life events we all experience. In some situations, you may be able to prepare for impending severe weather, but in many cases, emergency situations give us no warning. Having a well-stocked pantry provides peace of mind regarding emergency preparedness. When emergencies happen, and they do, pantry preparedness means you know you have enough food to feed your family.
What is Pantry Preparedness?
Many families go grocery shopping for a small window of time, maybe you go to the grocery store weekly, possibly bi-weekly. Pantry preparedness means you build your food supply for a longer window of time. While your end goal may mean you have stored up enough staple foods for a month or even a year, in the beginning, that may mean you stock up on dry goods for just one additional week. With persistence, you can build up to an additional two-week supply of most staples that would provide enough emergency food storage for many emergencies.
Assess Your Needs
As you begin to evaluate your pantry preparedness the first step is to assess your needs.
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Building a Budget-Friendly Pantry
In today’s economy, building an emergency pantry can be costly! Philip and I are empty nesters, shopping for only two. I often leave the grocery store wondering how in the world people can afford to feed families! We can easily spend over $100 and not have hardly any food to eat! Building a suitable food store to feed your family will take time. If you start now, buying just a little at a time you won’t be forced to purchase excess food all at one time when an emergency does strike!
As a single mom, I fed my family by shopping sales. When food was on sale or in season, I stocked up. Foods like peanut butter and other staple food items go on sale in cycles, typically every 6 weeks. Try to buy enough to get you through until the next sale cycle. Instead of buying two jars of peanut butter when it’s on sale buy four to six. You get the best price and add a few jars to your long-term food storage plan.
Shop seasonal or annual sales. The best time to stock up on baking supplies is around the holidays. Condiments go on sale during the summer. Take advantage of these seasonal sales to build your pantry.
Buy in Bulk
When you can, buying in bulk is a great way to build your pantry. However, I give you two cautions: compare prices and work within your budget. Just because you can purchase an item in bulk at a warehouse club, doesn’t mean you are saving money. I purchase items in bulk from both Azure Standard and Sam’s Club. Apps and online shopping make it very easy to compare prices before I head to the grocery store. Check the unit price of the foods you are purchasing and always make like comparisons. Sure I might be able to purchase food cheaper at Walmart, but is it the same quality as Azure Standard? Is higher quality food, like organic food a priority to me?
Having a stocked pantry helps be able to afford buying in bulk. In my younger years, I wasn’t a huge fan of bulk buying. I had a very tight grocery budget. Buying in bulk would quickly deplete my budget but leave us with little to eat. A well-stocked pantry means that you already have food to eat and can take advantage of bulk buying to maintain and increase your food supply.
Desiginate a Portion of Your Food Budget
Another great way to build your pantry is to dedicate a percentage of your food budget to purchasing food for long term storage in your pantry. Possbily 10% to 25% of your total food budget can be set aside to build your pantry surplus. As your pantry grows, you can dedicate more of your budget to growing and maintaining your pantry.
What to Buy?
Choosing what to buy for your pantry preparedness is based on a few factors.
A prepared pantry means you should plan food supplies for everyday cooking and an emergency food kit with non-perishable foods. While I am not a huge proponent of survival food, purchase foods you will eat and know how to prepare. A pantry full of supplies that you don’t know how to use or don’t have alternative cooking sources to prepare won’t be helpful when you are counting on your food stores.
Storing Food Properly
Building your food stores in your preparedness pantry is an investment! Be sure to store your foods properly. Most foods need to be stored in a cool, dry place. Don’t have a pantry? Get creative and take advantage of any dark places you might have. Store food in under-the-bed storage containers. Use food-grade buckets for bulk storage. Gamma lids make it easy to assess your food stores. Transform the closet of your guest room into a pantry. Add removable shelves to create your at-home grocery store. While It might not be your primary food pantry, it’s a great place to store staples used to refill the containers you use every day.
If you are building a pantry for long-term storage, be sure to regularly rotate your food stores. Develop a system to always put the newest food in the back. If you are like me and it’s hard to read the expiration dates on products, write the expiration date on the product with a permanent marker that you can easily see. That way you can easily check to be sure you are using the oldest products first even if you left your glasses in the other room!
Tips & Tricks to
Organizing the Freezer
Organizing the freezer is challenging! How do you organize it best so that you can find what you want without digging to the bottom? Can you create a system you can maintain? How can you ensure that you use the oldest foods first? Creating a system that works means you will maintain it. Most importantly I want to ensure we make the best use of the food we have so we minimize waste. Wasted food is wasted money and I like to be a good steward of all our resources
What’s In My Pantry?
On our homestead, I cook most of our food from scratch. We try to keep a good supply of staple foods used for cooking homemade food in our home. That means I maintain a well-stocked pantry with staples like baking ingredients, healthy oils, pasta, wheat berries, rice, dry beans, vinegar, spices, and sweeteners. Additionally, I keep vegetables, canned and frozen, dairy products, and meats.
We plant a garden to grow a portion of fresh vegetables. I keep a healthy supply of canning supplies, salt, vinegar, lemon juice, Pomona pectin, and sugar. This ensures I have the supplies I need on hand to preserve the food we grow. Well-preserved foods made with fresh produce ensure we have nutritious food in our pantry not only for emergency use but also for everyday cooking.
We keep a dairy cow. We added Dexter cows to our homestead. While they don’t produce huge quantities of milk, the addition of milk to the homestead has been a great way to build our pantry. Cheese and yogurt are a few of the products that we can produce on the farm rather than use our food budget.
Food Preservation at Home
Home preservation is one of my favorite ways to build our food supply. Not only do we raise meat on the homestead, but Philip is also an avid hunter. Canning fresh meat is a great way to add shelf-stable meat to the pantry. Home-canned meat is shelf stable meaning it can be stored in a cool dry place at room temperature. It is fully cooked and ready to eat. It’s the convenience food of the homestead!
Freeze-dried foods are an excellent way to build your pantry. While I am not a huge fan of freeze-dried meals, many foods can be freeze-dried to create shelf-stable pantry staples that will round out your food stores. Not only can you freeze dry meat, fruits, and vegetables you can also freeze dry eggs and milk. Dry milk and eggs are an excellent addition to the emergency preparedness food supply. They are shelf stable and meet the nutritional needs of the family.
After a party, we had an excess of fresh mushrooms. My mother-in-law put them in the freeze dryer to preserve them and they lasted me two years! Don’t have a freeze-dryer (like me), freeze-dried foods can be purchased at Azure Standard!
Other Considerations
When it comes to emergency preparedness you need to consider emergency supplies to include infant formula and water. Raising my family in Florida meant that I always needed to be prepared for hurricane season. I found the best way to build up a supply of bottled water was to buy it by the gallon. If I bought individual bottles of water, my kids would use them for convenience. However, gallons of water were never touched. It’s also cheaper to buy water by the gallon than individual bottles. Plan on one gallon of water per person per day. Plus remember water for your animals too!
Choose the best alternative cooking source that you know how to use to ensure you can prepare meals no matter the emergency. While a grill with a side burner works well in some climates, in other areas a wood stove may be a better alternative cooking source. Consider purchasing a camp stove to ensure you have an alternative cooking source anywhere. Be sure to add fuel bottles to your pantry as well.
Back up power is essential to ensure your freezers stay cold in a power outage. Have a plan to protect your frozen foods should you lose power for an extended period of time. If purchasing a generator is not possible, preserve your foods in other ways to prevent loss.
Weirdness Not Required
In past generations, everyone kept a well-stocked pantry, it wasn’t something that only preppers did. Frequent trips to the grocery store to pick up a few things likely cost you quite a bit more than you might think. It’s amazing what sneaks into your cart when you aren’t looking! Pantry preparedness is a great way to ensure your family adequate and nutrituious food on hand no matter what life brings you. Plus it gives you peace of mind to know that when life hands you lemons through unexpected circumstances you are ready to make lemonade!
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About the Author: Barbra-Sue Kowalski grew up on a small hobby farm. She was always drawn to farm life, however, she was stuck in an urban life far from her roots. Barbra-Sue was a single mom for 13 years, raising her 3 children on her own. She met Philip in 2018 and they married in 2021. Between the two of them, they have 5 grown children and 5 grandchildren. These empty nesters are following their dreams! As they both turn 50, they are building their off-grid homestead to live the life that they dream about. Learn more about Philip and Barbra-Sue here. Contact them here. To leave a comment on this post, please scroll down.
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