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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Food Storage Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we post specific items you should gather in order to supplement your 72-hour kit, your 3-month supply, and your longer-term storage. If you are new to our blog, don't worry! You won't be left behind. Just start up where we are and follow along. You will eventually have everything completed! Once the 72-hour kit is complete, we'll be putting together emergency car kits again (week by week). Once those are done, we'll gather the 72-hour kits again. So don't worry, just jump on in and join us where we are today!


We just finished the car kits, so we're on to our 72-hour kits!  If you followed along with us over the last couple of months and put together a car kit, give yourself a pat on the back - doesn't it feel great to be prepared?  It always brings blessings, whether you will use the kit for yourself or not.


And now we're on to our 72-hour kits.  First we are gathering something to hold your kit in.  You'll need a sturdy backpack for each person, or some people choose to use big rolling suitcases (one or more per family, depending on how many people you have).  Use what you prefer.  I actually have backpacks for each of us, but I'm considering switching over to rolling suitcases because my children couldn't really carry their own packs yet (they are 1 and 3 years old) and that could be difficult if we had to make a trek anywhere on foot.


What do you keep your 72-hour kits in?  Any suggestions that I haven't thought of?  I prefer to have something that is easily carried in the event that we had to walk some distance (big tupperware bins are out), but maybe there is something I'm overlooking?


To read more about 72-hour kits, click on the link.  We have written several articles about them.


How is your three month supply coming along?  I'm still working on my new food storage plan, and as soon as I have it put together I'll share it with you.  Since we have so many new food storage recipes, there will be some different meals from what we have in our food storage e-book.


This month for our longer-term storage, we are gathering beans!  I love beans, and I know many of you do too, from our giveaway last week when you commented about what you like best.  What are your favorite kinds of beans, and how do you like to cook them?

6 comments:

Caitlin said...

I like to can my food storage beans with my pressure canner. Having dry beans in storage is great, but in an emergency will I really have the resources (electricity, fuel, water) to make a pot of beans? Probably not. So here's a link to my recipe: http://caitlinwilhelm.blogspot.com/2009/02/canning-beans.html. I have switched to doing them in pints, which uses about 2/3 cup of dry beans, 1/2 tsp salt per jar, and 75 minutes at 15 lbs pressure. I've done pinto, black, white and kidney beans and I'm sure it would work with most dry beans. These are so easy! No soaking the beans first, and then you can dump them out of the jar and use for chili beans, burritos, dip, whatever. I haven't cooked a pot of beans in years because I just can them and use them from the jars.

Jake and Alisa said...

For the 72 hour kits, I've seen people use buckets with handles. I don't know that I would want to carry that if we were on foot though.

Mrs. Pear said...

Too funny! In the past 2 weeks I have received 50lbs of black beans I ordered and bought 25lbs of pinto beans from Costco.

I am restocking our pantry after a move and decided to get bigger pkgs.

I am asking at the Costco bakery for their icing containers as they are food grade and have nice lids, and are free!

Thank you for the break down of one thing a week lists, it helped me make a car kit and is encouraging me in stocking my pantry! While I am not LDS, I am all about commons sense!

Bowl Covers said...

Intriguing post. Your suggestions will be very helpful. Proper food storage ensures food will remain fresher much longer. Thanks for posting this.

Anonymous said...

I have emergency items and bug out bag (backpack) in my car but I recently saw an ad for a heavy duty collapsable utility wagon that would hold more survival stuff and/or a child if we had to leave the car and go on foot. It opened my eyes to the fact that I need something on wheels as I can't carry much weight very far.

The Johnsons said...

I have been experimenting more with beans. Right now my favorite is black beans. I was somewhat hesitant to try it but I just did the black beans in the brownies...got RAVE reviews! They tasted...fudgie-er to me. It's amazing to me how we can substitute beans for other items that we normally use and boost the nutrition value and i nsome cases the taste.