Food Storage Tuesday

Every Tuesday, we post specific items you should gather in order to supplement your 72-hour kit, your three-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!


This week for your 72-hour kits, prepare your sleeping bags or any other warm sleeping equipment you plan to have in your kits.  If you don't own any sleeping bags, start looking around!  These would also be great Christmas gifts for your children or other family members. (Funny story: My husband and I got our sleeping bags for Christmas a couple years ago.  Even though we are not avid campers, my husband has slept in his sleeping bag countless times in our own home, since we keep the temps quite low in the winter.  I, on the other hand, am always hot at night no matter how cold it is!)


By "prepare", I just mean basically to have your sleeping bags in a place that is easily accessible, and make sure they are ready to "grab and go" if the need arises.  Keep them near (or in) your 72-hour kits.  Ideally, you should have one sleeping bag per person.


How are your three-month supplies coming along?  I seem to have really good weeks, where I am able to get a few things each week to add to my supply, and then I will have a week where we are eating meals from our storage because we are over our grocery budget, especially by the time the end of the month approaches.  It's an ongoing process, that's for sure.  


This month for our longer-term storage, we are gathering wheat!  To be honest, I do not cook much with wheat so we do not eat much wheat.  Therefor, it is not as high on my priority list as other longer-term items (like oats, beans, rice, etc).  However, wheat is extremely healthy and I'm trying to incorporate it into our diets more, so I will hopefully be buying some this month.


You can buy wheat in buckets or already canned up in #10 cans (which is my preference, since I'm in buggy Florida) from a couple places online.  Emergency Essentials, for example, offers a year's supply of wheat in buckets (you can buy the whole supply at once, or one bucket at a time).  They also sell #10 cans of red and white wheat, so shop around and see what's best for your family.


You can see some of our food storage recipes for wheat on our recipes page.