Food is usually the first thing to come to mind when attempting to prepare for a disaster scenario. A great example of this is when someone races to the store to buy bread and milk at even the mention of a bad storm.  Can you blame them? Statistically the next few things people race to purchase would be bottled water, batteries, generators but only after they get their foodstuff. There are a few different ways the direct line between food and your families mouth can be severed. The most common is on the local level when stores must shut down to an immediate crisis. Usually nasty weather initiates this.

The next situation is when the food supply is directly affected. What are the odds of this happening? The odds are greater than you think. Smaller scale disruptions happen all the time. Usually through contamination or weather related events. For example there was a deep winter freeze which ruined most of California’s oranges back in January of 2007?

Or what about the peanut butter recall of 2009 when Peanut Corporation of America recalled bulk peanut butter products for fear of Salmonella contamination. According to MSNBC, at least six deaths were blamed on the outbreak, along with some 470 people who became ill in 43 different states, the most common symptoms being “diarrhea, cramping and fever.” Most of the nations Peanut Butter was off the shelf for a while.

Imagine if you would a larger scale disruption such as a prolonged power outage, transportation dilemma, large scale weather event or even a direct attack on the food system and the havoc generated from it.

I hope you realize that most grocery stores only store about a seven day supply of food at one time. This method of supply is more than sufficient under standard circumstances. The consumer is guaranteed fresh food and the grocery store owner doesn’t have to manage large stocks of food.

The question you need to be asking yourself is where would you get your food if the grocery stores were forced to temporarily shut down? Or the supply of food was compromised and could not replenish in a timely manor? How would you feed your family? The day and age of the small farmer has been all but eliminated from the American way of life, so local farmers would not be of much of a help to many of the affected population. It would default to the government to provide your family with food rations. If you take a look at the recent history one would see that our government hasn’t been productive or timely when it comes to aiding American disaster.

If your aim is to be truly prepared for a long term food source disaster scenario you need a very large food cache or a self replenishing food source such as a garden or livestock. Unfortunately for many, livestock is just not an option if you live in the city limits or even many townships. There are restrictions not only legal in nature but the amount of land you need will also come into play. While another viable option is gardening for all intensive purposes we are going to (for the present) assume you do not own the land space required to garden. Note: We will cover gardening later on in this book. So the next acceptable plan of action would be to stock very large quantities of food that does not perish. The goal can be easily met. The recommendation is that you accommodate for a generous food storage plan that satisfies your families in all requirements save the very worst.

So lets get back to the fundamentals of survival shall we? When preparing your families food storage plan there are four fundamental food storage questions you need to ask yourself before you continue.

How much of a food cache do I need?
What types of food should be in my cache?
How should I store my food?
How long will my food cache last?

These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself. Stay tuned for future installments.

Cover image by Jason Auch.