Food Storage Hunt: Hannah

We hope you've enjoyed our Food Storage Hunt: Where do Food Storage Bloggers Store their Food Series. Wow, that's a mouthful.



In case you've missed it, here's the bloggers we've featured:

Abs From Safely Gathered In
Liesa from I Dare You to Eat It
Aleasha from Safely Gathered In
Wendy from iPrepared
Rick from Family Prepper
Julie from Food Storage Made Easy
Crystal from Everyday Food Storage

We've loved seeing everyone's take on how to store food. Thanks all for participating. Today we'll have our last feature: Hannah!

First, may I remind you that I am moving in June, so my food storage has dwindled quite a bit over the last few months (we're eating through it now, then hopefully will replace it quickly after we settle into our new home).  Also, to be honest we haven't had much food storage over the last year because we just moved into this apartment last June (my husband is an intern right now, and will be starting his radiology residency this June in Florida, hence all the moves!).

First of all, I can't really complain too much about the storage space we have here, because we have walk-in closets in both bedrooms.  However, since we have no garage or shed, our closets are full of things like tools, a dolly, a ladder... you get the picture.  To be honest, our new home in Florida won't have a ton of storage space, but we will have a garage, so all the non-food storage items (like tools!) will be out there, freeing more space in the house for our food storage.

So, I know you want to see pictures so here they are!

This is our little hall closet.... I keep some of our three-month supply on the bottom 2 shelves.  Clearly needs some organization right now......

This is my kitchen closet... it's narrow but I'm so grateful to have it!  You can see that I keep some #10 cans of food on the bottom.  With a bit of organization I could make the space work a lot better, I'm sure.

 I also keep boxes of #10 cans under my older daughter's bed.  There's also some bottled water under there.

Also, since my girls' clothes are pretty small (and short), there was a lot of empty space under their clothes hanging up in their closet.  So, I have a big box of #10 cans under there.  White flour, wheat, oats, sugar, powdered milk.  If we were going to be here longer than a year I would have put more effort into organizing.

This is an old wooden crate that I found at an antique store a few months ago.  Right now it's on its side acting as a little nightstand in my girls' room.  Inside, there is food storage!

Here's another wooden crate in my little laundry closet... ignore the cooler sticking out the top.  There is also food storage inside.

The other side of my laundry closet has my dehydrator and hand mill.

Finally, this is another crate that I found at the antique store.  It's a banana crate and I love it!  Right now it's sitting on top of our TV armoire and... you guessed it!  There is food storage inside.

I am excited it move into a new home and come up with some new ways for storing food in a new space.  I'm not going to lie, it's been difficult to stock up on food storage over the last year since we are so transient right now.  I don't think that's a very good excuse, though, since many of you are much more transient than I am!  I really admire people who moved a lot yet still have a good supply of food storage.

Anyway, soon I'll have a new place with new ideas (hopefully!).  Once we're all settled, Abs and I will both have to give you tours of our new food storage spaces (since she is moving too!).

Food Storage Hunt: Everyday Food Storage

Are you enjoying our Food Storage Hunt series? We are!


Today, Crystal from Everyday Food Storage is taking us on a video tour of her food storage space.




Thanks Crystal! She has great recipes and food storage ideas at Everyday Food Storage, check it out!

Food Storage Hunt: Food Storage Made Easy

Julie from Food Storage Made Easy is here today to share her food storage space.



Here are some tips that I have found have made my food storage more
organized, useful, and rotated. I find building and using your food
storage to be an ever changing thing, and I keep adapting as I learn
more. I have a food storage area in an unfinished part of my basement
(I know we're lucky to have basements). I also have a little cupboard
space upstairs I use for day to day cooking.

MY FOOD STORAGE AREA: I call this my food storage
area, because it's just against a wall in my basement. In my "dream"
home, I'll have a whole dedicated room, with all sorts of super cool
shelves and stuff, but for now this is like heaven compared to my
condo before. I have three areas along the wall. One is for long term
foods, the shelves are for three month supply, and I have an area for
water. Ok- ok, I have a fourth area - it's called a big fat pile of
non-food items, and appliances that are waiting for a new shelf area
I also keep some water and my 72 hour kits upstairs in case we had to
evacuate, or my whole basement got smooshed in a disaster. Oh and this
reminds me, I need to put up a blanket against that window to block
light from getting onto my long term food. I just moved everything
around and before this wasn't an issue. Light makes food go bad
faster.



TIP FOR KEEPING MY STORAGE ORGANIZED: In my food
storage room downstairs I try to keep like foods together on shelves.
That way I can quickly get stuff assessed and know where everything is
easily. I like to keep fats together, sugars together, condiments,
and all sorts of other logical (to me) groupings.



TIP FOR MAKING USING FOOD STORAGE EASIER: I put all
the ingredients I need for making bread on one shelf in one of my
cupboards. That way when it's bread making day, I just pull all the
things off that one shelf and I'm ready to go. Having to dig, and push
through other ingredients is something I have always hated about
baking, so this way I'm ready to go right away.



TIP FOR ROTATING MY FOOD STORAGE: These are ALL the
cans in my upstairs pantry. How is this Food Storage? Well you see by
keeping very, very few of my three month supply types of foods
upstairs, I am FORCED to go downstairs to get food out of my food
storage and use it. When I go grocery shopping, I come STRAIGHT home
and put my food in the basement. Then when I need food, I have to go
down there (send one of my cute little kids) to get it. I know it
sounds annoying, but if I don't do it this way, I'd end up using
everything I just barely bought first, and my food storage in the
basement would just collect dust.



TIP FOR USING MY LONG TERM FOOD STORAGE: One way I
encourage myself to use my long term food storage such as grains and
legumes is I keep smaller containers of them upstairs. I know this
contradicts my previous tip a little - but it's different- trust me. I
save containers from nuts I get at Costco and use them to store the
smaller quantities of my long term foods. This makes making pancakes,
or muffins and all that kind of stuff with whole grains a lot easier.
I also use my legumes a lot more in soups and chili's.



TIP FOR REPLACING FOODS I'VE USED: Placed
conveniently on a work table right next to the food storage is a pad
of paper for me to write down things I take out of my food storage so
I can replace them next time I'm shopping, or next time there is a
sale. My dear husband knows if he takes something off a shelf he BEST
be writing it down on that paper - or else ;)



HEY WAIT! How did this get in here. Ok fine- when I
go grocery shopping I DON'T immediately put the food in the basement.
I put it on the stairs DOWN to the basement and deal with it later.



For anyone feeling OVERWHELMED right now- here's a
look at what my food storage area looked like 3 years ago. THIS was my
before and after. Through a lot of time, dedication, and sacrifice (no
Disney trips for us) I have been able to build it up to a little less
sad than it was.

Thanks Julie! What an inspiration. With sacrifice and hard work, you can have a great food storage just like hers. Be sure to check out Food Storage Made Easy for more great tips and ideas.

Food Storage Hunt: Family Prepper

Rick from Family Prepper is here today to share his food storage space and ideas.



Food Storage doesn't have to be fancy or pretty. It just has to work. It is easy to start. Just find a corner or space that is cool and dark. I chose the space beneath my basement stairs. It's pretty much empty unused space anyway.

My Food Storage started with just a few 5 gallon jugs of water:

I built some shelves to add to the space. After that I started adding cans of extra's; you know extra tomato sauce or cream of chicken. Anything we normally used I just added a few extra can's and sent it to the "Pantry"...

This is pretty much how it started. Oh and on the bottom shelf is stuff we canned from the garden. As you can also see a few arms to protect ourselves per the second amendment of the US Constitution!

Gradually we added to the "Pantry" to include some good 'ole rice and beans:

As you can see it is still under construction. I intend to add a root cellar off the area when I have some time and money. To extend our storage from our garden. This was last year's mid-season growth:

I've learned a lot about gardening this year and anticipate a much better year.

Of course we continued to add water, since you can't live without it...

We also started adding pastas and oats:

A few bucks here and there and we have started to build a food storage. At this point in time we have approximately 3 months worth of food on the shelf and are beginning to look at long term food storage options. However, every person that starts storing food for emergencies is one more family that isn't out on the streets searching for food when catastrophe strikes!




Thanks Rick! Building a food storage supply definitely starts little by little. Don't ever think that you can't do it. Just keep adding little by little and you'll get there. Be sure to check out Family Prepper for more great ideas.

Food Storage Hunt: iPrepared

Catching up on our Food Storage Hunt series?

Abs' food storage
I Dare You to Eat It's food storage
Aleasha's food storage

Today we're lucky to have Wendy from iPrepared to share her food storage space with us.



I realize that having a food-storage room is an ideal situation because many homes and apartments just don't have the space. Several years ago we moved into a home with an unfinished basement. Because we wanted an entire room for storage, we stole space from the planned future family room in order to make one. Someday, we will frame off a wall just in front of the buckets. The entire space is about 10' x 13'.



We opted to use adjustable shelving systems ($89 each at Costco) instead of building our own shelves. That way if we ever move, we'll be able to easily set up a new storage area wherever we have the space. I particularly like the shelf fronts that came with the shelving units. We live in an earthquake prone area, so I've put those fronts on the shelves that hold glass or canned goods that could be damaged if they fall off the shelf.


Our storage area holds a one-year longer-term storage (wheat, sugar, beans, etc.) as well as a three-month supply of foods (that we regularly eat) for our family of 5. The first two shelves on the right hold most of the food items, a supply of paper products, and some small water containers. The shelf at back-left holds first aid supplies, empty canning jars, bathroom supplies, and light bulbs. The space between the rolling shelves and the far-left shelf is full of laundry soaps, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper (not pictured). The far-left (and top shelf of the others) is full of other miscellaneous storage.

Most of our longer-term supply is in buckets and boxes of #10 cans on the bottoms of the shelves. I have some carpet samples on the floor to keep the buckets off of the cement floor. I don't stack the buckets more than three high so that the lids won't crack. You can't see these in the pictures, but I also have two buckets with twistable-gasket lids tucked in the back. One is filled with smaller packages of brown sugar, the other with powdered sugar. My supply of oil is inside a paper box (upper right) to protect it from degrading from the ambient light.



I actually won the rolling-can unit in a contest. I don't think I could have justified paying the price otherwise. I added a steel grid on top so that I could store breakfast cereals and other boxed items there.

There are some additional areas of storage in other parts of our house. Most of the toothpaste, soap and shampoo are kept in the boys' bathroom (which keeps them from walking through the house while dripping wet looking for replacement supplies). I also have a small pantry with a supply of regularly-used items including buckets of flour, rice, and sugar. We have water barrels and emergency kits in the garage.

Thanks Wendy! What a great space! Go check out iPrepared for some great real life application of food storage and emergency preparedness.

Food Storage Hunt: Aleasha from Safely Gathered In

Aleasha, one of Safely Gathered In's own columnists, is sharing her food storage space. (Yes, I just linked to myself. Force of habit.)

A giant rotating can dispenser...swoon.

I don't really hide food anywhere else other than in the pantry. (Aleasha has a huge pantry, probably the size of my daughters' bedroom.)

And I don't actually have very much food because of the move (she's using the same moving method as I am). We do have an extra fridge/freezer and a free standing freezer in our garage that we keep food in too.

Thanks Aleasha. Love that everyone's style is so different!

Food Storage Hunt: I Dare You to Eat It!

We're so pleased to have Liesa from I Dare You to Eat It on our Food Storage Hunt today. She has some incredible ideas for storing food around your house. Take a look!


Here are some shots of our nifty food storage for your viewing pleasure.

Our 14 year old's queen mattress is actually floating on 32 cases of dry goods. (She never vacuumed under there anyway.)Those 32 cases equal almost HALF of the recommended amount of long-term food storage, based on the numbers found on providentliving.org, for a family of five adults, for one year. Are you surprised? I was. Used to think that if I wanted to be completely compliant with the suggestions from the First Presidency, I'd have to build onto the back of my house. Not so! Food storage takes less space that we may think. But Lizzie doesn't care so much about any of that. She's just happy that the custom made rumba dust ruffle disguises the Prophet's eatable insurance plan.


The small storage closets that flank her attic bedroom are also packed with the remaining balance of our food storage cases. You can see how I've placed light weight furniture, that's easy to move, in front of the food storage closet doors. The attic family room has the same storage configuration and it's amazing to see how many boxes, each holding six #10 cans, may be stashed in the "not so big" spaces. The knee wall closets built under the roof's rafters may be odd geometrically but they capture space that's typically lost in homes.



Before I purchased our sectional I even had my upholsterer price a series of seat and back cushions with a separate kick pleated skirt that could be used to build my own covert seating arrangement atop cannery boxes. (They say the first step is to admit you have a problem.) So that's basically a confession, but I swear it would work if someone needed to get really creative!




Last of all, I'm sending you a shot of how I organize my kitchen cupboards. This is how I store, and actually use, my three-month supply. It's how I protect my investment. All the dry, canned, or bottled ingredients used in a specific "normal" family favorite recipe are stacked and group together on each shelf. This simplifies a significant portion of the daily routine. Have you ever had cupboards full of food and still not known what to cook for dinner? Organizing by recipe completely overcomes that problem.When I began to give food storage/provident living presentations in Nevada, audience members from the food and beverage industry informed me that what I awkwardly considered idiot proofing my kitchen, or quite possibly turning into some kind of food storage freak, was in fact the way restaurants are organized. Ding! Ding! Ding! Restaurants are in the business of providing food in THE most efficient manner every single day. AND SO AM I! Not having a wonderful storage pantry, in this old house (ahem), I had to reconsider the way I was using the limited space in my kitchen. The Belgian waffle iron, turkey platter, seasonal dishes, and extra goblets were all relocated to the basement so that my three-month food supply could be stored in the kitchen. With my food storage meals grouped and ready for production, meal prep became a no-brainer.

And that brings up something I feel is vital when we talk about food storage. Just as it says in Amos 3:7, provident living is a REVEALED SECRET. It's a better way of life! Having a viable food storage makes life easier because it saves money and time! Less of my effort is wasted on constantly re-designing or re-engineering my family's meals. I've figured it out once, I'm following a system, and I enjoy the freedom and clarity that affords. Who doesn't need more of that?

Thanks Liesa! Take a look at her blog, she has some great recipes up---I've tried a few myself.

Food Storage Hunt: Abs

This post, which was originally published September 2, 2009 is the first in our new series "Food Storage Hunt: Where do Food Storage Bloggers Store Their Food?"


Yes, it's a long title, but the idea is a great one (it was my idea so I'm a little biased). Over the next few weeks we'll be featuring some of our favorite food storage bloggers along with our own columnists in a photo tour of their personal food storage stash. What I love about it is that every ones' storage is so different. There is no right or wrong way to store food. The only wrong way is not doing it at all.

So take a peak at my food storage locations, which haven't changed much, since 2009, just depleted since I'm eating away at my 3 month supply.

*********************************

Unlike Hannah, who is extremely organized and functional in all aspects of her life, my food storage is ALL over my house. I blame it on small closets and Mountain Man's mountains (ha!) of backpacking gear, but it might have something to do with my personality too.

I have two types of food storage. I have the longer-term supply which includes: wheat, rice, oats and beans. My goal is to have enough for our family of 4 to eat for 1 year. Then I have my 3-Month supply which is a total 3 meals/day supply our family for 3 full months of our normal, daily diet. I make this distinction because the differences in the type of supply make for different types of storage styles.

For example, all of my longer-term storage can be stored, if packaged properly, for 30 or more years. My 3-month supply needs to be rotated out regularly. So I get my longer-term storage from an LDS cannery in #10 cans and foil pouches and I buy my 3-month supply from the grocery store and keep it in original packaging and/or tupperware containers. Everybody still with me? My longer-term storage is NOT rotated out on a regular basis: I buy the food, properly packaged, and stow it away and at my 30 year wedding anniversary I will start rotating the food, because that's when I started a food storage (should I enter the giveaway?). Because I'm not constantly rotating this storage, I can stick it in less than desirable locations (hard to reach and so forth). My 3-month supply is used REGULARLY. Daily, even, and so it needs to be highly accessible. The reason this works for me is that wheat, rice, oats and beans are all part of my 3-month supply TOO. So I'm still storing food I eat, but it's just in different packaging based on the type of storage it is.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's tour!

I'd like to say that the majority of my 3-month supply food storage is in my guest room closet. I could use some shelving in this closet, but I'm making due with what we've got. In here I have my extra condiments, my veggies and fruits, jams, extra bags of flour and wheat (for my 3-month supply!), juice, dried fruit, cereal, crackers, pasta, etc.

I use my Shelf Reliance Cansolidator for the hardest part of my 3-month supply: fruits and veggies. I prefer fresh fruit/veggies so I rarely buy canned. BUT it's a crucial part of food storage. If you don't have canned veggies and you couldn't buy/grow fresh ones, you wouldn't have a well-balanced diet in a food storage situation. So what I've been doing is buying one can of each each time I go to the grocery store. I don't even put it on my list, I just walk to the aisle EVERY time and buy one can of corn, one can of green beans, one can of fruit, one can of diced tomatoes and one can of tomato sauce. Then I bring them home and stick 'em in my cansolidator. Well, actually, my daughter does, she loves the rolling shelves.



The side of my guest closet: That bag of wheat is part of my 3-month supply! Wheat is not just for longer-term storage. You need to incorporate it NOW into your diet so if/when the time comes to eat it, your body won't be shocked into it. Nor your taste buds. I would never store wheat for longer than a couple of months in a sack like this, for pest control reasons. But this is a cheap way of getting wheat. A sack like this only costs $5-6. Under the wheat you'll notice some boxes of beans, rice and more wheat. These are all in #10 cans for my longer-term storage. I don't need to get to these anytime soon, so they make a great "table" for my wheat.

This is the bed in my guest room. Do you see the silver things peeking out? This bed is very low, but is packed with mylar pouches of wheat, rice, beans, and oats....and spaghetti if I remember correctly!



This is my 3-month supply of beans, more or less. This is in my living room. When I need beans, I pour them out of these containers. This would not be acceptable storage for longer than a couple months.



This is my recent order from the cannery. It's waiting to go in my new buckets as part of my 3-month supply. Believe it or not, wheat can be pretty decent if given half the chance.



Behind those sacks is my treasure chest. I found it at a garage sale for $10. Someday I'll refinish it, but right now it's home to more longer-term storage in these mylar pouches.



This is my girls' closet. This is where I am building up my water supply. This is also where I store my 72 hour kits. I figure that if anything was happening (emergency wise) the first place I would go is to get my kids, it makes sense for me to have the emergency supplies and sleeping bags near them.



I like to keep my 3-month supply accessible and visible. Especially after I had a container of oatmeal "hatch" on me. It was disgusting.

And my disorganized pantry where I store the buckets. I have one for wheat, flour, sugar, and rice. I keep my basics like that in two separate containers. A smaller container (like in the picture previous) for daily use, and then the buckets to replenish my other container. It all makes sense in my head.


In my garage I keep non-drinking water. You know, for filling up the toilets and stuff like that. I also have some more non-drinking water storage under my kitchen sink. I fill up empty bleach bottles and dishwashing soap bottles with water, label them of course, and store them for cleaning etc. I don't have a lot of drinking water, but by golly if I need to do dishes I've got all my bases covered!



I also store my toilet paper and stuff like that in the garage. I don't keep any food in the garage because I live in the hot, humid, pest-ridden south. Looks like I'm running low on TP. Toilet paper is one thing I would NOT want to be without for 3 months. I think I'd rather live without sugar. Which is really saying something for me.


Here's my favorite part. I can't take the credit for this idea, but I'm pleased with how I adapted it to my situation. This is my living room. It never looks like this except when my children are in bed and my in-laws are coming. Anyway, it's a big long room and the only room besides bedrooms. So Mountain Man and I divided it up into a living room and office/sewing studio/playroom by putting the couch and bookcase in the middle of the room as a divider.



I pulled the couch forward a few inches from the bookcase and stacked a row of #10 cans along the length of the bookcase.


When I got to the end of the bookcase, I laid a board over the top and started again. Repeat and repeat.


When I had loaded up all my cans, I pushed the couch back so there was just enough room for the cans.




You can't even tell! It's a great storage spot right in the middle of my living room!

What's your most extreme food storage hiding space?