Tell me how to begin a simple food supply

[Excelsior! Academy]

I want to build a basic food stock pantry. This year many in my state of Oklahoma have experienced a week long power outage due to the recent snow and ice storm and we are right in the middle of tornado alley so having a few basic supplies on hand is wise.  I've tried various methods of building a pantry, but nothing consistently sustainable.  What is the simplest method for building a supply?  What is the recommended amount to store?  

[bibiche]

https://www.ready.gov/food

[prairiewindmomma]

Would you have the ability to heat things of electricity was down? That will guide a lot of your decision making. 

[prairiewindmomma]

We set aside a cabinet, sketched out a menu, and every 6 months or so have that to eat for the week and replace the lot. It has helped us fine tune what we actually store. For example, we used to keep a lot of Tasty Bite madras lentils on hand, but now we are burned out on them.

[Carrie12345]

Consider your usual diet.  
Consider your cooking options.  
Consider your water needs/supply.

Rice is super easy peasy, but most of my kids hate it. Canned spaghetti-os don’t bother me for emergencies, but we don’t want to eat them enough to rotate them properly.

Premade charts from other sources are only a starting point. You don’t want to hate what you’re eating in an emergency if you can avoid it. Otherwise you could just throw blocks of “food nutrition bars” in a box and call it a day.

[Tanaqui]

Every time you buy something that is shelf stable for several months to a year, pick up an extra. When you use the first one, make a note on your shopping list to buy two more. Use the second one, put the two replacements in the cupboard. Each time you use one, buy two more until you have the supply you consider reasonable, then only replace one at a time.

[Arcadia]

We plan for gas and electric to go down simultaneously (if major earthquake) though thankfully that hadn’t happened.

We stock:

pull tab can food (we do have a manual can opener just in case)

pasteurized milk 

dried fruits

jerky

[Pawz4me]

I think building a pantry and preparing for an emergency are slightly different, but related, things. It might help to clarify which one is your main goal.

My goal for emergencies isn't to have X many days of our regular meals, but rather to have enough food to meet our calorie needs and something to keep our mouths reasonably happy for a week or so. I figure most emergencies are weather related, and that often means no power (so no easy cooking), no ability to keep foods frozen, etc. I also assume that cooking in an emergency, even if possible, would be at least a bit of a hassle. We have a grill and a camp stove, but both (obviously) have to be used outside. And depending on the type of emergency being outside to cook might not be an ideal thing to do, or something I'd have much time to devote to. And I wouldn't want to use up our supply of camp stove/grill propane for anything that took a long time to cook. So I concentrate on staying well stocked on non-perishable/quick to cook or heat food that we eat at least somewhat consistently. For us that means things like crackers, peanut butter, cheese, pouches of salmon/tuna, granola/protein bars, canned soup/beans/pasta/fruit, some instant mashed potato flakes, coffee (my most essential thing!), some packaged cookies, etc. I subscribe to the KISS method of emergency prepardness--easy to store and prepare foods.

For building a pantry I want things like rice, sugar, flour, yeast, dried beans and pasta, spices, etc. But those are different than what I want to have on hand for emergencies.

[Excelsior! Academy]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Would you have the ability to heat things of electricity was down? That will guide a lot of your decision making. 

yes

[Pam in CT]

Concur with Pawz that "building a pantry" and "preparing for weeklong emergency" are different.

"Building a pantry" means (or used to mean, before COVID) I never *had* to run out to the grocery store to be able to pull off dinner, even if we had a few unplanned guests come by at the last minute. I had enough lying around to throw something together.  A "pantry" should be extra stuff we otherwise regularly eat / enjoy.  Pasta, canned beans of various sorts, jarred pestos and sauces, frozen orange juice cannisters, frozen vegetables, cake & brownie mixes that whip up in a jiffy for kid crowds, fancy chocolates for drop-in guests, that sort of thing.

"Preparing for an emergency" means "we will not go hungry if we can't leave the house for a week" coupled with "and, for good measure, the power and well pump is also off."  In an emergency, we're willing to eat less-preferred or even slightly weird items: tinned sardines, canned tuna on crackers, peanut butter and Nutella/jelly on shelf-stable tortillas, dried fruits and nuts, shelf-stable milk and juice. We might not ordinarily eat so much of those things, but they're dead useful in an actual emergency.

 

[kbutton]

1 hour ago, Tanaqui said:

Every time you buy something that is shelf stable for several months to a year, pick up an extra. When you use the first one, make a note on your shopping list to buy two more. Use the second one, put the two replacements in the cupboard. Each time you use one, buy two more until you have the supply you consider reasonable, then only replace one at a time.

This is the easiest way to rotate food. We try to do this, and for some canned goods that store longer, we try to do a thorough check every six months or so since we don't eat as many canned foods as fresh.

For emergencies that could include power outages, I agree that having food you like that doesn't depend on significant cooking is the best. I will readily admit that my kids like this kind of food more than most even though we normally eat pretty healthy. They love Spam, Vienna sausages, etc. We all like canned veggies and fruit as well, though we typically eat more fresh and frozen when we have the choice. 

Oh, you don't want giant tubs of things that will spoil once opened when you're shopping for emergencies, unless you have a large family that will all eat it. If you open a giant container of applesauce, you won't have a way to refrigerate what you don't eat if the power is out, and you live someplace warm, for instance. 

Don't forget to stash utensils, paper products, etc. near your emergency stuff. Our most likely disaster is a tornado, so if it's not in the basement, we might not have anything left (though we're most likely to have electricity down from a tornado nearby, not take a direct hit--we tend to get smaller tornadoes while the big ones go north and east, historically). It's possible we could be stuck in a basement for quite a while if we had hours of bad weather even if no disaster actually occurred. It's nice to have snacks if that happens.

57 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

For building a pantry I want things like rice, sugar, flour, yeast, dried beans and pasta, spices, etc. But those are different than what I want to have on hand for emergencies.

For normal pantry building, I started many years ago by setting aside a small portion of my grocery money to put toward sales (especially the deep discount sales), and I learned the sale cycle/frequency of the items we used the most. If cans of green beans went on a small sale once per month, but I big sale every three months, I would try to buy as many green beans as I could when they were on the big sale--preferably enough to get us to at least the next small sale, but ideally the big sale. As I stocked up on things that were shelf-stable, less and less of my food budget was spent on items we were going to use immediately, and I had more money to buy things at the sale price. I still do this to some extent, but with teen boys, the stash doesn't last quite as long, and storing that much can be a lot. We also have different eating habits depending on what is going on in life and with my food sensitivities.

I don't know if some of the frugality sites have up-to-date information on sale cycles, but I know from the stores I frequent that healthy stuff will be on sale early in the year (New Year's resolutions), snack stuff, cereal, etc. will be on sale at back-to-school time (and at intervals in between, but that kicks off some of the biggest), hams/turkeys near Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sometimes Easter, baking items at Christmas, condiments/grill-friendly meats around holidays where people grill out, etc. The less obvious sales tend to run on 6-8 week intervals, I think. I just buy a bunch and tell the kids they aren't getting more until there is a sale, lol! They always have plenty of decent snacks, but I encourage them to distribute bought ahead snacks into bags or boxes for later rather than eat all of one thing and then be sorry. It's been good for them to learn to manage their snacks this way. Since I can't eat most of what I buy them due to food sensitivities, they monitor their own stuff and put things on the grocery list. Once we resume in person shopping, they will be ready to start doing some of the shopping on their own.

Stores like Aldi and Trader Joe that have consistent pricing (often lower, sometimes better quality for same price, e.g. organic)--I use them for things we can't keep enough of in the house, things that aren't shelf-stable, and as a place to purchase when I am buying outside of a sales cycle (as well as for specialty items). 

[prairiewindmomma]

Yes, I agree that a pantry is difference than an emergency food supply.

I keep a very full pantry.  But, a lot of that is frozen meat, eggs, dairy products, etc.  If we were to lose electricity, I would be opening the refrigerator and freezer as little as possible.  That's not really what I consider available to me in a sustained power outage.  When I think about a sustained power outage situation (ice storm, tornado that took out a hub, hurricane, whatever), I think about what I can eat without refrigeration.  That changes the ball game considerably.  I also think about a somewhat limited water supply.  Boiling pasta takes quite a bit of water.  Pasta + sauce store easily, but I want to think about all of the steps of the process--what it takes to heat/prepare it (water, fuel supply), what it takes to clean the dishes from that, and so on.  My emergency supply stuff also needs to be balanced---not too salty/heavy, not too repetitive, etc.  My kids flat out are picky and will choose not to eat---but the emotional consequences of those choices are rough.  For my own sanity, it is easier to keep a heavier supply of nutella, peanut butter, granola bars, fruit cups, etc. It took me a few years to figure that out. That's why I find stopping and actually eating what you've stored so helpful.

I followed some of the "disaster preparedness" websites for quite a while and I think, frankly, some of them have never really been through a serious disaster where they have had to use their stuff. This is particularly true of the "survivalist" end of the "disaster preparedness" spectrum. The average family is way more likely to need extra diapers and flats of water and battery operated fans during hurricane season than a hatchet and a fishing hook made out of a soda pop can, iykwim.

[KungFuPanda]

I think the simplest method is to buy extra of what you ordinarily eat.  I wouldn't purchase a bunch of shelf stable stuff that your family doesn't like.  The odds of it expiring and you trashing it are greater than the odds you'll eat it during a power outage. If you ordinarily grill, keep an extra propane tank on hand.  Think of how you'll cook food if it's cold outside.  It might be easier and more versatile to get a small generator, a gas can, and a hotplate.  The thing about keeping a two weeks supply of shelf-stable meals is that you have to actually eat those meals before they expire so you can't just stock up and forget about them. There have been a few snowstorms where I have intentionally not stocked up on anything beyond milk and eggs so that I can use that time to clear out the pantry a bit.   My emergency heat source is a kerosene heater that we've used once in 25 years and we do get a real winter most years.

As for stocking your pantry for every day use, it might be helpful to write down what you usually eat over the course of a month or two, then stock up on that stuff.  I buy sugar, flour, and yeast in big sizes because I know I'll use it.  The bag of yeast from Costco lasts me over a year. I never ran out during the pandemic. If you know how much you use, you can purchase a 6 month supply of your pantry staples and feel secure between big trips.  I'd resist the urge to stock up on something like dried beans just because it keeps well if you never cook them.  If you know how much you'll reasonably use, you can buy larger containers of your frequently used items and it'll save a little money.

[Carol in Cal.]

Stop and think about what you use when you’re camping.  Figure out how sustainable/enjoyable/acceptable that is.  Then go from there.

Also, think in terms of hierarchy of needs. 

Meds—At least a month of meds that you take both routinely and as needed.  I keep this in a special duffel that goes with me whenever I travel at all.

Air—do you have what it takes to clean your air?  N95 masks in case of wildfires?  Asthma meds if necessary?

Water—Are there natural sources of water in your area, and if so, do you have equipment to purify them, and for that matter, to transport without a car?  Also, do you have bottled drinking water in quantity for transitioning to that?  And a fluid source that may be allowed to be contaminated for things like flushing toilets?  

Heat—Do you have a little tent that you can set up in your living room to conserve body heat during an extended ice storm?  Do you have lots of blankets, including one of those reflective ones per person?  Do you have a set up that will enable you to sleep outside if your house is unsafe, and can you get to it easily?

Cleanliness—wipes?  TP?  Diapers?  Adult wipes in case you can’t bathe or flush?

Food—this is where most people start, but it falls behind that other stuff IMO. For this you need variety, nutrition, stuff you will actually eat cheerfully, balanced diet and vitamins, and storeability.  Cans, packages, dry goods, and a way to cook are all crucial.  Camp stoves with extra fuel are good.  Solar ovens are great.  Stuff you can eat without cooking is best of all.  Don’t overlook things like beef jerky which can really keep you going in a pinch.

[Carol in Cal.]

11 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

We do not have regular prescriptions yet. So I kept vitamins we eat, a month's supply. But how do you get prescription meds as a pantry supply. I have heard people only get a month's supply with only certain number of refills. Do you speak to a doctor about that ? 

Um.  

I just sort of gradually make this happen, in a variety of ways.  Save some, whatever.  It’s not so much the doctor that controls this as the insurance companies.

[Ditto]

You guys are an impressive bunch!  When I first clicked on this thread it was with the full intention of sharing with OP how I handled our stock up pantry.  Then I started reading the responses.  Every single one was far better than anything I could contribute and I also got some great ideas. 

[prairiewindmomma]

22 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

We do not have regular prescriptions yet. So I kept vitamins we eat, a month's supply. But how do you get prescription meds as a pantry supply. I have heard people only get a month's supply with only certain number of refills. Do you speak to a doctor about that ? 

Some insurance plans will allow a one time allowance of an extra two week supply.  Usually this is tied to a big weather event (it happened after Harvey in TX), but many states, including mine, have actually made allowances during covid. Now is actually a great time to check.

Most doctors will write and allow you just to straight up pay cash for meds. I actually did this last February. I knew covid was coming, I knew advair would be hard to get, and I knew we would be in the ER if we didn't have access to our asthma meds.  I straight up paid for it out of our emergency cash funds because I knew an ER visit copay would be more expensive than an inhaler.  I have also done this with some less expensive meds that go out of stock frequently.

The other thing that I have done is to do automatic refills on mail order. They push the dates on refills really hard so it's easy to build up a few weeks supply after a few years.

Once you have an extra supply, you just rotate through your meds to keep that extra bit fresh.

[Arcadia]

38 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

. I have heard people only get a month's supply with only certain number of refills. Do you speak to a doctor about that ? 

 

25 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

.  It’s not so much the doctor that controls this as the insurance companies.

It is both insurance and the doctor.

My asthma inhalers are cheap. The primary care doctor ordered a year’s supply and my pharmacy keep refilling until I ended up with a year’s supply in three months.

My tamoxifen tablets are quite cheap also and my oncologist would issue prescriptions for six monthly refills. The pharmacy sometimes issue me two to three refills in the same week so I ended up with six month worth in two months. My oncologist would also prescribe two months ahead just in case of drugs shortage. So that further shortens the refill time. 

For my alendronate sodium tablets, my endocrinologist could prescribe one month or three months supply at a time. So whether I get a month supply or three month supply per  pharmacy trip is up to me to tell her my preference.

All my doctors have experienced drugs shortage so they are rather aggressive when prescribing drugs to go for the maximum amount of refills insurance would approve. 
 

My pharmacy is also well stocked I think. My doctor prescribe before lunch and I can collect in the late afternoon on the same day. I can walk to my pharmacy so that makes collecting my prescriptions easy for me.

[prairiewindmomma]

The best way to store rice is to put some dry ice in the bottom of a bucket, pour rice on top, add a bit of dry ice on top, and then seal it shut.  As the dry ice evaporates, it creates an oxygen poor environment and kills the bugs. Then, switch to a gamma seal lid when you need to open the bucket and use it.

---I've handled my rice for about 20 years this way, and have never had bugs. 🙂

[Carol in Cal.]

Re meds—good suggestions so far.

Also, people who have specific needs for medicines end up with extras sometimes.

So for instance, I take thyroid meds, and can’t easily get ‘extras’ through my insurance but they are not that expensive so I can pay cash for extra refills.  Then if the dose changes I get 30-60 days of the new dose, and end up with extras of one or the other or both.  Extra at a slightly ‘off’ dose is not ideal but is better than nothing.  Once in a while I have had Kaiser AND Blue Cross, and if that ever happens again I’m going to try to get prescribed in both systems so I can stockpile.  Because I *need* this to function (always a red flag issue for me) so I make sure I have at least some extra.  

I have rosacea so I have standing prescriptions for an antibiotic.  I don’t use them as fast as they expire so I go get them periodically and keep them around.  I don’t overuse antibiotics but I also always have some.  When my husband woke up with a UTI we did not have to wait to get a doctor’s appointment, then a urine test, then the results to start treating him.  That saved him a lot of pain and the way things were going, maybe also a kidney infection.  Just for example.  OTOH I have extra antibiotics because I don’t use them heavily.  I don’t use them spottily either, though—that’s very dangerous in creating bacteria that are resistant to treatment.  So I respect the need to have prescriptions and I use prescription drugs very carefully.

Also, I do a lot more preventative treatment than I used to.  I keep prescription Prilosec around but I drink a lot of steeped ginger which far reduces my need for it.  I take (real) Pseudafed when I get congested, and so it is much more rare to get to the point of needing asthma meds.  I take vitamin D and eat abnormal amounts of citrus and tomatoes to beef up my immune system.  I carried N95 masks in every vehicle even before Covid, in case I needed them.  

[Sherry in OH]

3 hours ago, kand said:

Question on bulk staples: I bought a huge bag of rice early in the pandemic (50 lbs? Maybe).  I haven’t opened it yet because I don’t know how I keep it all fresh once I do. Do I need a bunch of food storage buckets or something?

I store excess rice in ziplock freezer bags.  White rice does just fine in the pantry for the three months or so it takes us to go through 20 pounds.  I freeze extra flour, brown rice, and pasta.  Freezing keeps whole grains from going rancid.  It also kills any insects.  

 

[ktgrok]

In the times we have been without power due to hurricanes, I have been very glad to have some meat in the freezer. We throw it in a cooler with ice from same freezer, and by the time it thaws we cook it, then stick back in cooler - now we generally are able to get more ice as needed. If that isn't an option, forget that. 

Also, not for planning ahead storage stuff, but if you are anticipating a power outage due to hurricane/blizzard/whatever.....cook up some pizzas or order some! Cold pizza is yummy and will keep a while in a cooler/fridge/whatever. 

[KungFuPanda]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but if you pitch a family-sized tent indoors and your whole family sleeps in it in sleeping bags you can stay really warm. You can probably fit a mattress or two in there and stay toasty even if your heat goes out at night.

[Arcadia]

12 hours ago, Excelsior! Academy said:

 What is the simplest method for building a supply?  What is the recommended amount to store?  

Simplest method for us was first taking note of what we always eat and what we like to eat, then buy in bulk whenever the price is lower.

The recommended amount to store depends on how fast food is consumed, how much cash you can spare on buying food to keep, how much space you have to store. In our case we don’t eat much and we don’t have much space to store excess food. Our usual spare food supply would last us a month. When my county’s health officer was about to announce shelter in place last March, we did stock a lot more of our comfort foods because we were worried about supply chain disruptions.  For example my kids would eat any brand of jasmine rice but they are particular about their chocolate malt powder. 

[Ausmumof3]

I’m not sure if it was already said but please make sure you freeze dry goods for a couple of days when you bring them in.  I must have missed freezing a packet of soup mix and I had to spend several hours last week sorting and checking everything for weevils. And wiping all the corners of the pantry. Really hoping I got them all but not restocking the pantry for a couple of weeks to be safe.  Thankfully we didn’t lose too much because we were onto it fairly early but very frustrating.

[dsmith]

We shop the sales, and buy extra. Since the pandemic, we've had to bulk up our flour supply and a few other items, but otherwise we just always have extra on hand of what we use. We could go two months, probably longer on pantry items, and we also have some emergency buckets for another 2 months of food. We rotate the 24 packs of bottled water. I think we have about 12 - 15 right now. We didn't used to do this, but my mother-in-law insists on having bottled water, so we get it cheap on sale. We also have other water we've treated for storage and refresh every 5 years. We can run our fridge/freezers for a few days, but getting gasoline was an issue during Sandy, We have two fridges and two freezers, one very large and probably another few weeks of food in there if we can keep them running. We hope to get a whole house generator within the next few years hooked up to natural gas. We made it through Sandy without any major preparation, we just like to have a lot of food on hand lol, but we lost a lot of freezer food, probably about $400 worth. We were able to keep fridge stuff outside in a cooler with ice since it was cold at night. We did buy two kerosene heaters after Sandy - the last 6 days were getting very cold! But during Sandy you couldn't find them within hundreds of miles. We keep a rotating stock of Klean Heat on hand. It's come in handy for outside visits in the cold during the pandemic.

[gardenmom5]

start with the basics to sustain life.  then fill around them.

[Arcadia]

10 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m not sure if it was already said but please make sure you freeze dry goods for a couple of days when you bring them in.  I must have missed freezing a packet of soup mix and I had to spend several hours last week sorting and checking everything for weevils. And wiping all the corners of the pantry.

Garlic cloves next to dry goods or put inside open sacks of rice helps. Something you can try if garlic is cheap where you are. Here imported China garlic is cheap but local California garlic is not. Ginger is also suggested for weevils though I have only used garlic when in Asia since ginger usually cost more.

[mathnerd]

57 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Garlic cloves next to dry goods or put inside open sacks of rice helps. Something you can try if garlic is cheap where you are. Here imported China garlic is cheap but local California garlic is not. Ginger is also suggested for weevils though I have only used garlic when in Asia since ginger usually cost more.

Bay leaves placed on pantry shelves helps, apparently. Though I do that all the time, the pantry bugs do pop up periodically. No harm in trying, I suppose.

I have plenty of garlic, so I will try what you suggested!

[Arcadia]

19 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

I've heard something with matches for weevils, not burning them though that would be my instinct 😁 but something in them not liked by weevils. Don't remember what now. 

It is the matchstick heads but I can’t stand the smell. Elderly folks said that when I was a kid and matchboxes were very common.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/now-match-sticks-for-preserving-grain/story-GwIUagLzZ10sunZ2vfrhqK.html

“Enterprising, or as the Hindi colloquialism says - jugaadu, farmers in this part of north Bihar have started using matchsticks to safeguard their produce from pests and rodent attacks. Matchsticks are considered a 'safe' alternative to insecticides and pesticides. 

"The main ingredients of matchstick head are potassium chlorate and red phosphorus. These serve as disinfectants and have pesticide's properties too, but are relatively safe," said Rajat Singh, a chemical engineer.

Sale of matchboxes in rural areas has gone up by 25 times since the Saran tragedy. Niraj Kumar, a shopkeeper at Masrakh village, said he had sold more than 15 cartons of matches in the past one week. 

"Farmers put matchsticks in sacks of foodgrain to keep them safe from pests. This new measure is proving to be most effective," he said.”

[Bootsie]

The thing that is most likely to happen that would keep us from going to the store in a week is that the adults in the household are ill.  I try to keep enough items that would be healthy and nourishing--soup, canned fruit and applesauce, ginger ale, frozen orange juice.  I keep extra jars of peanut butter, packets of tuna fish, canned chicken, and canned chilli to provide protein in case weather related emergencies.  I also keep a box of saltine crackers, a few bottles of juice, and some raisins. A box of graham crackers stores well. I keep a few big bottles of water in a hard-to-reach big cabinet. 

I don't worry about storing quantities of things we might like to eat in case of an emergency.  Things like boxes of cereal, fruit snacks and other convenience foods are too builky for long-term storage.  If it is an emergency we will make do with perhaps some odd combinations.  We will have some things just from our regular quantity of food on hand and would eat through those items.  When bad weather is expected I will stock up a bit more on a grocery trip.  I find if I have an extra of the basics--flour, sugar, brown sugar, bread flour, corn meal, salt, baking soda, baking powder, oil, yeast, and cocoa I can cook many things given the situation and "emergency" without taking up a lot of pantry space.  I found trying to keep a white cake mix, chocolate cake mix, pancake mix, cookie mix... took up a lot of space and we still usually didn't have the one that I was looking for and it was difficult to rotate and make sure it was all fresh.  

[importswim]

On 3/18/2021 at 7:04 PM, Seasider too said:

Don’t forget the comfort foods. The ice cream will be gone on day one. On day four you will be a hero when you pull out a package of Oreos. Or whatever your favorite treat is.

This may sound silly but I am completely serious, it’s good for emotional health. 
 

We also considered propane a necessity just like food. So we always have a backup tank - one always full. 

I agree! I don't buy a huge amount of junk but I DO keep everything to make smores in our emergency kit. They're easy to make on a fire and very uplifting mentally in the middle of an emergency (which for us is most likely hurricanes). You can also eat all of the things without cooking them as well so it's a win/win in my eyes!