Where to Store Your Emergency Home Food Storage

It is very important to have an emergency food storage program; however, one of the first steps of having food storage is having a place to put it! There are many places and spaces to keep your food stored. To get started, I would suggest you take a good look around your living space to determine what area best fits your requirements for your food storage. You want to have a place that has the correct temperature and location for your dehydrated food.

Ideal Conditions for Food Storage. You want to find a cool, dry place that has a constant temperature of 40 to 60 degrees F. Stay away from any kind of furnace, freezers, refrigerators, and water heaters because this will cause the temperature to fluctuate. If there is a change in the temperature of the area, the nutritive value of your food can be damaged and shorten the shelf life of the item. The coolest room in the house is always a good place to start - basements (if you are lucky enough to have one), root cellars, temperature controlled garages, spare bedrooms, unfinished rooms, under beds, under stairways, closets, utility rooms and crawl spaces are just a few areas that may be appropriate for your storage. Make sure your room or space is dry at all times. It is important that you select a space that is relatively close to your kitchen so you have easy access to the items and can rotate them on a regular basis.

Location, Location, Location. Obviously, not everyone has a full basement with nothing in it, so you sometimes have to be creative in finding a space for your storage. If you have a stairway in your home, the space under the stairs is usually wasted space. Put in shelves to line the space and you have room for your 5 gallon buckets as well as any canned goods. Make sure you measure your shelves to fit your can and buckets exactly so you don't have any wasted space.

Most garages are not climate controlled, so there is a temperature fluctuation. If that is your situation, you may want to use your garage to store your paper goods, such as paper towels, toilet paper and napkins - or any other non-foodstuff items.

For smaller house or apartment dwellers, space is a rare commodity, so you have to make your own storage areas. Under your bed is a perfect spot. Make sure to put the items you use the most on the outside perimeter of your bed. You can always use your storage to create book shelves by adding a few boards, or an end table by using a large bucket with a round board on top and covered with a table cloth.

Whatever your situation is and what kind of space you have available to you, the most important thing to remember is to pick or create a space and fill it with your emergency food storage. Make the decision to be prepared and then get started!

Terri R. Simmons currently works as an Human Resource Manager for a small company. She is concerned about the state of the economy and wants to share different ideas that may be helpful in preparing for the future. She has many years of experience in using food storage. Find out more about emergency food storage by visiting Food Storage for You










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Last big purchase.

I just made my last purchase for the year. From now on out all that I will spend money on is bills and food. Mini Plus Kitis something that we needed so that I can store the food I do get and the food that I dehydrate. Now we are set. I have our bills down to just the water, gas, cell phones and electric. This spring we plan on buying a vehicle , but by then I should have a bit in savings. I am not missing the expense of having a car. That is the only thing I dread about getting a car. But, with it getting close to my son going to college, we better get one!


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A 72 Hour Kit

When planning emergency survival kits one of the more important ones that you can put together are the 72 hour kits. These emergency preparedness packages are frequently referred to as the first step towards become prepared for any sort of emergency.

The objective behind these kits is that they can be created ahead of time and placed in a closet or cabinet near the door ready and waiting to be grabbed at a moments notice. Their very existence originates from the concept of being quick to grab and get to the bug out vehicle. These are the perfect solution to being prepared if you have to depart the area at a moments notice.

In any emergency a person wishes they had specific items that they need. As an example a fire which I recently dealt with involved a family who literally lost everything they owned. They had nothing left what so ever. We provided them with the necessities of life but in many cases what would these people have done if we were not around to help them?

In times of emergencies complete communities are affected in a similar manner. Emergency supplies are few and often unavailable. What if your town is suddenly informed that they must depart the area would you and your family be prepared? You would if you had a 72 hour kit ready and waiting near your door.

A 72 hour kit should contain the essential supplies which your family would need to take you through three days of taking care of yourself. The reason that a 72 hour kit is valuable is because it has been shown that it could take up to three to four days before emergency personnel could get supplies moving during a disaster. What this amounts to is that until the emergency crews and their supplies are in place you and your neighbors will be on your own. According to how bad your emergency situation is the time limit could even be much longer.

To get you started on construction of a personalized 72 hour kit I will provide you with a few supplies to include. These are not bound in stone items and each kit should reflect the individual's desires and likes.

You could include one or several first aid kits in your pack. I have one in my vehicle, a personal kit and a family kit. In my family kit I include both foot and body powder. I have included both a means of making light such as a flashlight or lantern as well as some ways of creating a fire by either matches or a magnesium block.

In the event that you end up traveling it's always a good idea to include a compass and a set of maps in your kit. Today everyone seems to want GPS systems but you really should know how to use a map and compass as well.

If you can only have one tool in our kit the best item to have would be a "Leatherman" multi-tool. If you are fortunate enough to be able to include several you could easily add things such as a saw and an axe with a sheath.

For cooking your food you may need some sort of folding frying pan, a P-38 can opener and naturally food to go with these items. Your sanitary equipment should include some toilet tissue, soap, and personal hygiene products.

Always include some cash with your kit. I like to have one or two hundred dollars in small bills along with about 10 or 20 dollars in quarters. You can take your credit card and your debt card but never rely solely upon them for funds as you will never know if the ATM machines will be functioning.

Lastly include clothing appropriate for the season and geographical location. Don't pack summer clothing in your kit for use in the winter time. There you have a rough idea as to what you can include in your kit. The rest is up to you. You can personalize your kit as you see fit.

By Joseph Parish

Copyright @2010 Joseph Parish
http://www.survival-training.info

For more information relating to survival visit us at http://www.survival-training.infSimple: Just Add Water - Outdoor Gourmet Meals - WiseFoodStorage.com

Food Storage Guidelines

Just am wanting to share a couple of links with my readers about the shelf life of food. It is a Chart that I plan on printing off for reference. USA Emergency Supply has some great points on storage life of foods.



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The Survival Homestead

Imagine walking onto a cobble stone path out in your back yard. As you are wandering through the path you begin looking at your garden growing in the distance. The plants have grown and are beginning to bear their fruits. This is you and your family's second garden after the Crunch happened. You are giving in to your fantasies of fresh tomato salsa, pickles, watermelon, husks of fresh grilled corn. These are the fruits of your tireless labor. The satisfaction of knowing your family is going to eat is overwhelming. You quietly laugh to your self thinking, "Wow, you give 'em half-decent conditions and they just do what they know how to do. "

Medicinal Garden

As you are nearing your garden off to the right is a smaller garden full of small bushy medicinal herbs. They too are growing into attractive looking adult plants. The way you placed them looks almost as they were there for aesthetic reasons. Seeing that the echinacea is blooming and the sage and thyme flanking it is a sigh of relief knowing that you can create natural medicines for your family as well as dry it for seasonings. Peppermint is spreading its way through the garden. You make a mental note to cut some of that back. You took a basil leaf in your hand and instantly bring it up to your nose. The fragrance is intoxicating. The soft spikes of chives, dill and lavender are swaying in the mild breeze.

Companion Planting and Crop Rotation

You are glad that you took your neighbors advice to create a companion garden to naturally repel insects and nourish the plants. The 12 tomato plants are growing in nicely and the fruit is ready to be picked. The marigolds that you grew as a companion plants are protecting the tomatoes from pests and enriching your soil. You reach the garden and smell the sweet air that the corn is giving off. The small melon vines that are slowing growing and twisting on the corn stalk looks as if they are making their way up to touch the sun.

Your wise neighbor came by to bring a basket of okra he had grown and noticed your mistake of placing the tomatoes and potatoes next to each other and advised that they be moved away from one another because of their heavy feeding. He went on to add that there are certain plants that work well with each other and are companions, so to speak. Some plants have little personalities: some like their space, some are invasive, some take a lot of nutrients and some give off nutrients in the soil.

Crop Rotation

You think back on your life two years ago and realize how much you took for granted driving down to the store to pick up a few vegetables and some meat for dinner. On the south side of your land is where your crop rotation is. After reading different farming books and talking with wise neighbors, you decided that crop rotation was the best way to grow food and condition the earth. Your neighbor describes that crop rotation is that each year a person rotates a set of crops that nourish the soil with nitrogen, and then in the next line of crops you add a plant that is a high feeder on the soil's nutrients. This swapping will create balance in your soil. Looks like it paid off. You have beans, carrots, onions, squash, tomatoes, cabbage, peas and potatoes.

Irrigation Area

Walking around the "country swimming pool" filled with fish and ducks swimming around each other, you only feel blessed seeing the mini ecosystem that you assisted in creating. You smile back and realize that the earth is giving its blessing back to you. The fish pond is not only another source to find food, but it can also be used to irrigate the vegetables and crops growing. After reading more from the many farming resources you have, you discovered that the Native Americans used fish to fertilize the soil. And after using this method, the vegetables were even healthier and robust.

Livestock and Compost

Not far from your crops and the pond are where the small goats are feeding. They are feeding on the left over wheat hulls that had fallen when the crop was threshed the other day, and they seem quite attentive to their task at cleaning up. Their manure has been a God send to the composting area. Once again, you see that you are creating a ecosystem where each aspect of the system is supporting one another. To think this Eden that you have created only started out with a dream put on paper. Your well planned micro farm is utilizing every resource available.

Find some answers to your homesteading and survival questions at http://www.readynutrition.com

Tess Pennington is the lead content contributor for Ready Nutition. Ready Nutrition is an educational resource for those wanting to learn more about home safety preparedness, learning how to cope in disaster situations, and for those wanting to learn how to be more self sustaining. Her career at the American Red Cross left her with years of experience in safety and disaster preparedness. Tess is establishing herself as one of the foremost authorities on safety development and disaster preparedness on the internet. She describes herself as a mixture of Martha Stewart and Les Stroud.

Tess Pennington's work today encompasses:
Teaching disaster preparedness
Informing readers about the importance of preparing for any given situation.
Writing
Speaking
Media consultation





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