How to Start Stockpiling Food For Survival Situations

Prepping involves among other things stockpiling food for emergency situations. In this article we are going to take a look on how you can easily start build your survival food storage. But, before you start, you need to ask yourself a few important questions like, what type of food you want to stockpile and how big you want your food stockpile to be. Once you have been able to answer these questions, you are able to lay out a plan on how you want to get started.

Stockpiling food is an expensive affair, and you therefore need a good plan to avoid feeling financially strained. So having a budget in this case would be smart. You can decide that each month you will spend x amount of dollars to add to your emergency food items stockpile. In any case, stored food is an investment. If you are to ever find yourself in a SHTF situation, at least you know your family will have enough food to eat for weeks or even months depending on the size of your stock.

Once you have determined how much you want to spend each month, you then need to figure out what type of food you want. Remember, stock food that you like. If you prefer rice to pasta, stock pasta. But if one member of your family loves pasta, then you should stock both items. Purchase only those items that you and your family can use, eat, or drink.

Once you have reached your stockpile-size goal, start planning on rotating the food items. This is a great strategy of ensuring that all you’re stored food items are fresh. So, from time to time, check to see what food items are about to expire, eat those and replace them with new food items.

Storage Space and Usage

Your stockpile should not be in a room that is exposed to sunlight or heat because the food will go bad fast. It should be stored in a cool, dark place preferably a place that has no humidity. Basement is ideal; however, there are seasons when the humidity levels in your basement can go up increasing the chances of mildew and mold growth.

Mildew and mold flourish in environments with humidity levels of above 80 percent; therefore, you need to keep the humidity levels in your basement well below 50 percent. You also need to consider whether your basement is vulnerable to flooding. If you live near a large water body or in area prone to frequent hurricane activity, find ways that can help prevent basement flooding.

But basements are not the only places you can store survival food. Other great options include your garage, closet, pantry and root cellar. It does not really matter where you stock your food, as long as the place you choose is conducive for food storage.

Your food stockpile should not just be for emergency situations. Of course, you are storing the food for a SHTF situation, but you should access and utilize it regularly. You can use it as backup in case you want to save some money for something for a short duration of time. It can also be a life-saver if you are suddenly find yourself in financial difficulty and you cannot afford food.  Whatever the circumstances, at least you will not starve.

Picture your stockpile as a life-saving tool that you can use even in small emergency situations and not just major SHTF type of situations. You can take food from your storage when going to camping etc., this way you will know how it tastes, and it helps also recycle storage. Use food from older stock and remember to replace it with new items.

Build your stockpile gradually

Stockpiling does not need to be done all at once and although some people can afford to do that, not many can, especially those who are on a budget. So if you are on a budget, consider building your stockpile bit-by-bit.

You can start by establishing just how much of your income shall go into buying food items for your stockpile. You can decide that you each month, you will buy not more than 30 or 40 food items. Again, this depends on your budget.

Putting a plan in place of how you want to go about building your survival food storage can save you a lot of time and money. It can also help you balance the different food groups. For instance, you do not want to have more carbs than proteins and vice versa.

Take advantage of special deals or promotions

This is the best way to save up on money when stockpiling. Always check around for deals and discounts on food items. If you do this, in the end, you will have built a reasonably sized storage at a nominal cost.

Since you’ll also be stockpiling other times, such as toilet paper, soap and paper towels, when you find huge discounts being offered on these types of products, buy in bulk. Ideally, try to keep at least 4 months or more worth of household items.

Remember, buying discounted items in bulk, reduces your cost significantly. Furthermore, any extra cash you save can go into buying other special items, such as medication, tools and first-aid items.

What is MRE food?

MRE means “Meals Ready To Eat”. Originally MRE refers to US military food, packed for single easy to carry and eat meals. You can buy military surplus MRE’s from many places such as Amazon. These food packs are made to last  long, so they are perfect for long time storage. MREs contains usually also all necessary nutritional ingredients needed to stay healthy making them quite perfect also for long lasting  survival situations. Therefore, it is not a surprise that many preppers build their survival food storage mainly based on MRE packs. Those are usually also quite reasonable priced.

Prioritize

When you start building up your survival food stockpile, keep in mind that eventually you will need to stock also other items than food, such as medicine, household items and tools. However, food and water should be your number one priority when you start, because they are not just extremely essential, but they are also relatively cheap.

Once you are done with building your food stockpile, you can then start buying household items. The good thing about these items is that you never need to rotate them as they take years to expire. So this also reduces your  costs.

When you start stockpiling medicine, consider that although it takes years for medicine to expire, it does become less effective with time. However, avoid throwing away all expired medicine because although it may become weaker with age, it could still be safe to take it. But, do not make any guesses, if you are not sure whether certain medication can be used after it has expired, find out.

Lastly, consider stocking up tradable goods. These are goods you can trade for money in case of an emergency situation.

Where to buy survival food?

You can buy survival food from your local super market or online. Buying online is maybe the easiest way as you can check the availability, and find plenty of alternatives at reasonable price. SurvivalGearArmory.com recommend buying MREs from Amazon. Below are some good offers.