Guest post today… Food Storage 101!

October 14, 2011
I am in the (fun) process of relocating to South Carolina, so I will have a few guests on my blog over the next couple of weeks. Today is actually our “moving day”.  So pray for us and wish us luck on a safe move.



 Today Heather will be sharing “food storage” tips with us.
This is SUCH a helpful post!!  I hope you enjoy.



Hi, this is Heather I write the blog  Cooking With My Food Storage.  If you are new to the concept of food storage it is simple.  Have some extra food on hand in case of a disaster or for an everyday emergency.  I’m a SAHM and have always thought it was a good idea to have some extra food on hand.  Two years ago we had a personal disaster happen to us and we were so grateful to have food storage.  Shortly after we recovered from our disaster I was introduced to Shelf Reliance and tasted their amazing food.  It was life changing, here was food that was delicious, nutritious, easy to prepare and had a 25 year shelf life.  I decided to become a Shelf Reliance consultant and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. 

I’m so excited to share one of my favorite parts of my blog, taking a look at how people organize their food storage (pantries, kitchens, and root cellars).   I really really appreciate it with other people share how they do things.  I often see a photo of someone’s pantry and think “Why didn’t I think of that?”   When I saw E’s Food pantry and food storage room my jaw literally dropped.  Everything has a place and a label, I love it!  

The Pantry:


E recently built a beautiful home and it has an amazing pantry.  She purchased the cansolidators which are the shelves that rotate canned goods.  You can see them on the middle two shelves.  She LOVES them.  Using cansolidators, everything is organized, you can see what you have, and all her canned goods stay rotated. (I’m giving away two cansolidators this week, go and enter).


Take a look at this recycling station: Simple, functional, and labeled




I love how she used these small totes to organize the small items like, snacks, Jell-O, popcorn and napkins. 




Food Storage Inventory

E is committed to having a long term food supply and like all really organized girls she has a plan. She has created a Food Storage Inventory to keep track of what she needs and what she has.



She created a food storage plan using the awesome Shelf Reliance Food Storage Calculator.   If you haven’t used the Shelf Reliance Calculator go do it. The more I use it the more I LOVE it.  You can choose the foods you like and it automatically tells you if you have enough items from that category.  For example in most food storage plans kidney beans are recommended.  Lots and lots of kidney beans.  I HATE kidney beans.  So using the calculator I can remove all the kidney beans and add Freeze Dried Chicken and maybe a little Freeze Dried Sausage and the calculator will automatically tell me when I have enough protein form my family.  I love it.  But I digress.

Back to E, using the information from the calculator she then created a food storage inventory form which she printed out and then taped to her storage room door.  Every month when she receives her Q order she marks off what she received.  So at a glance she can tell exactly what she has and what she needs.   When I asked E to share her food storage inventory form with us and she graciously did.  If a word document would work better for you, send me an e-mail and I’ll send it to you.  heather@teamshelfreliance.com



Long Term Food Storage

E has her long term food storage in the basement.  She has three Harvest 72 rotating shelves which hold and rotate number 10 (gallon) size cans. Harvest come in tons of different sizes and configurations you can check them out here.



 She also has four large metal shelves to hold dry goods, and home canned items. 
 


 

 Thanks E for letting us take a peek inside your home.  

I’m always looking for someone’s food storage to showcase. If you have any good ideas, please submit them here.


8 comments on “Guest post today… Food Storage 101!

  1. WOW! That pantry is simply amazing! And oh so very orgnaised!!!

    B

  2. momof3boys says:

    Nice pantry, I am hoping to switch up a couple of my rooms after Christmas so I can have a bigger pantry!!

    Good luck with the move! Where to in SC? I live near Greenville!

    I love your blog!

  3. Jaimie says:

    I can see how this would be useful. But unless you have a big family and a chunk of money with which to stock up, I don’t see how it’s very practical. I’m recently married, no kids yet, and we live in a tiny apartment. I have room to store about two weeks’ worth of food at a time, at the most. I’d love to see tips for pantry storage for me and others like me, with less people and less space.

    However…when I have a bigger family and bigger house, this is a fantastic idea!! 🙂

  4. Mercedes says:

    This is a great post! I wish I could get my pantry to look half as organized as the ones mentioned above! I too have recently moved to South Carolina. I absolutely fell in love with South Carolina Real Estate and have no regrets! I hope you are enjoying what this state has to offer as well.

    I have the space to organize and consolidate as pictured, the real issue is the time! I’ll have to work on that. Until then, thanks for the inspiration and Happy Holidays!

  5. Hmmm….this one has got me scratching my head a little. Is she in an extremely remote area or have a very large family? It seems like an enormous amount to space is dedicated to food storage. Don’t get me wrong, everything is neat and meticulous, but I just can’t imagine the need for this kind of stockpiling? If there is some kind of special circumstance..do tell.

  6. Jessica Wood says:

    how do you store your water and how do you treat it?

  7. LaQuita Brown says:

    I was wondering where you get the large containers on the bottom that you have sugar, flour, cornmeal etc stored in

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