At this meeting, we discussed getting a 3 month supply of food that could be turned into a longer term supply if you wanted. My method for doing this was taken partially from Wendy Dewitt and from a book called It's In The Bag by Michelle and Trent Snow. You can check out Wendy Dewitt's blog for more detailed info and a few videos that she put together that are very informative. http://www.everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/
I customized her plan to fit what I wanted to do but here is her basic outline for the plan.
This system is based on a worst case scenario, meaning there would be no running water or electricity. This scenario also assumes that families will be on their own and will not be banding together at churches or schools. There are many circumstances that would require isolation from other people, not banding together. Don’t put your family at risk by assuming that you will be eating someone else’s food.
Organization: How much food do you need? This system answers that question down to the last teaspoon of salt. Take 14 note cards and write down 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners that you would like to have once a week for one year. There are 52 weeks in the year, so you will be having these meals 52 times. Write on the left side of the card everything it takes to make the meal and on the right side everything multiplied by 52. Don’t forget to add the water you will need for cooking. My food storage has 14 dinners (x 26 weeks) 7 breakfasts (x 52 weeks) a daily loaf of bread (x 365 days) and a variety of desserts. This is a very simple system that saves time and money because you only store what you need and will eat. It can easily be adapted from a years’ supply to a 2 weeks’ supply or a 3 months’ supply. The individuality of this system is also helpful for people with food allergies.
Organize all of the information from your cards into a notebook. Make a chart or table that alphabetically lists all the foods from your recipe cards. My table has 5 columns. The first column lists the food item. The next lists all the meals that food item is in. The third column lists how many cups, cans or jars are needed. The fourth lists how much of that item I have and the fifth, how much I need to buy.
Organization: How much food do you need? This system answers that question down to the last teaspoon of salt. Take 14 note cards and write down 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners that you would like to have once a week for one year. There are 52 weeks in the year, so you will be having these meals 52 times. Write on the left side of the card everything it takes to make the meal and on the right side everything multiplied by 52. Don’t forget to add the water you will need for cooking. My food storage has 14 dinners (x 26 weeks) 7 breakfasts (x 52 weeks) a daily loaf of bread (x 365 days) and a variety of desserts. This is a very simple system that saves time and money because you only store what you need and will eat. It can easily be adapted from a years’ supply to a 2 weeks’ supply or a 3 months’ supply. The individuality of this system is also helpful for people with food allergies.
Organize all of the information from your cards into a notebook. Make a chart or table that alphabetically lists all the foods from your recipe cards. My table has 5 columns. The first column lists the food item. The next lists all the meals that food item is in. The third column lists how many cups, cans or jars are needed. The fourth lists how much of that item I have and the fifth, how much I need to buy.
I have created a book for my family to use that has 14 breakfasts, lunches and dinners plus a recipe section for breads, desserts and other important items. Mine is a little overkill for what Wendy Dewitt has in mind but I choose to be overprepared than under prepared. I have recipes that I will share with you if they are needed. I also have an excel spreadsheet that will help you keep track of what you need and what you have. Below is an example of the spreadsheet.
INVENTORY TRACKER | BREAKFAST -1 month | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Ingredient | 1 month total | Price (optional) | Size (optional) | Price/Size | 3 month total | 3 month price | HAVE on hand | NEED to buy | Biscuits | Pancakes | Maple Syrup | Chocolate Chip Muffins | Waffles | Coffee Cake | Chocolate Banana Bread | No Bake Granola Bars | Oatmeal | Breakfast Casserole | Bagels | French Toast | Breakfast Burritos | Cinnamon Rolls | Scones |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | ||||||||||
Apples (cups) | 4.0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 72 | -60 | |||||||||||||||||
Bacon (slices) | 27 | 0 | 81 | 0 | 0 | 81 | 10.0 | ||||||||||||||||
Baking Powder (Tablespoons) | 17.42 | 0 | 52.25 | 0 | 52.3 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 1.3 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 1.3 | ||||||||||||
Baking Soda (teaspoons) | 9.3 | 0 | 27.75 | 0 | 27.8 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 2.0 | |||||||||||||||
Bananas Freeze Dried (Cups) | 4 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 48 | -36 | 4.0 | ||||||||||||||||
BBQ Sauce (cups) | 8 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 24 | ||||||||||||||||||
Beef Chunks (pints) | 20 | 0 | 60 | 0 | 1 | 59 | |||||||||||||||||
Beef Broth (10 oz cans) | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||
Beef Stew Seasoning (packets) | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||
Bisquick (cups) | 3 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 9 | ||||||||||||||||||
Black Eyed Peas (cans) | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||
Broccoli Flowerets freeze dried (cups) | 4 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 12 | ||||||||||||||||||
Brown Sugar (cups) | 6.125 | 0 | 18.38 | 0 | 18.4 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 2.0 | |||||||||||||||
Butter or Margarine powder (cups) | 17.18 | 0 | 51.53 | 0 | 51.5 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 2.0 | |||||||||||
Cake Mix (Devil's Food) | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
There are 2 ways that I buy food. The first method is to buy in bulk and store on a food storage rotation shelf, under a bed, where you have space. Plan on how and what you are going to buy each week, for example:to what’s on your Master Shopping List and don’t stray from the list. It doesn’t do much good to have spent money on food that is not on your plan. It’s also important to add in non-food items and water.So you take the bag and find the soonest expiration date on all the food you put in the bag. You take a plastic CD sleeve and tape it to the front of the bag and put the recipe card in the CD sleeve. Take a sicker and stick it to the front of the CD sleeve and write the expiration date of that meal on it.
· January week 1 – 5 lbs rice, jar of peanut butter, bottle of vegetable oil, etc.
· January week 2 – 5 lbs flour, box of pancake mix, etc.
This plan can also be based on what’s on sale when you go to the grocery store, just stick
Before you start buying it is important to know where you are going to store things. I have plans to make any size rotation shelf out of wood or cardboard so you can customize them to the space you have. Or you can buy them from:
They can be very expensive to buy and very cheap if not free to make. I’m sure there are more but these are the ones I’m more familiar with.
The Meal in a Bag system is the other option that we are going to look at. Basically this is where you take a plastic, square bottomed gift bag and you put one meal in that bag. In the book, she suggests that you put everything for that meal, cooking water, all ingredients and side items for that meal. That is completely up to you but I have chosen to do a combination of the two storage options. I will get into that after explaining the rest of how this option works.
Feel free to pick and choose from what I have to say. Some things may be valuable to you and some things may not. Some of you may already have a system in place that works for you. Stick to it if it is working for you. This is just the way I do it. This can be used for up to a year or more of food storage. I am starting off with 3 months.
The way that I have done this system is to buy in bulk when things are on sale or when I fall into some extra money and create the meal in a bag when I only have the money to do one or two meals at a time. Either way, you only buy what’s on your shopping list and you have what you need when you need it. The bag meal system lets you have meals on hand that are ready to prepare and eat. If you exclusively buy in bulk, you don’t want to be caught with 40 cans of peaches and 30 boxes of spaghetti noodles if you needed food to eat in an emergency situation. By doing both plans you have the flexibility to buy in bulk when it’s cost effective and to have meals already put together for immediate use. This is a great way to be able to rotate your food storage. You just go downstairs and pull a bag of food that you always eat and you have everything right there. It cuts down on prep time and you KNOW you have everything on hand for that particular meal. You can store the bags on the rotation shelves with the rest of your cans or you can have them on a regular shelf that you put in expiration date order. I don’t put water and spices in my bags. Anything that I have to divide into much smaller portions I leave in its original container and store them separately. I know what I need because of my master shopping list so I have it on hand but it isn’t cost effective to buy that many bags, jars or cans. There are some tools that make some of this easier, learning how to can, getting a food saver to seal jars, etc. That will all come later though once we start putting our meals together.
For next class we will be planning out your recipes and organizing them into a format that is easy for you to understand. I made mine into a book, you don’t have to do that. A 3 ring binder or something else you come up with is fine as long as it works for you. So start making your recipe cards and bring them to the next meeting.
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