Light Refreshments Served

After our food storage poll, Hannah contacted us with love and good intentions to give us all some encouragement and fresh ideas for the perennial food storage issue. So I checked out her blog and it cleared my two most important hurdles: it isn’t scary and she isn’t trying to sell me her brand of powdered milk. Her blog is clean and easy to get into and Hannah, herself, seems delightful. Do you want to do one small thing to improve your food storage situation? Safely Gathered In is a good place to start.

Hannah Woodbury has her BS from BYU in Family Sciences. She has one child and works part-time (and for free) on her food storage blog while her husband finishes up medical school. She is currently serving in the YW program as the Personal Progress Specialist. She enjoys cooking, spending time with family, blogging, sewing, and eating sushi.

I don’t know about you, but I used to be too scared to start my food storage. I didn’t know where to start, didn’t have any money for it, and just didn’t have much storage space. Finally I got into gear and forced myself to just start it! I still don’t have much money for it, and I still don’t have much storage space in my home, but I am making a little progress. Here’s what I have found to be the top five mistakes people make when it comes to food storage.

5. Not rotating your food.

Who hasn’t thrown away at least one can or box of food because it was expired? Have you ever gone into a basement (maybe your own?) and seen shelves of food storage that you would never touch, let alone eat? There are several methods to rotating food. Find one that works for you and implement it in your storage.

4. Not storing water.

Water is more important than food! After 3 days without water, your body will start to shut down. You can store water in plastic jugs, soda pop bottles, Mylar bags, barrels, etc.

3. Not having a recipe plan.

If you don’t have recipes for the food you store, you may find yourself standing in front of your food storage and wondering what’s for dinner! Store food according to recipes that you have. Food storage meals can be delicious and nutritious if you plan ahead. Just be sure that your recipes use pantry food only. This way, you could truly live off your food storage if you had to, without taking any trips to the store for perishables.

2. Storing food you don’t eat.

This goes along with #3. I’ve heard of many people who have boxes and boxes of wheat, but they don’t even like it, or even worse, they don’t even know what to do with it. Don’t store it if your family doesn’t eat it! When you store food your family enjoys on a regular basis, it’s much easier to rotate your food because you are constantly eating through it and buying more to replenish your supply.

1. Not even having food storage.

Everyone is on a budget, and the thought of starting your food storage can be extremely daunting. Where do you start? Where will you store it? Sit down and make a plan. Write out some recipes that your family enjoys (with ingredients that store well), and just start stocking up on those for your 3-month supply. Once you get that underway, start gathering the “big stuff” like oats, beans, rice, etc.

You can do it if you just take it slowly and go little by little. No one builds their food storage overnight. And don’t forget, there are many resources out there if you just look for them. For more information, including pantry-only recipes and methods for how to rotate food, check out our blog at http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/.

Kristy’s post has me thinking about food storage. It’s another topic which stirs up a lot of feelings and opinions. What is yours? Choose one and please leave a comment if your food storage style hasn’t been covered.

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