Keeping food in the pantry for their families to eat can be a real burden for a lot of people these days. At that point, even the thought of storing food in the event of a disaster, natural or man-made, is hard to fathom.
However, planning for the worst doesn’t have to be a terribly costly undertaking. If you scrap the bottom of the barrel or just hesitate to spend a great deal on food storage, a bare-bones food storage strategy is likely to make you feel much more comfortable in the long run. Spend a few dollars on this famine food storage menu each time you visit the grocery store to safeguard your family’s future.
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Basic Menu Items for One Day:
- Three pieces of bread per person (homemade, obviously)
- One pan of oatmeal
- One pan of rice
- One pan of beans
- One cup of milk
Weekly Additions:
- A pint of fruit jam
- A jar of peanut butter
- A pasta dinner with meat (here’s a procedure to water bath canning a pasta sauce)
- 4 pots of soup (explained below)
- Sprouting seed rotation (see below for details)
Monthly Additions:
- A can of popcorn
- A can of potato flakes
- A can of refried beans
- A can of white flour
One-Year Purchases for A Family of Four:
- 366 lbs wheat
- 96 lbs rolled oats
- 240 lbs rice
- 240 lbs dry beans
- 96 lbs refried bean
- 52 16 oz jars of peanut butter
- 52 pints of canned meat, ideally something relatively fatty (Find out how to can chicken chipotle taco meat)
- 192 lbs white flour
- 160 lbs granulated sugar
- 18 quarts oil
- 8 lbs yeast
- 8 lbs salt
- 57 lbs honey
- 64 lbs powdered milk
- 72 lbs potato flakes
- 52 quarts pasta sauce
- 240 lbs pasta
- Spices of your choice
- 1460 multivitamin doses
- 6 #10 cans of popcorn
- 52 pints of jam
- 160 lbs sprouting seeds (choose your favorite) + jars for sprouting rotation
Making the Famine Food Storage Menu Work for You
The family’s needs and desires differ a lot, so this menu helps you to customize so you can build a food storage plan that has the best chance of keeping your family happy. See below for some tips on how to pick the right products to match your needs.
Beans and Rice
To help break up the monotony of eating basically the same thing every day, select a large variety of dried beans and different kinds of rice. Although this will help with the pasta dinner that is set out in the menu, it will also help to keep the menu variable daily. Some decent protein choices include lentils, red beans, black beans, and bean mixes.
Canned Meat
This menu is a little low on fat while offering slightly more than the recommended calories that a person usually requires every day. Fat is crucial to keeping your body working at its peak, particularly the brain. Using meats that are high in fat, such as sausage and high-fat ground beef, when buying or home-canning meat for preserving your famine food. You can also get the bacon, which would be a great, delicious treat.
Related: 50 High Value Items To Stockpile For When SHTF
Soup
The soup is to be made from any leftovers you might have on hand. It’s the best way to ensure you don’t waste any of the food you’re cooking. You can also incorporate fresh vegetation in any bits and bobs you have on hand. This is perfect for veggies that are past their prime but not spoiled in reality.
Sprouts
Sprouts are a perfect way to keep the fresh vegetables in a SHTF situation in your diet. Think about it: if society collapses, even if you’re prepared, it’ll take some time to produce your own produce and it could be more than a year depending on the season. Without waiting, the sprouts provide fresh produce. They are not hard to grow, they’re a fast way to get back into your diet to the vitamins and minerals that they provide. Nor should we disregard the beneficial psychological impact of fresh produce.
Multivitamins
Make sure you buy multivitamins which are specifically formulated for each member of your family. Depending on age, sex, and many other factors, each person’s need for nutrients possibly varies a little. To avoid such dietary shortages as scurvy, make sure the needs of everyone are taken into account.
Spices
What spices do you use most often in your everyday food prep? Those are probably the ones you want to stock up on
Important Notes
It is important to remember that food storage is more than just the destruction of zombie apocalypse that people like to think about when they envision it. This can help you get through an unseasonable ice storm where it’s not safe on the roads or it can help make sure your family has enough food despite terrible financial hardships.
Keep in mind that you should consider making stocks of stored food rotate. If you buy one of the things in your food storage, take one out and replace it with the new one. To keep your rotations quick, you can also use masking tape to make a quick buy-on date mark. You can only take out the oldest object and use it.
It’s also important to keep a large amount of fresh water on hand and have a plan to keep clean water flowing in. When there is a real tragedy, this could quickly become a problem. To prepare all of the things on the list and to drink for daily hydration and hygiene you’ll need potable water. A good rule of thumb is one gallon of water per person in the household for at least three days at the absolute bare minimum. From there, make sure that you have a plan and the supplies you need to execute it.
Related: 7 Ways to Use Rice in a Survival-Type Situation
You don’t have to spend a fortune developing a comprehensive plan to store the food. It can be done a little at a time, and you can make the most of the items you store by knowing exactly how to use them and practicing ingenuity within the items that are forbidden before you are forced to rely on your food storage.
