Your Preparedness Questions Answered: Food Storage, Consistency & Overwhelm

In this episode, I'm answering your preparedness questions! These are real questions submitted by women in our community about food storage, water storage, meal planning, limited space, staying consistent, and overcoming overwhelm.

We cover topics like:
• How much food and water you should store
• Commercially canned vs. home canned foods
• How I rotate my long-term food storage
• What foods are best for long-term storage
• What to do when you have very little storage space
• Staying consistent without feeling behind
• How to move past overwhelm and just get started

One thing I hope you'll take away from this episode is that preparedness isn't a race. You don't have to do everything at once. Do what you can with what you have, right where you're at.

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https://www.thispreparedlife.com/questions

Home Food Storage Book:
https://amzn.to/4vE8G0H

Resources:

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If you have a question you'd like answered in a future episode, head to the homepage of my website and submit it. I'd love to hear from you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this Prepared Life Podcast, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. I'm Alison, and together we're building a calmer, more resilient lives, one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time. We are answering your questions today. These are all questions from followers on various social media platforms or private messages. I'm going to go through a few of those today. And I would love to answer your questions on a podcast episode. You can head to my website, this preparedlife.com. And on the homepage, you will see an option to ask a question for the podcast. Just fill out that form and maybe your question will be on the next Your Questions Answered. There are quite a few questions of varying topics. So this first question says, What are the basics to start with? And how much do you need? I'm going to assume they were referring to food storage because it was in a thread about food storage. So I'm going to start there. Food storage is about prepping what you eat so you can eat what you prep. We're going to go bear, bear, bear minimum. Basics are you need at least like three to seven days worth of food. That is a bare minimum. But I suggest stocking your kitchen pantry with 30 days of food, your layer two pantry with a year's worth of food, and then your layer three long-term storage that is purely personal. Some people just want to have a few emergency buckets of food, and some people really want years of food. So that's gonna be up to you. A good starting point would be to have, you know, a week or two's worth of food per person in your household somewhere. And in addition to that, do not forget the water. You need to have water. I suggest one gallon or two gallons per person per day for two weeks, and then having a way to filter water, purify water, and disinfect water as needed for emergency situations. Some of these questions are from Instagram story boxes, so they don't give us a lot of character space. So people get pretty creative about uh how they put their questions in. So sometimes I do have to decipher a little bit. But this one says glass jar veggie versus canned, which one is better for storage? For long-term storage, commercially canned, like the actual canned vegetables are better than glass, purely because glass is breakable. Like, can damage happen to those cans? Yes. And if they have the pop top, those are actually not the best for long-term storage. And it's getting harder and harder to find things without a pop top. I think, you know, eventually we're gonna hit a point where everything has a pop top, but commercially canned is gonna last longer in a long-term pantry than the powers that be say that home-canned food should be consumed within a year. You know, I have eaten pickled home-canned stuff multiple years old with no ill effects. I, you know, we will eat jam and applesauce that's much older. I typically am more cautious with pressure canned foods. So that would be meats or vegetables, anything low acid, beans, things like that. I won't give you a date because I don't have one. I'm gonna look at the food and make, you know, a choice and a decision about that. But for a proper pantry, I'm gonna say go with commercially canned foods and have those home canned foods be in your layer two grocery store that you are rotating those through on a more regular basis and eating those. Rotating long term. I'm gonna assume this one is like how? How do I rotate long term? So I'm gonna tell you how I do it. There's also a podcast episode all about layer three. Go ahead and check that out. And then my book has all the information you need to know about all three layers of food storage. It is essentially the book I wish I had when I started my home food storage, my home food supply. So head to Amazon, head to wherever you buy books, type in Allison Michael Home Food Storage. It's gonna come up and you can either pre-order that or order that, depending on when you are listening to this episode. How do you rotate long-term foods? My long-term food storage will rotate anywhere between two and 10 years from when I package it. And I am really good about labeling all of my long-term food storage, whether it's buckets or my or number 10 cans, so I can just at a glance see when something is. When I am looking at my spreadsheet and I'm like, I have oats. We're gonna use that as an example. Oats in my long-term storage that needs rotated into to be used. First thing I'm gonna look at is how much? How many oats? Is this a five-gallon bucket of oats, or is this just a you know, a gallon mylar bag full of oats? If it's a smaller quantity, like a mylar bag full of oats, I'm gonna take that bag, I'm gonna open it, I'm gonna throw away the oxygen absorber, and I'm gonna dump it straight into the oak canister in my kitchen. I know that that oak canister will be empty within a month, and I've then rotated that mylar bag of oats. If it's a bucket, let's say it's a five-gallon bucket or a three-gallon bucket of oats, I can't necessarily put three gallons or five gallons of oats into my oat canister in my kitchen. But what I can do is I can move that bucket of oats into my working pantry area of my layer two pantry. And that is every month when I am restocking my kitchen, I take my flour, rice, bean canisters, my oat canister down to my working buckets. These are buckets that are open that I am refilling canisters from. And so I'm gonna use that five-gallon bucket. I'm gonna refill my oak canister. I'm gonna take my oak canister back to the kitchen. I'm gonna put the lid back on that bucket and it's gonna sit there till it's empty. Once that bucket's empty, I will know I need to buy new oats to refill the bucket, to replace it and all that. So that's how I rotate something from my long-term storage either into my kitchen or into my layer two grocery store pantry. When I take something out of either layer two or layer three pantry, it goes onto my grocery list. And I know that I need to then put a new five-gallon bucket or whatever size bucket of oats it was into my long-term storage. And so that way my plan for the recipes I'm cooking or how much food I have and how many people I can feed for whatever length of time isn't altered because I've taken something out and not replaced it. Meal planning. Do you keep a spreadsheet of all the meals your family likes to eat? I do not. I am not a spreadsheet kind of person. I do have a spreadsheet for my food storage, but what usually happens is I print it and then I write notes on it, and then I just go update it once every six months, three months, somewhere in there. So I do not keep a spreadsheet of all the meals that my family likes to eat. A lot of that is in my brain. I do have a recipe box full of recipes. My kids have asked me to make a, you know, family cookbook so they have access to all of our recipes. But for preparedness purposes, I do have my prep binder, which as I'm planning, I have a meal planner in there, and then I have a recipe page that I will write recipes onto. And those get put in my binder so that even if I am unavailable, someone can look at my binder and know this is how much food is in the food storage, this is where the oats are or whatever it is, and here's how to reconstitute them and the recipe to cook them. So I do keep all of that kind of stuff in my prep binder that's accessible for my family. But I just handwrite that because I'm kind of old school. Where does one begin with limited storage space? So this question comes up a lot from a lot of people, and the answer is you get really, really creative. You can go vertical. Do you have a closet that, you know, has wasted space maybe behind the clothes or on the back shelves? Can you use underbed storage? Can you put your bed on risers and raise it up a little bit so you have even more underbed storage? Uh, I've known some people will keep like buckets behind their couch and so their couch is out a little bit from the wall. Like, I haven't ever done that. I would wonder if it like, I don't know, it just seems like a bucket would be a lot of space, but you use the space you have the best you can. So can you go vertical? Can you identify unused or misused space in your house? Can you declutter? Like open up that hall closet and go, do I really need all of these things in here? Or can I declutter, send some stuff to the thrift store and use two of these shelves for my home food storage? Uh, you know, get creative and try and use your space as wise as you can. But like we have lived in houses where we didn't have a ton of space and you just you do what you can. So if you are space challenged, you really need to focus on essentials and what are you storing that has the most bang for not only your dollar, but for the space that you have available. What foods for long-term storage? The foods that you eat is what I'm gonna say. That is always gonna be my answer. I know that uh checklists are nice, having a list is nice. They have calculators online of, you know, here's the foods to store, and you need this many pounds per person. And those are great, but if you don't know how to cook those things, you don't know how to rehydrate those foods, they're not really gonna be helpful and they're gonna go to waste. So, what do you eat that would store well long term? We're looking at dry goods with 10% less or moisture. Uh, we're looking at foods that are not oily, do not have a high fat content. Foods like that all store well long term. In the back of home foods, there is a uh like a little index section which has some of the more common foods I get asked about and whether it's best for short-term storage or long-term storage. And do you need an oxygen absorber or not? Need an oxygen absorber. So there's a lot of information in there about specific foods. And, you know, if you uh get the book and you're looking through that index and you don't see a food that you want to store, find a food that's similar. If it's a grain, is there a grain that is similar? And then you can look at that storage. Because not every food is listed. There's so many, so many different types of food in the world. We wouldn't have had enough space in the book. But just to give you a list, a short list of some of the better foods for long-term food storage: rice, oats, beans, popcorn, and you do not need an oxygen absorber with popcorn because it does contain moisture inside the kernel. Dry corn, lentils, freeze-dried foods, freeze-dried fruit, freeze-dried vegetables, those all store extremely well long-term. Dehydrated foods can store well long term if they snap when you try and break them. So if they're brittle, if they're pliable and leathery, those are not great candidates for long-term storage. Freeze-dried eggs store incredibly well long-term. And I define long-term as anywhere between two and 30 years. Powdered milk stores great in your long-term storage, but powdered milk can also go rancid in as little as three months if it's stored at the wrong temperature. How long something stores depends on how you store it, how it's packaged, where it's stored, and a lot of other factors that you have to take into consideration. This is a great question. How to stay consistent. I do well for a few months and then I slack off and feel behind. Okay, first off, don't feel behind. Like you were, this isn't a race. There's no uh checklist of you must do these things by this date or you're an ill-prepared, awful person. Like, you set your goals here. Do what you can with what you have when you have the time and the ability to do it. And if you need a break, take a break. Like, you don't have to be all gung ho, all in all the time. So, how to stay consistent is to make the tasks in your day just like part of your lifestyle, your mindset, your everyday life. And you only have so much space in your days. So you need to say yes to the right things and no to the things you don't have space for. But like for me, it does not take any additional energy now for me to grocery shop in my layer two pantry and rotate and make that grocery list than it did for me to go through my kitchen pantry and make a grocery list. Does it take more time overall that I am, you know, I am managing that pantry and cleaning and organizing and keeping eyes on that pantry? Yeah, you know, I would say over the course of the year I I spend, you know, a fair amount of time taking care of that. But it has become a normal part of my daily routine and my tasks. So it it's not something I have to stay consistent on. If it's a new skill you're learning, I don't know what they say now, but like it used to be it takes 30 days to make a habit. So, like if you are wanting to incorporate like some new skill into your life, you're gonna have to allow yourself grace and time to manage that and to build it into your daily routine. Like I think of sourdough when I think of that, like I am awful with sourdough guys. Like I kill sourdough starter all the time. I know that I'm just gonna buy a new sourdough starter from the farm stand down the way every fall because all summer I don't even use it. But that's not something that I have been able to be consistent enough to keep it in my daily routine. Like I love doing sourdough bread, but it's just hard. It doesn't fit in with where my days go most days. I don't know if I answered that question very well because I don't really know what specifically you're talking about, but the more you can move things into just sort of your daily life, the more consistent they're gonna be. And then also removing the expectations of where you should be so that you don't feel behind. Have grace for yourself and where you're at right now. Uh, next question. I feel like it is all overwhelming. So I just don't even start. The only wrong way to prep is to not prep at all. Um, and I know it's overwhelming and I I feel for you because I have been there, I've been at the place where it's like I didn't even know where to start. So I'm gonna I'll give you a couple, a couple tips. If you're looking for more like practical, where do I start in food storage? I've got some past podcast episodes that'd probably be helpful for you. Maybe scroll through some of those. But if you are wondering where to start on like learning skills, start by making a list. What are what are the skills that you think would be important to learn? Write them all down and just pick one and pick the one that's the most fun. Which one seems like you're gonna really enjoy that? Because if you really enjoy something, you're gonna stick with it. And every little thing matters. If you spend two months learning how to make soap, that matters. You have learned how to make soap for your family. You had fun in the process, and your mental health is important too. So having fun is important. Every skill, every task, every little thing that you do matters. And it's not like no one else's checklist of what you need is right for you. You've got to make your own plan and your own list. And I know that it can seem overwhelming, but I think that overwhelm comes when we are comparing ourselves to other people. So don't look at what like what I have and think you should be there because what I have has taken decades to build and learn and rotate. I have a lot of time on my hands right now. I'm now moving into this season of empty nesting and I have that free time to devote to all the things. So no comparison. Try to have grace for yourself, make a list and just pick something. This question's very similar. I am gonna read it. It says, I take on too much too soon. I want to do all the things, then anxiety follows. Uh there's a I've talked about this a little bit on Instagram, but I like to make what I call our wish lists instead of to-do lists because to-do lists just make me feel anxious. And I don't know why. It's totally just like a mindset and a wording thing, but I sit down each week and I make my wish list and it's what needs done and then what I want to get done. And I know, like I go into my wish list knowing I will not accomplish it all, and I acknowledge I will not accomplish it all. Like I accept it and I acknowledge it, and I make the list anyway. So if you are taking on too much too soon, you know, I would really refocus, sit down, make a plan. Like I told the previous question, make a list of the things that you want to do and pick one. Pick one that you want to do. You don't have to do everything all at once. But if you pick something that's exciting to you, then maybe, you know, you'll stick with that for a little while before you move on to the next thing. But also making that wish list to help focus your weight and de stress yourself a little bit. And maybe that will be helpful to you. It's helpful to me. I don't know if it'd be helpful to you, but uh, it's no fun being anxious, especially if the things are things that that you want to do. And then if it's causing you anxiety, it kind of makes it no fun. So do what you can with what you have right where you're at. See, here's these are some great questions. Time is a struggle. I can never do as much as I want, and that's not even close to what others in real life, not just on Instagram, get done. Comparison kills. My gosh, okay, don't compare yourself to other people in real life or online. We are all different, we all have different capacities, uh, and that's okay. That is okay. Your journey is your journey and no one else's. Make a list of what you want to do, need to do, focus that, choose one thing. Your next best step is great. Like that is all you need to focus on. What do you need to do next? And quit looking at what other people are doing and comparing yourself to that. I would love to answer your questions on the next podcast. Head to my website, thispreparedlife.com, and you will see on the homepage a box to input your questions. I would love to do that. I love talking with you guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review. And if you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button, reviews and follows and subscribes. Help other women find this Prepared Life podcast because together we're building a calmer, more resilient life, one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time.