Short-Term Food Storage Plan
Five Things You Can Do Now
- Clean out and organize your pantry. Throw away old food.
- Buy two cans instead of one and store the extra can.
- Keep track of the meals your family eats for one week.
- Adapt one or more favorite recipes to use foods you can store.
- Plan three menus that you could build out of foods that can be stored in your pantry.
It’s likely we will all face an unexpected short-term emergency—those situations that are intense but over quickly. These may include natural disasters or man-caused disruptions. Utility services are often interrupted, and you may be without power, water, or sewer. A crisis of this type will disrupt your normal food preparation. Also, if you have to evacuate, you may not have access to your normal food-preparation supplies and equipment.
Personally Speaking
My daughter lives in a state along the mid-Atlantic coast where during some winters they experience an unending series of arctic storms—the kind where schools close, the power is off, and everything comes to a standstill for a few days. When blizzards or hurricanes are predicted, people scramble to get prepared at the last minute. Before each storm, the grocery stores are stripped of convenience foods, and there are long lines at the gas pumps. A couple of winters ago, one of my daughter’s friends tweeted, “Hey, Baltimore, it’s a snowstorm, not the Apocalypse.” She continued, “Do you only live on bread, orange juice, and frozen pizza?” My daughter says that milk, bananas, and ice also go fast. And batteries and generators are among the first things to disappear too.
More recently, in the COVID-19 pandemic, for a time, it was nearly impossible to find pasta, dry beans, flour, yeast, and, of course, toilet paper. And when workers at meat-processing plants were hit with the disease, meat production fell and there were shortages of beef, pork, and chicken.
People want something convenient to eat. It makes sense to have a pantry filled with easy-to-fix meals so you do not have to rush to the grocery store in a panic!
Stockpiling for a Short-Term Crisis
Along with shelter and water, a short-term food storage plan is a key part of preparing for a crisis. Most short-term food storage plans are based on the foods you normally eat. A reasonable goal is to begin by stockpiling enough food for two weeks and work up to one month. If desired, you can increase that to two or three months.
Ready-to-Eat Meals
When the disruption and chaos of a crisis confronts you, a supply of quick and easy food that requires minimum preparation is crucial.
Plans that Duplicate Current Eating Habits
The Copy Canning and the Slice of Time plans attempt to duplicate your regular eating habits. Both are appealing because they are familiar and based on your present routine and nutritional needs. Both will help you identify the foods your family likes and uses. A rotation system will track what is used and what needs to be replaced.
Storing the foods you normally eat can be an expensive option if you try to duplicate fresh meat and produce with their freeze-dried counterparts. But if you substitute alternatives such as canned meat or canned fruits and vegetables, the expense is just a matter of purchasing more of your regular foods, which you’ll eventually eat. Preparing these foods in a crisis may also be difficult if you are without normal energy sources. However, any canned food can be eaten unheated. And if you are like a typical American and eat as much as 30 percent of your meals away from home, you’ll need to compensate for that. Table 15.1 summarizes the pros and cons of these plans.
Copy Canning Plan
Copy canning is simply buying two of everything you regularly use, putting one into storage and consuming the other. You will gradually stock up a food supply typical of your normal diet. Obviously, not all the food you purchase comes in a can or other storage-friendly packaging, and much of it is perishable. This approach is also a bit random and unsystematic. It assumes you buy everything on a daily or weekly basis, while that may not be your actual practice.
To get started and “do something,” you may want to try this approach, and then, when you have a good stockpile, take inventory and figure out where you need to fill in the gaps.
Slice of Time Plan
This second plan is more accurate. Begin by keeping a detailed record of all the food consumed during a period, usually two weeks to a month. Multiply the total amount of food used during that period to find the amount necessary for a longer time. Make a record of both a summer and a winter period to account for seasonal variations. Use worksheet 15.1, “Slice of Time Daily Menu Log,” to help you record food consumed. It is also found as a downloadable PDF on our website, CrisisPreparedness.com.
Like the Copy Canning Plan, one challenge with this method is that normal menus contain fresh meat, dairy, eggs, and produce as well as perishable items, like bread, crackers, and chips. To make these plans work, you’ll need to make adaptations and substitute alternatives that store well.
Rotating Menus Plan
This plan solves the “What shall I fix for dinner?” question and is built around the foods your family likes. You begin by planning meals that lend themselves to storage foods. Then you incorporate them in a rotating schedule. Select as many different meals as you desire to rotate through. First, decide how often each meal will be used. Next, calculate the total individual ingredients needed to last the length of time you determine. Use worksheet 15.2, “Rotating Menu Plan,” or on our website to help organize menus and shopping lists.
Table 15.2
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Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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Uses familiar family recipes |
Requires careful calculation and effort |
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Familiar food during stressful times |
Rigid adherence to menus |
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Easy to rotate food |
May not be nutritionally balanced |
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Ideal for a two to three-month storage rotation |
Menu fatigue with limited meal choices |
Choose at least seven main courses and three to five breakfast meals to get started. It may be easier to begin by purchasing enough food to cycle through the meals for two weeks.
Gradually build up to one month and then three months. Also add foods for lunches, your favorite comfort foods, and desserts.
This method works well in combination with long-term food storage. You can rely on the familiar foods for a crisis of short duration, and then, if the crisis is prolonged, you’ll have the basic food storage to back it up. Table 15.2 summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of using rotating menus.
Personally Speaking
You may be wondering what kinds of recipes to use for the Rotating Menus Plan. I begin by thinking about what recipes I already prepare for my family. Then I think how they can be made using foods I can keep in my pantry. Recipes for soups, stews, and casseroles can usually be adapted. When I am creating a menu, I think “cans and boxes.” I am always on the lookout for a recipe I can adapt to foods I can store. You will find examples of the Rotating Menu Plan, including sample menus on our website.
Stocking Your Pantry and Food Storage Room
Stocking a pantry is a time-honored, organized way to have the food you regularly use on hand so you can prepare a meal without a trip to the grocery store. It is accessible and ready-to-use. It helps you use and rotate the storage food you already have.
Typically, the pantry is a small room or cupboard in or near the kitchen. It contains cans and cartons of the nonperishable dry goods you regularly use. It is where you keep small, open containers of bulk foods, like sugar, flour, beans, rice, wheat, and oatmeal. Your refrigerator is also part of your pantry.
A food storage room is like a mini grocery store in your home and is located in a basement or may be an extension of a large pantry or closet near your kitchen. (A garage is not a good place to store food because temperatures and humidity fluctuate.) This is where you keep food packaged in buckets and #10 cans for long-term storage. It may contain cases of canned food, bottles of home-canned foods, and extra cartons, cans, and bottles of food purchased on sale. When food in the pantry is used, it is replaced with food from the storage room. A freezer is also part of the food storage no matter where it is located.
Personally Speaking
My pantry is my go-to cupboard when I am preparing meals. It contains the foods I regularly use. I keep flour and sugar in storage buckets with gamma seals. My beans, oatmeal, and grains are stored in airtight OXO POP containers, and I also have a big container of our favorite homemade granola. I keep smaller items in small storage containers for easy access. My pantry also contains canned goods as well as crackers, chips, cereals, snacks, and cooking ingredients.
My food storage room is where I keep a good backup supply of things like pasta, canned beans, vegetables, tomato products, tuna fish, canned chicken, soup base, brown sugar, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and condiments. I replenish my pantry from the storage room, and I replenish the storage room when items go on sale at my local grocery store. I keep boxes of home-canned foods and canning supplies on the lower shelves. This is also where my long-term food storage is stored in #10 cans and poly buckets. The meats, fruits, vegetables, and convenience foods in my freezer are also part of this storage.
Commercial Food Storage Packages
Some people like the convenience of purchasing prepackaged commercial food storage. They are offered in one-month, three-month, six-month and twelve-month modules. It might seem like a good idea to save time and effort to go with something already put together. For more detailed information about the usefulness of commercial food storage packages, see the section on dehydrated and freeze-dried foods in chapter 14.
As a review, there are three main objections to commercial packages. First, they are expensive. Second, they often do not live up to their claims of furnishing a delicious and nutritious diet; their goal is to provide calories and protein as profitably and, therefore, as cheaply as possible. Third, these meals all have a “sameness” about them that becomes monotonous.
If you are considering purchasing a commercial unit, use the Quick Check to help you evaluate whether the plan will work for you.
Personally Speaking
You might be able to tell that I am not very impressed with commercial food storage packages. They are expensive for what they offer and, frankly, I think you are much better off taking the time to plan your own short-term food storage. If you want quick convenience foods for an emergency, then I recommend you start with Mountain House freeze-dried entrées. There are more than ten different entrées to choose from They just need hot water to reconstitute within the pouch. One of my sons is an avid backpacker and he also likes entrées from Backpacker’s Pantry and Alpine Air for more variety.
I really like the Rotating Menu Plan! It helps me plan for all the ingredients to make a quick meal. And these menus are perfect for those days when you need a quick meal, emergency or not, because you have everything you need! Just remember to replace the food the next time you shop.
Worksheets to Help You
Use worksheets 15.1 and 15.2 to help you plan for “Slice of Time Daily Menu” or the “Rotating Menus Plan.” For a downloadable PDF file, go to CrisisPreparedness.com.
Worksheet 15.1
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Breakfast |
Lunch |
Dinner |
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Day 1 |
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Day 2 |
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Day 3 |
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Day 4 |
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Day 5 |
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Day 6 |
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Day 7 |
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©Patricia Spigarelli-Aston. For a downloadable PDF file, go to CrisisPreparedness.com.
Worksheet 15.2
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Menu |
Food Items to Complete Menu |
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Menu 1 |
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Menu 2 |
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Menu 3 |
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Menu 4 |
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Menu 5 |
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Menu 6 |
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Menu 7 |
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©Patricia Spigarelli-Aston. For a downloadable PDF file, go to CrisisPreparedness.com.