Survivalism 101 - Start A Food Supply

Since I've already addressed starting a water supply, it's time to move on to food.  While water is the most important thing you can have in an emergency, food is second.  Being able to sufficiently keep up your caloric intake can make a huge difference in survival.  Furthermore, in the event of an emergency, it's likely that your physical activity level will be higher than your normal day-to-day cubicle lifestyle, therefore, you will potentially need more calories than usual.

So, how to start a food supply?  There are some great options to get some basic storage going:

1. Just buy some extra amounts of the normal things you buy.  This might include rice, beans, frozen meat, cereal, canned soda, canned food, etc.  Organize your pantry to be able to store more items, then rotate them out based so that you always have good food available.
2. Taking this further, you can look into buying items for more long term storage.  MREs are great for emergency bags and kits and will last for a few years.
3. For real long term, you can look into dehydrated or freeze dried foods.  Many of these items when packaged right can last for 20-30 years.  You can buy a couple buckets worth of freeze dried supply and you have food insurance for a couple decades. Not a bad idea.

My favorite place to order items for long term food storage is the Ready Store.  Since I don't have experience canning or preparing my own food for long term storage, I pay for the items already packaged appropriately.  It's slightly more expensive this way, but I know what I'm getting and that it will last.

Depending on your situation, you might have other things to consider.  For example, if you have a baby or young children, you might want some other food items stored that will work well for your children.

If you have a baby, it might make sense to keep some cans of powder formula or other baby food.  You can rotate the formula so that you always use the oldest one available and the result is you never keep cans longer than a few months.

Remember, you will need water above food, plus much of the long term options such as freeze dried foods will require water to rehydrate.

Lastly, I strongly recommend you approach this as a step-by-step long term process.  Don't feel the need to purchase hundreds of pounds of food all at once.  Accumulate items over time and you'll have a great supply in a very short time.