Layer One Food Storage: Why Your Kitchen Pantry Matters Most

When we think about food storage, our minds often jump straight to buckets of long-term food and catastrophic emergencies. But in reality, most of the situations we are likely to face will have us reaching for the food already in our kitchen.

In this episode, we're talking about layer one of my three-layer food storage system: your kitchen pantry. This often-overlooked layer is actually your first line of defense in everyday emergencies, from power outages to unexpected life disruptions.

We talk about:
• What layer one food storage actually is
• Why your kitchen pantry is more important than you think
• How much food to keep on hand
• Why your pantry should reflect the way your family really eats
• Simple ways to build a practical, functional kitchen pantry
• How to think about food storage in terms of recipes instead of random foods

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by food storage or wondered where to start, this episode will encourage you to look at your kitchen in a new way. You may already be more prepared than you think.

If this episode was helpful, I'd love for you to leave a review and share it with a friend.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Come to this Prepared Life, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. I'm Allison, and together we're building a calmer, more resilient life, one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional stuff at a time. Let's start out today by doing just a quick overview of my three-layered food storage system. Today's episode, we are primarily going to be talking about layer one, but I did want to give you a quick overview, especially if you're new here, so that you have a better understanding of my three-layered food storage system. Layer one in my system is your kitchen pantry. This layer is the foods that you are eating. It's what's in your fridge, it's what's in your kitchen cabinets. All of us have a kitchen pantry in our house to some extent or another. Layer two is what I call my short-term storage. It is also sometimes referred to as my grocery store, my home grocery store. So that's layer two. And layer three is the long-term layer of my home food supply. This is also sometimes referred to as my something really bad has happened layer. So let's jump in to layer one. Layer one is often overlooked when we start thinking about a proper pantry or building a home food supply because we don't think that our kitchen pantry is going to sustain us in an emergency. And that is really because when we think emergency, our brains go to this catastrophic place. When in reality, let's flip this around and really think about it practically. Most of us and most of the emergencies that we are going to encounter are going to be emergencies where we are utilizing our kitchen pantry to feed our family. In a power outage, we are not going to run down to the basement and get out that bucket of freeze-dried emergency food to feed our family dinner. No, we're going to open up our kitchen cabinets. We are going to pull out our camp stove or what other method we have identified that we're going to cook with in a power outage. And we're going to open up our fridge really quick and get out our ingredients and shut it before all the cold comes out because a power outage is a most likely event. So think practically as you are planning your food storage and understand and know that not every event is going to be a catastrophic emergency. Your kitchen pantry is vitally important in your three-layered food storage system. If layer one is your first line of defense in most emergencies that we're going to encounter, what does layer one look like? Layer one is going to look different for each of us. And I know people hate to hear that because we want to checklist if I buy these 10 things, then I will be prepared. This is going to be a little bit easier than you think it is. So stick with me to the end where we are going to go over some questions to help get you started stocking your pantry. And throughout this episode, we're going to talk about what layer one looks like. So layer one is what is in your refrigerator right now. It's what you are eating this week. If you meal plan a week at a time or a month at a time, it's the meat that you have pulled out of your freezer or bought at the grocery store and you plan to feed your family that. So that is in essence what layer one looks like in this food storage system. I suggest if you have the space for it, that you store 30 days worth of food in your kitchen pantry. And if you don't have space for 30 days, then don't store 30 days. Store two weeks' worth or one week's worth. And if you think about your food storage in terms of recipes, you're gonna get a lot more mileage out of the space you have rather than storing random foods. Like really be intentional and plan what you are storing in your 30-day kitchen pantry. What does packaging look like for layer one? Packaging for layer one in my three-layer food storage system really does not look much different than what you bring that food home from the grocery store in. Unless you live in an area with pantry moths or you have ant issues, you really don't need to repackage any of the food that is coming into your kitchen pantry. You know, the eggs are still gonna be in their egg carton, the butter is still gonna be in its butter box. Flour, you're gonna dump that into canisters. If you do live in an area that struggles with pests, or you struggle with pests or rodents in your kitchen pantry, you're definitely gonna want to repackage foods, dry goods into airtight packaging like jars, kitchen canisters, things like that, because that is going to protect your food from spoilage, from rodents, and from insects. What does rotation look like in a layer one kitchen pantry? It really just looks like feeding your family. Your kitchen pantry feeds your family. It makes dinner, it makes breakfast, it makes lunch. Other than keeping an eye on the ingredients that you have stored and making sure that they're not sitting and not getting used, you don't need to monitor rotation as much as you do in the other layers of your food storage. Oftentimes, when we think about preparedness, we think about these end of the world scenarios, these huge catastrophic events, and those can and do happen. But in all reality, our most likely events, and these are going to be different for each of us. Our family is going to eat from our kitchen pantry. So here are some things that you can do right now to ensure that you have a well-stocked kitchen pantry, which is the foundation of your three-layered food storage system. And that is going to help you have no waste, no waste of money, time, or your energy. It is going to help the nutritional content of your foods stay as high as it can. And it is going to ensure that you can provide familiar, comforting foods to your family no matter the emergency. Number one is know how you use your kitchen. Each of us is going to use our kitchen a little different. Do you bake a lot? Do you do sourdough? Do you do canned and preserved foods? Are you cooking freezer meals and eating out of that? Like there's no wrong way to use your kitchen. It's your kitchen, guys. But understand how you use your kitchen. So one thing that you can do when you are planning your layer one pantry is to sit down and make a list. What are the things I cook most often? Are there any ingredients that I'm usually running out of this? So maybe I should stock more of it. How do you handle inventory and ensuring that you have the ingredients for these recipes on hand? So go ahead and make a list of the recipes that you cook most often for your family. Make a list of those ingredients and really take note of how often do you actually use these things. Number two is open up your kitchen cabinets and buy more of what you see. Buy more of the shelf stable foods that you see. This is going to get you started building a larger 30-day pantry for your family without having to actually make an exact plan for the foods you're putting in there. If you are buying food that you already eat, you know that you will be able to make a meal with that food. So, what dry goods, pastas, rice, baking supplies do you use that you can buy more of? What canned foods, canned meats, fruits, or vegetables do you use a lot of that you can buy more of? Look for those shelf stable foods and stock more of those. Another action step that you can take, and this one does take a little longer, but it gives you a really good picture of how you use your kitchen is for 30 days, make notes of every single thing you cook or use in your kitchen. And this is helpful for understanding how you use your kitchen, but it's also going to be helpful when you get to layer two and you start thinking about your grocery store and the things that you want to store a larger stock of. So write down each recipe you make, write down the snacks you feed your kids, write down what you make for dinner and all the ingredients that go with that. Layer one of your home food storage, the most overlooked layer, because we tend to just gloss over it, is actually one of the most important layers. It is your go-to, it is your first line of defense. So I always suggest starting there when building your three layers of food storage. And if you have a well-stocked layer one, whether you've been doing this for a while and you follow my three-layer food storage system, or maybe you're new and this episode made you realize, wow, I have a lot more food prepped than I thought I did. I hope that that encouraged you. You are more prepared than most people if you have a well-stocked kitchen pantry. Thank you for listening to this episode today. Stay tuned for layers two and three, which are coming up. Leave me a review on Apple or your favorite podcast player so other women can find this Prepared Life podcast, and together we can build calmer, more resilient lives, one pantry shelf skill or intentional step at a time.