Food Storage - the BASICS

This is a write up done by Earlene McDonald. It is very interesting in that she goes through how using the basic grains to suppliment your food intake - will help to save money. I know of families who are needing to tighten the belt right now and being able to utilize their BASIC food storage is helping tremendously.



If you have less than a year's supply for your family PLEASE do not dismiss this as not for you without reading further!!! There will be more to come for greater variety, with recipes, how to sprout and how to use them for more nutrition, web and blog sites to help you provide that variety, and heads up on local sales to get fresh fruits and veggies in the diet. BASICS are NOT the only thing you would be eating!!! This is just where we start.

It is possible to acquire a nice supply of food by doing it in increments slowly and steadily. I am going to assume that with our economy the way it is today that most, if not all, are working within a tight budget. If we are not, we probably should be. There is no way to be certain our own personal financial crisis won't occur sometime soon so we need to set food and money aside if we can. We certainly need to eat as well as we can for good health. Illness or an accident makes all vulnerable to income or savings loss.
By being good stewards NOW we can have peace of mind by having enough to feed ourselves and our family under most circumstances.

First, acquire BASIC survival supplies that you are, or will become, familiar with and that give you bulk in your diet to fill your family at dinner time now and later. Learn to use them NOW! I will be giving you some recipe suggestions to add to what you already know and do, and our RS food specialist will show you how to cook even more.

1 pound of rice gives you 10 servings. ( For teens figure 8 servings. ) The cannery sells you 25# of white rice for $8.45 or 3.4 cents per serving. Costco has 50# of white rice for just under $18 so the price per serving is about the same. Macey's also has it for about $9 per 25#. Yes, brown rice costs more and fancier rice does too. We are thinking survival first and will increase to higher nutrition rice as your budget allows.

1 pound of beans gives you 10-16, 3/4 cup cooked servings. The price also varies by type of bean. You can buy 25# bags at the cannery. Black / $14.50, Pinto / $16.30, White / $14.10 If you use 10 servings per pound your price per serving is 5.8, 6.6, or 5.6 cents, respectively. Costco, Sam's and the local grocery stores have good bulk quantity prices also.

1 pound of pasta of any type gives you 8 servings. The cannery sells 20 pounds of macaroni for $12.10 and 25 pounds of spaghetti for $14.55. That is only 7.6 and 7.3 cents per serving,respectively.

1 pound of wheat gives you a large loaf of bread with a little flour left over. 25 pounds of wheat at the cannery is $6.35 for hard red wheat and $5.80 for hard white wheat. That makes a delicious plain whole wheat loaf of bread about 40 cents when you add in the cost of yeast, sugar and oil. Serving size and cost depends on how you slice it! Yes, I know you have to grind the wheat. If your Mom, your best friend or neighbor doesn't have a grinder come on over I'll gladly run it thru mine.

Believe it or not you don't need a machine to make bread. You can relieve a lot of stress just punching the bread. I mean kneading it. Most recipes make two loaves. Plan on grinding at least a few pounds at a time but refrigerate it after grinding.

You will need to introduce whole grains slowly if you haven't been using them already so plan on using just a cup or two in your recipe to begin with and gradually increase the whole wheat to white flour ratio every other time or so. Or start with pancakes or cookies to get your family's digestive system used to it! Again, use at least half white flour to start with.

1 pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups, or a little more than is needed for a loaf of bread. Flour is considered a short term storage item because it has a flavor change after about four years. We are planning to use it now so there is no problem here. The cannery sells 25 pound bags for $9.35 so making baked items cost you almost twice as much as if you start with wheat. These are still great prices compared to buying at the store or bakery.

1 pound of oatmeal gives 11.4 servings per pound. 25 pounds of regular oatmeal is $7.60 and quick oats are $8.15. This makes 286 servings per bag or 2.7 and 2.8 cents per serving, respectively.

Regular oatmeal has more nutrition than quick oats and takes only 5 minutes to cook. Add some dried fruit, such as raisins or apples, and most who eat oatmeal will like it as well or better than the packets or quick oats the very first time they eat it. Some may take a few servings before they apppreciate the fuller texture versus the gruely instants. This is one meal even a child can learn to cook...and then they are more apt to eat it. It will naturally be hard for many to give up their dry, sugar breakfast cereals, but don't give up!


Use the following computations for ONE PERSON and you will see how the numbers work.

breakfast oatmeal 2.8 cents
lunch 2 slices of bread for sandwich 12 cents
dinner pasta or rice and beans 10 cents

TOTAL 25 cents or about a dollar for a family of four for the BASICS.

Using the highest priced choices consider that the following amounts will put you well on your way to your 3 month supply of every BASIC the first month! At the end of six or seven months you can have a years supply of survival storage, with quantity and variety for your family, and you will have eaten quite well the entire time on minimum dollars. (For an extremely tight budget you could go with only rice or only pasta to save money, and use things from your pantry for variety, and you still would have food left over for storage.)

25# rice $ 9.00
25# beans $16.30
50# wheat $12.70
25# flour $ 9.35
25# oatmeal $ 8.15
25# pasta $14.55

Total $70.05 for 700 main dish servings, 286 oatmeal breakfasts, 60 large loaves of bread, whole wheat and/or white, with enough flour for tortillas, muffins, biscuits, pancakes etc. every day for a month.

For a family of FOUR that leaves 580 main meal BASICS left over to put in storage. If you have a family of SIX that leaves you with 520 servings of beans, rice and/or pasta main dish servings (or almost 3 months of main meal BASICS) left over to put in storage. More than likely you will have some wheat and/or flour left also, along with 106 servings of oatmeal...more if you had pancakes or just toast for breakfast some days. Even families of six (unless four of them are teenagers! ) will not go through two large loaves of whole wheat bread every day if you make other bread type products.

For storage: begin picking up FREE storage buckets with lids at the grocery store bakeries. They are free everywhere except Kohler's, and they charge only a dollar for theirs. There are usually 2-8 buckets emptied everyday at each bakery, so start asking and save them from the recyle or the dump. Costco has more of the larger sizes but take along trash bags to protect your car as theirs still have a little frosting left in them.

THANK YOU FOR PREPARING!!

Earlene