{"id":937,"date":"2023-03-07T12:52:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T19:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pantrypreparedness.com\/?p=937"},"modified":"2023-03-07T12:52:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T19:52:52","slug":"building-your-food-storage-4-steps-for-getting-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pantrypreparedness.com\/building-your-food-storage-4-steps-for-getting-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Your Food Storage: 4 Steps for Getting Started"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Having a healthy amount of food storage has tremendous benefits. Emergencies ranging from a temporary financial setback to a worldwide pandemic can make having your own food storage a real blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know in 2020 we were glad we had stored up on a lot of things. Toilet paper wasn’t even an issue because we keep plenty on hand. It actually gave us an opportunity to break out the wheat grinder and make some homemade bread to minimize trips to the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point is, you never know when having your own food storage will be helpful, or even necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to store, where to store it, and how much you need to store. That’s why I made this guide to help you know exactly what you need to do. Here are 4 steps for getting started with food storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
72 hours or 3 days’ worth of food is a great place to start. For most people, accumulating and storing several months’ worth of food can be daunting, not to mention cost and space prohibitive. So before we dive all the way in, let’s start with the basics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason I recommend starting with 3 days is that’s usually long enough to get your feet under you in many emergency situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s the same principle behind the first baby step in Dave Ramsey’s plan to get out of debt. First, you save up $1,000 for a basic emergency fund. That way a small financial emergency doesn’t derail your whole plan. 72 hours’ worth of food isn’t hard to set aside and it’s enough to give you peace of mind while you work through a more robust food storage plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also a small enough amount of food that when packed in a 72-hour kit it’s easy to carry with you. So if you need to bug out you can just grab your 72-hour kit and go. Within 3 days, you’ll usually be able to get to a more stable food situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your 72-hour kit will contain more than just food. It should also include enough water and other basic supplies to survive for 3 days. Typically this works best if you have a backpack for each person in the family. We’ll cover 72-hour kits in detail in another post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The food in your 72-hour kit should be food that doesn’t require any cooking and that can last for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emergency rations work well because you can get a lot of calories in very little space. But high-carb, energy-packed foods like granola bars and fruit snacks work pretty well too. They’ll give you the energy you need without taking up a lot of space or adding a lot of weight to your bag. <\/p>\n\n\n
We always had some hard candies we could suck on, like jolly ranchers, because they’ll give you quick energy, they’re shelf stable for a long time, and they taste good and we can all use a little bit of flavor if we’re going through an emergency situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just make sure you pack enough calories for each person for 3 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How many calories to pack depends a lot on the person. At 6 feet tall and being a pretty big guy, I burn a lot of calories. My 3-year-old, on the other hand, burns very few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So start by figuring out how many calories to pack for each person in your family by figuring out their daily caloric need and then packing 3 times that. This is a great calculator from Mayo Clinic<\/a> for figuring out how much each person needs. <\/p>\n\n\n It only works for people over 18 though but for kids under 12, about 1,200 calories per day is a good rule of thumb, and for teens, I would just enter 18 as their age and enter their correct weight and height. <\/p>\n\n\n On the next page I select “Very Active” since in most emergencies I figure we’re not going to be terribly sedentary. Then click “Calculate”.<\/p>\n\n\n You can see that this person could burn up to 2,600 calories per day. So for emergency food storage, I’m going to plan on somewhere between the low end of 1,850 and 2,600. For long-term food storage, I might assume a level of activity that represents your normal activity level and base your caloric needs on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a 3-day emergency food supply packed away, you’re ready to start planning for your long-term food storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this stage, we start by figuring out how much food we need to store.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFigure Out How Much Long-Term Food Storage You Need<\/h2>\n\n\n\n