As a prepper, food storage is one of the first items to cross of your list in being prepare for a major emergency. However, if you’re like me, you don’t want your pantry to be a massive sodium-fest of canned soups and meats! How you store your dry goods is essential to get the longest shelf life, and the most for your money. It’s equally important that you know how to cook with the food that you’re storing.

1. Choose food your family will actually eat

Cans of sardines and spam look like they’re made to survive for ten years after nuclear blast, but good grief, if you don’t eat that crap now, it will demoralize you and your family if that’s the kind of food you’re saving for an emergency situation.

2. Buy food you know how to prepare

If there’s no electricity in your home, how will you boil water? Knowing how to build a fire is one of the most vital survival skills everyone should have. But building a fire can also be time consuming and miserable, particularly in wet weather.

If cooking isn’t your strong suit, don’t buy bulk items such as corn meal, flour, and sugar and plan to “figure it out” when SHTF. Try to find goods that you eat on a regular basis already — these will be the foods you’ll crave when nothing else is normal.

3. Store food in a good place — and in suitable containers

The area of your home designated for prepper food storage should ideally be someplace dark, dry, and cool. (Stairwell closets are a great location). It’s equally important to keep the food safe from pests — such as insects and mice. Food that comes in plastic pouches should remain sealed and stored within air-tight bins. Breaking the seal on freeze dried goods will lessen the shelf life.

Keep oats and oatmeal separate from other foods, and check the quality of these frequently as mealworms can develop if the oats are exposed to too much heat and humidity. (I had packs of oatmeal sealed within plastic bags in my bug out bag in my car–  stupidly, over the summer. It was gross.)

4. Have a collection of foods that are low in sodium

This is one tip I don’t see posted too often, but deserves consideration. Salt is a major preservative, most canned and instant meals have heavy doses of salt and sodium. Salt can cause dehydration to set in faster, and could be deadly for anyone in your group that has high blood pressure.

Several brands of as canned soups, broths, and meats have a “low sodium”, “heart-healthy”, “no salt added” version. Fruits and vegetables (without sauce) are other types of canned foods that are typically low in sodium.

5. Powdered foods are AWESOME for prepper food storage

When stored properly, powdered food can last for several years (be sure to check the date on packaging and rotate out before it expires). A few of my powdered food prepper staples include powdered eggs, powdered milk, cheddar cheese powder, and even powdered peanut butter. Want an easy meal? Whip up an omelette using powdered eggs, powdered cheese, and dried peppers!

There are also several meat substitutes available in powdered form, but I haven’t tried them yet.

6. Practice your gardening chops with a “porch garden”

The best way to prepare is to be self sufficient, and the simplest way to do that is a garden. If you’ve never gardened before, this can sound like a time consuming and impossible task. Fortunately, there are several tricks available to help you discover your inner green thumb–just as herbs can be grown from your windowsill, did you know there are also hardier foods you can grow from your porch?

Keep in mind, it will take SEVERAL plants on your porch to grow enough food for self sufficiency. The following are foods that can be grown in containers:

Potatoes, Garlic, Onions – These naturally sprout on their own if you keep them around too long. Throw them into a pot and, with care and a little direction, you can grow a full-blown plant.

The following fruits and vegetable are also possible, although require more effort (pests find them faster, susceptible to diseases, etc): Strawberries, Peppers, Pole Beans, Lettuce, Peas, Tomatoes, I’ve read you can even grow miniature fruit trees, but haven’t tried this myself yet.

A word about tomatoes – I purchased a tomato plant from Ace Hardware and set it up in a sturdy, cloth shopping bag. All was going well for about two weeks, until I realized the bottom of the stalk beginning to yellow. It still produced a few tomatoes, but the leaves began to wither and had a few bites taken out of them. I purchased pesticide, but that didn’t help.

After a few weeks, I surrendered to the unknown disease that struck my tomato plant. When I went to dispose of it, I realized that an ant colony had built an entire metropolis within the bag.

7. Learn how to can goods

Knowing how to can the fruits from your “porch garden” is vital for long-term self sufficiency. I was also surprised to learn how easy home canning actually is — you just have to pay attention to make sure you’re doing it right!

Granite Ware has a fantastic 9 piece canning set that includes everything except the jars.

8. Organize, Rotate, Repeat

Organizing your prepper food storage pantry is important. I keep mine organized like a grocery shelf: later expiration dates in the back. I try to eat my prepper foods before they expire — waste not, want not! Also, if you find yourself dreading to eat the foods you have stored for an emergency… then you need to find a different variety of food!

9. Emergency Prepper Food Storage

What if you’re miles away from your well stocked and organized pantry? Having a pair of 72 hour calorie bars on hand will bring you peace of mind, but will also give you sustenance to make it back to your hideaway. Not to keep toting Amazon, but they carry a calorie bar that doesn’t taste too bad, stays fresh in extreme temperatures, and lasts for years.

These are just 9 tips that I’ve adopted as I prepare for the unknown. What other food storage (or growing) tips do you have?

We’ve grown accustomed to having everything and more at our fingertips.

When we run out of milk or bread, we go to the store and get more, until we run out again.  But what if the store is out?

Hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms can knock power out for weeks. In anticipation of these events, most people will run out to the store a few days before to stockpile, which depletes the resources EXTREMELY quickly.

Why Prepare?

To be ready for all events (environmental or manmade) that leave us relying on ourselves for survival.

 It’s Easy.

Buying an extra few items every time you go food shopping is easy. For basic preparedness, (which everyone SHOULD be!),  2-3 weeks of food in the pantry will more than likely get you and your family through until the power’s restored and stores are restocked.

By creating a lifestyle of preparedness, you can always be ready, even if you don’t know it’s coming.

You’ll Sleep Better.

The daily hassles of life are stressful enough, without piling on the unknown variables. Keeping a small supply of food in your car (good idea if you’re driving in winter and could get stranded), or even a power bar in your purse (for when you get stuck in the elevator!), will give you some peace of mind.

It’s Not Just for Crazy People.

The media can create quite a stigma if it chooses to! While building an underground bunker might be on the paranoid side, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about your plan in the worst case scenario and getting a few necessary items.

Back in the day, people needed to can and stock up enough food to survive the winter. Everyone should have a few gallons of water, rice, beans, evaporated milk, etc – if, for nothing else, you’ll have a snack if you get the flu and can’t make it out to the grocery store.