What's In Your Pantry?

(one of my Team Prepperific faithful members posing with my recent case lot purchases. See how uber excited he is about stockpiling!)

 

When you think about food storage, do you think about 5 gallon buckets , #10 cans, or cases of wheat, beans, rice, powdered milk, tuna, tomatoes, green beans, and oatmeal shoved in an obscure corner of the basement, collecting dust, just waiting for the end of the world. It's fabulous if that is what you have stock piled, so far, but when the Zombies come,what will you be whipping up for dinner based on what's in your food stash?  Odds are good that Peachy Tuna Surprise or Honey Wheat Chili are not going to go over well.

Approaching food storage as a collection of shelf stable consumables to be used only in case of emergency is setting yourself up for a lot of stress; at a time when you will probably already be riding the tidal wave of  " Oh no! What are we going to do now?!?". Feeding your family foods that they have never, or rarely eaten, especially in times of stress, will not be a pleasant experience. Plus, if they are not part of the families regular menu, some items may cause gastric distress (also not a pleasant experience). Another question to ask is," Will I even know how to prepare (fill in the blank here)?"

A better solution is to use The Pantry Principle to food storage. Basically, the Pantry Principle is compiling a list of food items that your family eats regularly, and use that as the master list to build a useable stash of food. In addition to building up a stockpile of items that your family will eat, you will be using those items in your regular menu. Frequently replacing the items that you have used.
I personally switched to this method years ago, after having to live out of my basement "grocery store" for several months. Let's just say, macaroni, oatmeal, and tuna played heavily into our menu.

Using the Pantry Principle provides opportunities for you to:

• Create a menu of recipes and foods that your family likes to eat.
• Rotating your stock of food by eating it regularly, avoiding stale and spoiled food.
• Get your family use to the idea of eating certain foods. Gradually introducing dried beans, wheat flour, powdered milk, canned fruit and veggies into your diet is much less traumatic than throwing your white bread loving family into the deep end, so to speak.
• Allow yourself the chance to learn how to cook with the above items. Learning new skills along the way.
• Save money on your grocery budget.  Having a stash of pantry basics will save you from running to the store to buy a "few items" to make dinner, spending much more money than you had planned on. In addition to curtailing extra trips to the store, once you have a decent amount of things stored away, you can wait to restock until the items you need are on sale.

The Prudent Homemaker's blog is a fabulous resource of how to strictly feed your family out of your food storage on a daily basis. I have used her ideas for inspiration on streamlining my own pantry. If your are confused about the basic idea of the Pantry Principle this blog gives you a great explanation of how it works. So... what's in your pantry?