First Three Steps When Starting a Home Food Supply

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Do these three things right now!

Let’s talk about three things to do when building a shelf stable, long-term food supply. This is no longer a “nice to have.” With current world events, this is a “NEED to have!” We’ll also discuss food storage in the context of living in the suburbs and having kids, because I’m a Suburban Prepper Mom!

Drop the Guilt!

If you feel you are “behind” with building up a supply of food, don’t take on unnecessary guilt! Our society doesn’t currently value things like home food supplies. Modern society has trained us to just plan for the week ahead because the neighbourhood grocery store will be there when we run out. Not to mention all the other things you have to think about for your family! The fact that you are reading this article, shows that you are ready to up your game and be more prepared. So you’ve already taken the necessary first step!

Would you like to start with a quick overview of all the items you may wish to store? Then definitely snag this free food, water and supplies tracking spreadsheet!

So let’s talk about three things you can do right now to start strategically building your home food supply.

1.  Pause and Think Through the Most Relevant Emergency Scenarios

Take a few minutes to think through the most likely scenarios that could cause you to need to use your food stock (or go through your existing stock more quickly).

This will help you know:

A) What kind of food will be most useful for you to focus on,
B) How soon you should have it,
C) What to prioritize first, and
D) How long you want your supplies to last.

Example: Weather

Are hurricanes or forest fires that may require you to evacuate a known danger in your region? You’ll want food that is lightweight and easy to quickly put in your vehicle. You’ll probably also want it in pre-made meal form (like “just add water” meals) so you aren’t dealing with how to mix ingredients and cook it.

Or is there potential for severe winter snowstorms or other weather to cause you to have to hunker down at home without electricity, heat or running water for a number of days? In this case, you’ll want food, a gravity based water filter (we have a Berkey) and simple ways to cook without electricity. But having individual ingredients that you make into dishes will be simpler to work with than in an evacuation situation.

Spring 2022 Example: Global Food Supply Shortage

What are you seeing in the news which may inform what you should prioritize stocking up on first? As of April 2022, we are hearing about Avian Bird Flu becoming a larger problem in North America. Eggs, chicken and turkey would be useful to stock up on now, before prices jump. And we know that Ukraine is a large exporter of wheat, so the current conflict there will affect the global wheat supply.

Plus we are seeing dramatic fertilizer shortages and price increases. It’s the perfect storm of events for a large variety of food shortages. This tells me that I should work on expanding my vegetable garden and not wait to buy seeds, soil, manure and other gardening supplies.

Step 1 To Do: Brainstorm scenarios and write down what comes to mind, and what your solutions would be!

2. Collect Family Favourite Recipes

Do not waste your money on buying “prepper food” that no one in your family will enjoy eating (especially if you have kids)! This becomes even more important if you have food sensitivities, allergies, or any eaters in your home who are limited to “safe foods” only. (With neurodiverse kids this is very common, and the most loving thing we can do is not put pressure on them to try other foods before they are ready).

What you will want to do is pick out a few family favourite recipes and figure out how to get all those ingredients into a long-term, sustainable form so you can cook familiar meals in a variety of situations. (I offer a free recipe conversion consult; read down to the end to learn more!)

Choosing recipes also helps you remember the minor ingredients that we may not think about when building a food supply. Along with the obvious ones like meat, vegetables, fruit, cereals, noodles and flours, you will want to remember your most commonly used items like:

• spices/seasoning
• sauces
• condiments
• oil/butter
• vinegars
• honey/maple syrup/sugar
• baking soda/baking powder
• cocoa powder
• yeast
• drinks (juice powder, milk or milk alternative, hot chocolate, coffee, tea)
• etc.

“Eat What You Store, Store What You Eat”

Start with building a deep pantry. This is where couponing and taking advantage of grocery store sales helps! Start by buying more of the shelf stable things you already use and put the most recently purchased items further back in your pantry. This way, you can use the “first in, first out” method and use up the older pantry items first.

But what about fresh produce, dairy and meats? You have a few options and you’ll probably want to do a combination of them all:

Deep freezer: Like the deep pantry method, you can organize your deep freeze. If relying on freezer food, I recommend having a generator or a solar powered backup to keep your freezer running in the event the power goes out. To protect from freezer burn, we use a Food Saver to vacuum seal local meats and produce I’ve bulk purchased and frozen.

Gardening: This is a wonderful option and can be year-round if you include indoor hydroponics. Gardening is great because it gives you a sustainable source for fresh produce…. because no matter how much food you stock up, it eventually will all get eaten if an emergency situation goes on for long enough! I have a Just Vertical indoor gardening system, which we use for fresh salad and smoothie greens. And we also are working on expanding our outdoor gardening in our back and front yards. After gardening, you can preserve your produce through canning or drying.

Mylar and oxygen absorbers: You can extend the shelf life of many of your home dried or purchased dry goods by repackaging them in mylar bags and adding oxygen absorbers. This is great for dried beans, flours, oats, powdered eggs, noodles, dehydrated fruit, etc. Keep in mind anything with a higher fat content (i.e. nuts) won’t last as long. Download this free food tracking spreadsheet, which includes a tab for mylar and shows you the typical shelf life for different mylar bagged foods.

Canning: There are essentially three canning methods… pickling, water bath canning or pressure canning. Most avid canners do a combination of all three because different foods will get a better result depending on the method used.

Dried fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat: I love the versatility of dried food! There are two kinds of drying methods – freeze drying and dehydrating. I talk about the differences in this blog post. You can buy the equipment and dry food yourself, or if you prefer the “done for you” method, buy it already vacuum sealed in steel, food grade cans. I have a lot going on already and it’s important to me to have a non-frozen backup of meats and produce, so I opt for the DFY method and order through a Monthly Delivery Service. This helps me budget a smaller amoung monthly to consistently build my supply, while giving me better pricing on a higher quality version of dried food (aka something that I can easily cook with and my kids will enjoy eating!)

Freeze dried food also retains much more nutrition than canning or dehydrating. So I emphasize this one the most in my long-term pantry.

Free Consult: I have been incorporating freeze dried foods into my cooking since 2016! I offer the service of converting your family favourite recipes into versions using freeze dried and other shelf stable pantry ingredients. Reach out to me over Messenger or via e-mail – kayleigh(at)suburanpreppermom.com – to get started today.  

Step 2 To Do: Pick out 7 of your favourite recipes and start brainstorming your preferred methods for converting them to “prepper/emergency scenario” versions!

3. Decide Your Storing and Budgeting Strategy

Whether you have already started building your supply of food or are just starting, now is a great time to get more strategic on two fronts: how you budget for it and how you store it.  

A) Budget

Do you feel the need to really expand your food storage and do a larger purchase right away? Or are you just filling in some gaps and wanting to add a smaller amount to your budget each month? Remember to include the costs of gardening supplies and home preservation equipment along with any “done for you” dried food you want to buy. For shelf stable DIY methods, you can do a combination of water bath canning, pressure canning, pickling, dehydrating or freeze drying, depending on your budget and the actual time you can commit to the task.

B) Smart Storing

Food takes up space. The more you grow your home supply, the more you’ll have to think about ways to store it.

Temperature Consistency: You may want to have it in a variety of places. However, make sure you store your food somewhere where the temperature stays regulated (so not an outdoor shed or unheated garage) and away from light or excess heat.

Rotational Shelving: For canned food and freeze dried food in steel cans, consider buying rotational shelving. You can buy smaller size shelving that fits inside your cupboards or pantry shelving that can be adjusted for can sizes varying from tuna cans to “pantry” size freeze dried cans, or larger rotational racks for #10 cans. See some examples here.

Tiered Shelves: I also like these adjustable tiered shelves for pantry foods that aren’t in cans.

Protecting from Critters: For food stored in mylar bags, consider putting it in solid-coloured bins with locking lids. This will keep the light out plus help prevent mice and bugs from getting inside. You can then label and stack these bins in your basement or in a dedicated closet.

C) Protecting from Raiders

Sadly, mice aren’t the only creatures who may want to steal your food. If things get bad in your region and people know that you’re a “prepper,” they may try to raid your food. Here are some tips:

Have a “decoy box” of food. This could be something you keep close to your front door, that if someone comes demanding food, you just give them this box and say that’s all you have. Put things like expired canned food or other inexpensive items in there.

Store food in a variety of places such as your car, a family cabin, your parent’s house if they live close by, etc. Just make sure these places won’t have extreme changes in temperature.

Label bins as something non-food related. A furnace room storage area with Rubbermaid bins or cardboard boxes labelled “Christmas décor” probably won’t get rifled through! You could keep notes to yourself elsewhere to help you keep track of the contents of these bins.

Step 3 To Do: Gather bins, declutter a storage area, organize your pantry or purchase shelving – whatever you need to do to create more space for your food and supplies!

4: Bonus Step – Free Tracking Spreadsheet!

Would you like to automatically see how much food to store based on the number of people in your family? Do you want to quickly see the shelf life for various freeze dried and mylar bagged foods? Would it be helpful to have a visual overview that can help you point out gaps in your food storage? And what about accounting for your water storage and non-food household items? You need to download this free tracking spreadsheet!

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