Preparedness on a Shoestring Part 14: The 30 Day Store (food)

OK, you have made it to the 2 week supply milestone and taken a much needed and well deserved break. Now it is time to start forward on the next phase of your preps. I call it the 30 day store because at this point your preps have probably commandeered the entire area of a good sized closet or perhaps a small room. Most likely, the list of items you have accumulated also resemble something like the inventory of a small country general store.

Your 3 day, 7 day, and 2 week supply will get you through half of the time here. If you are able to and do use all of your fresh foods first (at least everything that won’t keep), those supplies might carry you through 3 weeks…maybe. Do not bank on that. As sure as you do, something will go wrong. A refrigerator door will be left open, or you won’t notice that the ice has melted, or you’ll have to bug out, or family or a friend will show up (More on that later). Whatever it is, as sure as you depend on perishables to extend your prep supplies beyond what they are supposed to cover, it will happen. Mr. Murphy takes great delight in enforcing his law. Even if you get to use all of your perishables to best effect, something could go wrong with your preps.

It has happened to me. I had stored some supplies in an outbuilding for lack of a better place to put them and didn’t check on them as often as I should have. When I did check, I found that I had lost 3 weeks worth of food and 2 sleeping bags to what had to be some of the best fed and housed mice in the county. That is the very last time I ever store foodstuffs outside the house in plastic totes.

During the growing season, I consider my standing crops to be prep stock too. I also consider their provision at 50% of what I reasonably expect them to produce. In reality, I usually harvest around 80% of what is grown. The rest I lose to predation by critters and birds. Squirrels and rabbits especially like some of the crops that I grow in my garden. I lost a bushel and a half of corn last season and around half a bushel of beans. I also suffered some losses to my cabbage and lettuce. The tomato blight claimed over half my expected tomato harvest. I said all of that to say this, it is fine to depend on a garden crop, even expected, just don’t overestimate what you will actually be able to harvest…even after you have become an experienced gardener with reliable year to year yields.

The 30 day store brings with it a whole host of new concerns and administrivia to deal with. For one thing, unless you have a reliable source of power or refrigeration not dependent on electricity, things like bread, milk, cheese, eggs, butter, and meats are going to be hard to come by. At least they are going to be hard to come by fresh.

Cheeses that are canned are available but difficult to find and usually are not of a quality in taste and texture that we are accustomed to. They are one option. The other option that will still allow cheese in your diet are cheeses that are processed and packaged to be stored without refrigeration. These too are more difficult to find than just going down to the local grocery store, but can usually be found in specialty cheese shops and some wine shops. The wine shops should at least be able to tell you where to find them. You might be able to find them in a grocery with a really good deli or they might be able to special order them for you. You are going to pay more for them than for your average pasteurized, processed cheese food, but they will last a lot longer and without refrigeration. That is worth a lot. Bear in mind that you will still need to eat and rotate these cheeses if for no other reason than they get sharper (their taste becomes less mellow) the longer they sit. If by chance you don’t understand what I mean, go and buy a piece of mild chedder cheese and a piece of extra sharp chedder cheese. Now, open both and take a bite of each. Try the mild first, followed by the extra sharp. The sharp will have more bite to the flavor and will have a much harder texture.

Eggs and milk are easier to deal with. Powdered eggs are widely available (though your local grocery might not carry them) as is powdered milk. They will keep for years in their dry state so long as the containers are sealed. There is also Ultra High Temperature (UHT) pasteurized milk available that has an unopened shelf life of 2 years without refrigeration. It is sold under the name of Parmalat and perhaps a few others. It is very popular in Europe where living and storage space are both at a premium but never caught on as well in the US. It seems Americans can’t quite get past the idea that milk must be kept cold to be safe. Once opened, UHT pasteurized milk must be kept cold just like normal milk. Powdered eggs are not quite as good as fresh but are not bad. You also can have your eggs any way you like them so long as it’s scrambled.

Meat only offers a few solutions. These are commercially canned, home canned, or fresh caught. Commercially canned meats have already been recommended in the shorter duration preps and are good for that purpose, but in the quantities you need for extended duration preparations they become cost prohibitive. They, like all commercially canned goods, also create a lot of non-consumable packaging waste that has only limited potential for reuse. If you can’t reuse it, you have to dispose of it. That means more work for little reward.

The solution for storing meat without refrigeration is home canning. Yes it is canned in glass with metal lids, but the jars and rings are reused many times. Only the lids themselves are lost. I have heard of people reusing lids but it is not recommended. If the lid fails, the best outcome is that you lose that jar of food. The worst is that you will miss the failure and will get a really bad case of food poisoning. If that happens, you are so shafted. Trust me, it is worth it to buy new lids and a lot of them. Depending on how much canning you do, a shoebox full of canning lids could last you a year or two.

The other solution is to hunt for your meat. If you don’t have a place to hunt near to your home base, that can be more than a little problematic. If you live in an urban or suburban area, this could be your problem. Still, if you are of a mind to hunt and have a good and safe place, this could work well for you. If you are of a mind to hunt, the only thing you must decide is if you plan to trap your game, use firearms or primitive weapons like a bow or slingshot and add your equipment to your preps accordingly. Fishing is also an option with the same equipment considerations except that your weapons are nets or hook and line.

For bread, your only option is to make it from scratch. Bread can be made with powdered milk and eggs if your recipe calls for them and there are recipes that can be made without either. You must either have yeast for the common varieties of bread, sourdough starter for sourdough, or you can make unleavened bread. Unleavened is a lot more like crackers or communion wafers than bread, but is still serviceable and doesn’t taste bad after some getting used to. Get a kosher cookbook for unleavened bread. The Jews invented the stuff and know how to make it well.

Butter leaves you mostly out of luck. There is such a thing as canned butter and you are able to can your own butter, though that too is not recommended. I have never seen commercially canned butter but have never really looked for it either. I have tended toward other options.

There is one other possibility that can take care of most of these concerns. If you have enough ground and are not limited by pesky city ordinances or whiny neighbors, you could always keep a small scale working farm. Rabbits, fish, and chickens can all be kept in less than a quarter acre, even in most cities. These three give you multiple meat options as well as fresh eggs. Done right, the chickens will produce more eggs than you are likely to eat. This gives you something to trade for other things you can’t or don’t produce and want.

Milk requires goats or cows. These are usually not viable livestock choices for the average urban or suburban prepper. Still, if you have a couple of acres available to you (either yours or belonging to someone who will let you use some of their ground for the purpose) and live far enough out so as not to cause you legal or neighbor problems, you have another potential meat source, a source of fresh milk, and the makings of both cheese and butter. Keep in mind that most all livestock is a fair amount of work. Even rabbits, chickens, and fish require some work and care. If you are not able to make the commitment in time and work, don’t do it. You will lose a lot of money and have critters to dispose of, alive or dead.

You can even grow grains suitable for grinding into meal to make bread. Wheat, rice, and corn can all be made into good breads or bread substitutes with the right ingredients and the right recipe. All it takes is a little work at the grinder and then in the kitchen. The only reason I don’t do it is because I simply don’t have the space to grow enough grain stock.

As far as how much to store, it will vary by how well you want to eat and how much you eat. It also is affected by how much room you have to actually store what you stock. The following list is a conservative one that assumes a total loss of municipal services for the duration, fairly heavy exertion by all members of your group, a need to rebuild strength due to short rations in the first two weeks of the situation, and a little indulgence in the portions actually consumed in the first 2 weeks.

• Two pint or 4 half pint jars of home canned meat or commercially canned equivalent per person per day
• Sufficient powdered milk (whole or 2%) to allow 32 oz. per person per day, double that for children under 16 years of age and persons over 40 years of age (for the calcium)
• Sufficient powdered eggs for 3 eggs per person per day. This can be reduced if you plan for meals without eggs for some breakfasts.
• 14 commercially canned or 7 quart jars (or equivalent) of various soups, stews, or chilies per Person. Dehydrated mixes can be substituted (recommended for the 30 day store)
• 10 pounds of flour. Make sure it is sealed airtight.
• 5 pounds of cornmeal (airtight)- 5 pounds of rolled oats (airtight)
• At least (2) 3 pound cans of coffee or 2 cases of tea bags (your choice of flavors) or a mix of the two.
• At least 10 pounds of sugar (airtight) or 2 quarts of honey. (I like the honey. It keeps literally forever so long as it is kept sealed. It is also not quite as sweet as sugar. It does take some getting used to.)
• Recipes to make bread (with appropriate ingredients in sufficient amounts) and to cook with the powdered milk and eggs. Premixed, dry bread mixes can be used as a backup. Other recipes for all types of food are also recommended. You will need the variety.
• 14 commercially canned or 1 quart home canned (or equivalent) vegetables per person.
• One pound of hard candy or the equivalent of gum or some sort of gorp or treat.
• Five pounds of dried or dehydrated fruits. You really should introduce these into your regular diet so they will not come as a shock to the system. They will mess with you if introduced suddenly in more than very minor amounts (1 or 2 pieces a day). The good side is that they are a healthy snack and a great alternative to sweets.
• A full reload of your entire spice rack. You will use spices in quantities like never before in an effort to make these meals more palatable and more like your normal diet. Keep a full container of everything in your 30 day store in addition to what you normally use.
• Extra provisions should be stocked for breast feeding or expectant mothers. Always remember they are eating for two and the little one they are providing for out of themselves needs a great deal of nourishment to stay healthy.

Use your imagination to enlarge on this list. You are now building a larder that you plan to eat out of exclusively for a long time. Anything that will keep without refrigeration that will increase the variety or even variations on a theme are worth their weight in gold if you ever need to rely on them.

Now a word on Murphy’s Law of refugees. If you have resources, they will come. It might be family members, a friend or friends, or neighbors. It might be total strangers. You will have a hard choice to make. You will either have to help them or turn them away. These are equal options and potentially equally bad. Just from a food standpoint, they are going to put additional demands on your supplies if you help them. With that in mind, it would be a good idea to increase the levels of all your stock plans, from the 3 day kit on up to the 30 day store, to accommodate more people. I would suggest adding provisions suitable for at least 2 additional people to each of the levels of your preps. If they come, you have extra. If they don’t, you still have extra that is available for your own use. This gives you just that much more cushion. It can’t hurt.

I do advise that you complete your 30 day store for you and yours before adding additional capacity for refugees to your plans. When you do start adding capacity, start with the 3 day kit and work your way up.

Good luck and eat hearty!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The portion size of canned meats has been edited from (1) 1 quart jar to (2) pint or (4) half pint jars of meat on the advice of Debra, our canning expert on this board. The total quantity of meat to store has been left the same.