Organizing Three Month's Supply in boxes

A person named RS95 wrote the following post about packing all of her Three-Month Supply in boxes. She gave permission for it to be reposted.   I thought it sounded like a good idea.

"In my food storage, I have taken the boxes from the cannery that hold 6 #10 cans, and I put a week's worth of dinners in one box, repeating 13 times, to get a 3 month supply of dinners. I did the same for breakfast and lunch. 

I took a box of each meal to my (food storage) class, and unpacked them, talking about what I chose and why.

For example, I packed this into a dinner box. I don't have it in front of me, so I may be forgetting some things that round it out better. 

*2 meals of what we call Spanish Rice...rice, tomato sauce, a packet of seasonings including dried onion, pinto beans, etc. Those ingredients are stored in a gallon ziploc, in the boxes.

*2 meals of pasta and sauce, complete with parmesan cheese and canned veggies.

*Chicken helper with canned chicken.

*Canned chili and cornbread mix.

*A boxed meal, one pot kind of thing by Stauffers. They are really high in sodium and fat, but it would keep us alive if we had nothing else to eat.

*Spaghetti O's and canned veggies to fill in for the kids, if they don't want to eat something one night.

There are also some odds and ends that I included because of extra space, like a box of Stove Top stuffing mix, candies and gum, etc.

My approach is somewhat unique though. I have those meals safely stored, they are completely shelf stable, somewhat well thought out nutritionally, and will last about a year. The dates of packaging are clearly marked on the outside. I'm not rotating through them on a monthly basis, as many people do. But I don't feed my family shelf stable meals usually. They are not as healthy as what we usually eat. We eat way too much produce and other short term items to make it realistic for us to store a 3 month supply of what we usually eat, but it will be a great variety if we need to live off of it.

The sisters responded well to my display, as I explained clearly that I have 13 boxes of each meal stacked in my garage. I described my method for coming up with a list of things to buy, by planning out a week's worth of meals and including every ingredient needed. Then I multiply the ingredient list by 13, and pack complete meals together, a week's worth at a time.

After losing 3 freezers and 2 refrigerators worth of food in January's 4 day power outage (Western Washington), I refuse to count my freezers as part of my three month supply. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of meat and fruit, not to mention the other odds and ends. 

Shelf stable. Not as nutritious as produce, but it would do in a pinch. My goal was to get the food on the shelves, and as I rotate through it (donate what we don't eat to the food bank before it expires) I'll be able to replace more nutritious foods for some of the less nutritious stuff I already have. It works for us! It's insurance.

I have to add...we have a LOT more stored in our pantry and on a storage unit of "every day foods" that we pull from. Canned beans, canned veggies, bags of oats, pasta, jam, peanut butter, canned meats, etc. Really, I'd say we have an 8 month supply of every day foods stored for our family of 5, because I did our official 3 month supply in handy, movable boxes. I guess the box idea came to me for an "official" way to know we had that food storage, organized into complete meals."

----RS95

One Method for Organizing Your 3 Month's Supply

Here is a great article about one woman's method for making sure she has a 3-month's supply of shelf-stable food.  She showed them off during a Relief Society class.

("Shelf-stable" means it doesn't need refrigeration.)

In my food storage, I have taken the boxes from the cannery that hold 6 #10 cans, and I put a week's worth of dinners in one box, repeating 13 times, to get a 3 month supply of dinners. I did the same for breakfast and lunch. I took a box of each meal to my class, and unpacked them, talking about what I chose and why. For example, I packed this into a dinner box. I don't have it in front of me, so I may be forgetting some things that round it out better. *2 meals of what we call Spanish Rice...rice, tomato sauce, a packet of seasonings including dried onion, pinto beans, etc. Those ingredients are stored in a gallon ziploc, in the boxes. *2 meals of pasta and sauce, complete with parmesan cheese and canned veggies. *Chicken helper with canned chicken. *Canned chili and cornbread mix. *A boxed meal, one pot kind of thing by Stauffers. They are really high in sodium and fat, but it would keep us alive if we had nothing else to eat. *Spaghetti O's and canned veggies to fill in for the kids, if they don't want to eat something one night. There are also some odds and ends that I included because of extra space, like a box of Stove Top stuffing mix, candies and gum, etc. My approach is somewhat unique though. I have those meals safely stored, they are completely shelf stable, somewhat well thought out nutritionally, and will last about a year. The dates of packaging are clearly marked on the outside. I'm not rotating through them on a monthly basis, as many people do. But I don't feed my family shelf stable meals usually. They are not as healthy as what we usually eat. We eat way too much produce and other short term items to make it realistic for us to store a 3 month supply of what we usually eat, but it will be a great variety if we need to live off of it. The sisters responded well to my display, as I explained clearly that I have 13 boxes of each meal stacked in my garage. I described my method for coming up with a list of things to buy, by planning out a week's worth of meals and including every ingredient needed. Then I multiply the ingredient list by 13, and pack complete meals together, a week's worth at a time. After losing 3 freezers and 2 refrigerators worth of food in January's 4 day power outage (Western Washington), I refuse to count my freezers as part of my three month supply. We lost hundreds of dollars worth of meat and fruit, not to mention the other odds and ends.  Shelf stable. Not as nutritious as produce, but it would do in a pinch.  My goal was to get the food on the shelves, and as I rotate through it (donate what we don't eat to the food bank before it expires) I'll be able to replace more nutritious foods for some of the less nutritious stuff I already have. It works for us! It's insurance. I have to add...we have a LOT more stored in our pantry and on a storage unit of "every day foods" that we pull from. Canned beans, canned veggies, bags of oats, pasta, jam, peanut butter, canned meats, etc. Really, I'd say we have an 8 month supply of every day foods stored for our family of 5, because I did our official 3 month supply in handy, movable boxes. I guess the box idea came to me for an "official" way to know we had that food storage, organized into complete meals.

Shelf Stable Dessert: Brownies

During an emergency, remember to plan for some comfort foods.

My family LOVES brownies.  Although I could make them from scratch, it will be much easier to use a box.  Here are all the shelf stable ingredients you need to make this box of brownies.

If we were without power, and if the stores were closed, we would soon be out of fresh eggs.
I think powdered whole eggs are one of the greatest inventions in food storage.  Just use 1 Tablespoon of powdered egg and 2 Tablespoons of water to equal 1 egg.

The only trouble I have ever had with powdered eggs, is that there are sometimes little lumps that are hard to mix in.

So I always add the powdered egg to the brownie or cake mix, and smash out all the little lumps first, before adding the liquids.

Then I add the water with whatever oil or liquid is called for in the recipe.

Shelf Stable Meal: Chili

Here are the ingredients to make chili beans for my family.   Every ingredient is shelf stable, so I consider this one of my Three-Month Supply meals.

I pressure can ground beef, so it is always available whether or not I have a freezer.

I'm sorry I don't have a precise recipe, I just add the cumin, chili powder and onions until it tastes right.

Ground beef, browned or canned.  1 pound

Kidney beans- 3   15 oz. cans

tomato sauce-  1  29 oz. can

chili powder to taste

cumin to taste

onions, dehydrated minced (a few tablespoons dry onions, they rehydrate in the mixture)

Warm it up together, and serve with crackers.

Oxygen Absorbers

I'm trying to put loads of "water storage and water filtration" type articles on my blog this month, because that is the goal of our bishop's challenge this month.

However, our ward is also supposed to be continuing to buy food for our 3 month's supply and our long term storage.

I did a Relief Society display last night about dry canning, and wanted to give this link for some really good information on Oxygen Absorbers.  It is posted on FoodStorageMadeEasy.net.

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2012/04/30/oxygen-absorbers/

Concentrate on Water Storage for May

Our challenge for April was to plan and start buying your three month's supply of food, and learn about longer term storage.

For May, we are going to be concentrating on WATER.

2012- A Year of Preparedness

Our May challenge is: Obtain Containers and Fill them with Water (And keep buying food)

Goals:

Ward members will obtain more than 14 gallons of water per person

AND

Keep buying food for your three month's supply, or long term supply.

It is important to obtain your water storage in May, because in June we will begin using the water in challenges.  You may want to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking, but you can save money by refilling clean soda pop or juice bottles, or purchased containers, to use for bathing or washing.  Do NOT use milk jugs.  They disintegrate and leak.

www.ProvidentLiving.org  states that it is NOT NECESSARY to add bleach to treated city water.  “Store drinking water for circumstances in which the water supply may be polluted or disrupted.

If water comes directly from a good, pretreated source, then no additional purification is needed; otherwise, pretreat water before use. Store water in sturdy, leak-proof, breakage-resistant containers. Consider using plastic bottles commonly used for juices and soda.

Keep water containers away from heat sources and direct sunlight.”

We are asked to store two weeks’ worth of water: 14 gallons per person, which is one gallon per person per day.  This allows two quarts for drinking and two quarts for very basic cleaning.  For more comfort, you may wish to add an additional 1 gallon per day for washing, tooth brushing, and dish washing.  

Family of one: 14 gallons

Family of two: 28 gallons

Family of three: 42 gallons

Family of four: 56 gallons

Family of five: 70 gallons

Family of six: 84 gallons

Here are some tips as you obtain more food storage.  With a permanent marker mark the tops of all the cans and jars currently in your cupboards and storage with an X. As you purchase new items, mark them with the dates they were purchased. Marking with the date purchased ensures you will always use the oldest first.

Rearrange closets, making room for food storage and water storage.  Water can be stored in the garage, but food must be stored where it doesn’t get too hot. 

Tortellini Soup from Three-Month's Supply

Our ward members are still concentrating this month on planning and acquiring our three-month's supply of food.  I really love this woman's website:  MyFoodStorageCookbook.com.  She makes complete recipes out of shelf-stable ingredients, and publishes the recipe and step by step photos.

This recipe is Tortellini Soup made from shelf stable ingredients.

http://myfoodstoragecookbook.com/2012/04/26/tortellini-soup/

from MyFoodStorageCookbook.com

Please look at all her past recipes too, she has a BUNCH of really good recipes on there.  No one should say that our 3-months supplies have to taste bad.  She has proven that these dishes can be fabulous.

A Plan for Buying 3-mos Supply All at Once

FoodStorageMadeEasy.net made a plan for the person who gets a big wad of cash and wants to buy their three month's supply of food all at one time.

Here are some helpful hints for doing that (if you have a great big hunk of money right now.)


http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2012/03/20/buying-a-3-month-supply-in-bulk/

What the Church's website says

Here is what the church's website has to say about a three-month supply of food.

https://www.lds.org/family/family-well-being/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng

Emergency Preparedness and Response

Members of the Church have been counseled for many years to be prepared for adversity. Preparation, both spiritual and temporal, can dispel fear. With the guidance of Church leaders, individual members and families should prepare to be self-reliant in times of personal or widespread emergency.

Family Emergency Planning

Church members are encouraged to prepare a simple emergency plan. Items to consider may include:

• Three-month supply of food that is part of your normal daily diet.
• Drinking water.
• Financial reserves.
• Longer-term supply of basic food items.
• Medication and first aid supplies.
• Clothing and bedding.
• Important documents.
• Ways to communicate with family following a disaster.

Buying Enough Food for Three Months

3 month shelf stable food. Everything for every meal for 13 weeks.

“We can begin ever so modestly. We can begin with a one week’s food supply and gradually build it to a month, and then to three months.”

Gordon B. Hinckley, “To Men of the Priesthood,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 58.October 2002

I will describe Wendy Dewitt’s method. She thought about food storage, and she decided she wanted good food, food that she already liked to eat. She wrote down 14 dinners that her family liked, wrote down all the ingredients right down to the teaspoon of salt, multiplied it by 26 times, and bought that amount of food, so she could eat that meal every other week. Then she knew she had all the ingredients to eat dinner for a whole year.

She also did the same with breakfasts, and ingredients for one loaf of bread a day. This plan is all described in her booklet.

But I don't want to overwhelm you, so consider doing her method and basing it on Three Months. Just plan out everything for 13 weeks or three months instead of a year like she did.

Store what you eat. Eat what you store. Rotate, rotate, rotate.

The ladies on FoodStorageMadeEasy feel that it is okay to keep meat in the freezer for their 3 month supply. Wendy Dewitt doesn’t keep her meat in the freezer, she cans it. She doesn't want to rely on the power grid.

Ask yourself, How often can I stand to eat this dish? If you can eat it every other week, buy 6 or 7 meals of it.

If you can eat it once a week, buy 13 meals of it.

Canned goods can easily last 1-3 years, no problem.

Boxes can get bugs in them, rotate them quickly.

My family's plan: Here are some of the things in my three-month supply.

Taco Soup. We can easily eat it twice a month. Twice a month for 3 months = 6 times. So I bought 6 bags of Fritos at Sam's, and all the cans of beans, corn, and tomato sauce, bought a big jar of Taco Seasoning Powder, and canned some ground beef. Now I have all the ingredients except lettuce, and we could eat it without lettuce if we had to. (If you don't want to can the beef, just keep it in your freezer.)

Spaghetti. Twice a month. Spaghetti noodles, spaghetti sauce, powdered Parmesan cheese, oil. Buy enough for 6 meals.

Canned Soup- I buy it on sale. We have lots and lots of this.

Hamburger Helper, Asian Helper. One can of chicken for 2 boxes. Oil. Powdered milk.

Snacks and desserts, not just main dishes. Cake mix, can of frosting, oil, powdered eggs.

Jellos and puddings- two per week for 3 months. Remember to store ALL the ingredients. Jello just needs water. I store evaporated milk or powdered milk to make the pudding.

Eat cold cereal half the days for 3 months-11 boxes for our family. I have the powdered milk stored just in case, but for now I'll buy the milk at the store.

(Remember to store food inside the temperature controlled house, not in attic or garage.)