10 reasons for having a food pantry

Maintaining a food pantry is a good and cost saving measure. I will list these ten reasons and I am sure others will tell of their experiences also. It is important that the foodstores are rotated so don't go overboard with it. Also remember tostore foods you normally eat, with a few exceptions to complete nutritional requirements in case things necessary become unavailable. This list is not on what you put in you're pantry, but what the advantages are in creating the pantry.

1) It saves money in the longrun. When you have all the supplies on hand to create you're most commonly used dishes, and replace them when they start to get low at the time of a shopping trip, you can cut out trips to the store which saves gas and impulse buying.

2) It gives you a sense of security. If you know that you can survive through a small disaster it will tend to give you a sense of well being.

3) It gives you an adventurous hobby that should cost you nothing in the longrun. You will eventually use everything and you will be able to save money buying on sale which fires up the adventure. Be careful not to go overboard, a lopsided foodpantry doesn't save anything.

4) You will find that the pantry can become a social adventure as you're friends learn of the benefits and join in to do this also. After all we are social creatures and we need interaction with our species to feel good. Don't start making it a competition or everything could get ugly and things will fall apart. It's a new fad with an ultimate purpose. The idea is to have fun not to create stress in you're life.

5) Safety. I have found things in my stores that were recalled because of food poisoning. If they would have been eaten instead of stored We may have gotten sick. We frequently go online to the national recall site and check things out. It just gives you a little safety net for them to discover the problems.

6) Family project. It can pull you're family together to work as one. Keep in mind that you can't let this adventure drive you're family apart either. You don't have to rush out and buy everything right now, make it a family project with input needed from everyone.

7) Teach you're kids to be prepared. Try to get them involved, you have to take their likes and dislikes into consideration. If something were to happen it's not the time for the family to fall apart. It's a family project.

8) If everyone did this there would not be so much chaos when the lights go out. Chaos comes from fear. Preparedness kills fear but don't get too comfortable because not everone will be prepared and some chaos always occurs.

9) It sucks to hear someone say "I told you so". This lessens the chances. You don't have to go overboard either and don't brag about you're big stores if you decide to get prepared for large events. Bragging is like putting honey in front of a bear, if something happens it will create undesirable situations.

10) Finally done, I can't think of any more off hand. Maybe others can help fill in this tenth good reason. Being prepared is never stupid. I keep a months supply of food and stock some seeds and fishing gear and hunting gear. Everyone has different ideas for how big their pantry should be. There's no right or wrong with this, just you're personal perception of how prepared you need to be. Don't forget the toilet paper and food for you're pets. You may start looking tasty to you're dog if you don't have food for him.

That's about it. I'm going to go order some powdered or crystal eggs now. If I want to eat cake when things fall apart I may need eggs. It's just the "how much do I spend" that's hard to figure out. If I get the good ones people say they taste better. It would be nice to have good ones so I can cook some when I go fishing.

Agree. Stocking up on food in a FIFO -- first in, first out -- manner makes sense. Worst case for stocking up is that a person saves money.

The way I grew up, we farmed, hunted, fished and my Mom canned everything. Later on, she dehydrated foods, and we had a rock root cellar (which I was afraid of because of the rattlesnake skins in the rocks).

I am a natural-born hoarder. I am a canning fool. My pantry runneth over.

Good food for thought, especially the concept of making your pantry a family project.

Sure does save money. If you're stock becomes older, needs to be used; throw it into a meal or make a meal. You benefit in the long run anyway. Good list.

In terms of survival, something like this would be absolutely great if not essential if the SHTF scenario took place while you were safely at home, and you planned on bunkering down and using whatever was stored in your pantry.

However, and this is a BIG however, there is no guarantee that the SHTF scenario will happen while you are at home. It may happen while you are at work. At a local convenience store. While out to eat dinner. During a college class. While bicycling on a local trail. While grocery shopping. Or any other time while you are away from your home base.

Therefore, having a well stocked pantry is absolutely great, but its always wise to have a mental preparedness on your person (local surroundings, maps, etc) and a BOB in your vehicle, just in case.

reply to post by rickymouse


10) Goes with #1...It saves you money in the short term, also...
With rising food costs every week, or day it seems, having a food pantry actually saves you money because the way our fiat monetary system is working, inflation is steadily rising the price of food.
Compounded with the convenient fluctuation of gas prices, food prices will never be as cheap as they were one year ago. So the food you bought last year is cheaper than what you would buy today.

Money well saved, if you ask me...

reply to post by imasecretspy
Having a BOB in you're car here in Upper Michigan in the winter doesn't work if it contains anything that freezes. I assume you are refering to "Bug Out Bag" and not to a "Bottle Of Booze" which you should keep in the trunk. If something big happens, maybe a shot of Booze might not be a bad idea.

What kind of disasters is the normal person likely to face? Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornados...I don't see a pantry helping with any of these.

I think a better thing would be to make sure you always have a full tank of gas and your phone recharged so in the event of a small disaster you can get somewhere safe.

If you are trying to get your household a budget, it is important to realize that your largest single controllable expense is your monthly food bill. The quickest way to cut your overall budget is to stop eating out, and stop eating processed food. For example, eggs and toast for breakfast costs less than a bowl of (pre-processed) cold cereal with milk. Making a casserole from scratch costs half of what a "hamburger helper" meal would cost (and without the salt!)

The OP said it differently; but one dimension of saving comes from meal planning. If you have a large family, planning meals a week or more in advance is critical for saving money. And to do that, you'll need a pantry.

Originally posted by Kenrichaed
What kind of disasters is the normal person likely to face? Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornados...I don't see a pantry helping with any of these.

I think a better thing would be to make sure you always have a full tank of gas and your phone recharged so in the event of a small disaster you can get somewhere safe.

If there is an earthquake, do you seriously think you can get in your car and outrun it? The pavement will be buckling, power lines will be falling across the road, and traffic will become hopelessly snarled. Do you want to get in line for that?

The REAL disasters tend to be ones you may not be able to outrun: hurricanes, earthquake, epidemics, etc.

If its NOT TEOTWAWKI, then emergency response will probably reach you within 10 days. (They did in Katrina, Fukashima, etc).

If it is TEOTWAWKI, then every pre-packaged meal you have will increase your survival chances.

And if you are leaving in your car anyway, you probably have some room in your trunk....

reply to post by rickymouse


Awesome response.

Thanks for the smiles.

reply to post by tovenar

Our pantry contains everything to make spagetti or lazagna from scratch to almost any dish or cassarole that we frequently cook. We keep the stuff for chilli and try to have a minimum of thirty lbs of flour in stock. We keep between 20-50 lbs of potatoes and 5+ lbs of onions. We try to keep beef, chicken, fish, and pork in the freezer and have a small generator in case the power goes out. Along with the woodstove and gas grill we can cook most things. I'de like to get a wood cookstove with an oven but the budget doesn't allow for it yet. There's just two of us here but my stores are for 9 people for a month. I have a daughter and son in law with four kids that aren't prepared for anything. I know I could never deny them food. We still keep things so the FIFO rule works. We can't go much bigger without creating waste. We start buying only the salad dressings we like the best. We aren't wasting any now because they sat 6 months in the fridge and we didn't use them up. Now we waste little food and that saves $$.

Originally posted by tovenar

Originally posted by Kenrichaed
What kind of disasters is the normal person likely to face? Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornados...I don't see a pantry helping with any of these.

I think a better thing would be to make sure you always have a full tank of gas and your phone recharged so in the event of a small disaster you can get somewhere safe.

If there is an earthquake, do you seriously think you can get in your car and outrun it? The pavement will be buckling, power lines will be falling across the road, and traffic will become hopelessly snarled. Do you want to get in line for that?

The REAL disasters tend to be ones you may not be able to outrun: hurricanes, earthquake, epidemics, etc.

If its NOT TEOTWAWKI, then emergency response will probably reach you within 10 days. (They did in Katrina, Fukashima, etc).

If it is TEOTWAWKI, then every pre-packaged meal you have will increase your survival chances.

And if you are leaving in your car anyway, you probably have some room in your trunk....

Of course not but after it is finished the odds are that your car will be fine and you'll want to travel somewhere out of the area while clean-up is going on. There are not that many earthquakes violent enough to prevent you from leaving. The ones that are will require other action other than having food stockpiled. If it was that bad of an earthquake your pantry is probably buried under your house.

As for hurricanes you shouldn't be in the area when it hits anyways making a stocked pantry useless and you can bring up epidemics but how often do those actually happen to be a realistic probability. Its like preparing for a meteor strike in your city.

reply to post by Kenrichaed
Maybe if you have nothing of value in you're house you can leave. My stuff isn't that valuable but lot of it has been in the family for a couple of generations and I don't want someone breaking in when I'm gone. The not-so-honest seem to take advantage of times like that. We had a 60 mph windstorm last summer which took out much of the counties power for 3-5 days. We found that we weren't even prepared for that. The thing I learned was have more water and to run the dishwasher if there is bad weather coming. I'm not a storm chaser but I don't run from things either. If a meteor hits my house I'm going to sell it. They are worth a lot.

Originally posted by rickymouse
reply to post by Kenrichaed

 

Maybe if you have nothing of value in you're house you can leave. My stuff isn't that valuable but lot of it has been in the family for a couple of generations and I don't want someone breaking in when I'm gone. The not-so-honest seem to take advantage of times like that. We had a 60 mph windstorm last summer which took out much of the counties power for 3-5 days. We found that we weren't even prepared for that. The thing I learned was have more water and to run the dishwasher if there is bad weather coming. I'm not a storm chaser but I don't run from things either. If a meteor hits my house I'm going to sell it. They are worth a lot.

edit on 8-2-2012 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)

edit on 8-2-2012 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)

I understand your point but that's kind of going off topic of the original post. My point was only to suggest that any typical disaster a person might face would not require a fully stocked pantry for survival.

I live in "hurricane country" aka South Florida, so naturally I have a stockpile, but it isn't constant or excessive.
We stock up from March to May, hold steady from June to November and then try to use up between then and March again. There's always at least a month's worth of supplies on stock, but I have found that if I try to stockpile more than that, it ends up going to waste. No one wants to eat from the can or jar with the expired date even though we know it's more than likely still good... so yeah 1 month works for me.

reply to post by rickymouse


You really need to keep your stocked pantry a secret.
If people know you have a lot of food stored in your house.
When SHTF happens,they will head straight to your place.

What can you do if you are at ground-zero of a catastrophic event? Any amount of preparation in that scenario is unlikely to be of much use. Knowing of a good place to go is likely your best option if you find yourself a survivor then, and if you can stay close to home then so much the better.

What is more likely, and the times and world events seem to be making it more so, is that your services and utilities could be interrupted for a time, then a well-stocked pantry might be your best preparation that could be made along with keeping a few emergency back-up supplies like candles, matches, spare batteries, first-aid supplies, etc. Even a freak snowstorm might suggest you would be wise to stay home and eat Top Ramen for a couple days rather than venture out to the supermarket for your weekly supplies.

A larger event could interrupt your supermarket from being re-stocked, a run on emergency supplies emptying their shelves, and maybe communications lines being down that could prevent you from using your bank ATM card to get money, so it is a good idea to keep a few dollars in the cookie jar even. Chances are that in a few days most things will be back online and services returned to normal, but a week without services are likely to throw most homes into panic and beyond what they are prepared to face.

I am somewhat concerned for friends and family living in the US if a problem were to occur. Almost no one I know has access to a water supply beyond the municipal system that pumps water into their homes around the clock day after day. If they are lucky they might have a spare bottle or two for their water cooler which will get them by for several days for their drinking and cooking needs but does nothing for sanitary purposes if power goes down and and those pumps quit pumping. Few of them even consider that problem because most have never had to face it before. Here in Mexico we are in a better position to deal with that scenario with our underground water tanks as we typically only receive water for a few hours two or three times a week, and many of us have had occasions when those pumps were out of service for weeks at a time.

I know from experience that I have enough water on-hand to last a couple months or more for washing, showering, and sanitation in each home. The only time I personally faced that situation I was living alone and that one home stores over 2,000 gallons of water. My extended family of 4-8 persons (currently 7 of us including 2 who typically come to visit during the winter months) occupy two homes on the same street each with that same water capacity. A third home was recently acquired and is currently being remodelled. It also just had the underground tank built and is full now so we have over 6,000 gallons of water available. BTW, these tanks don't just store water for an indefinite period but have pumps that keep filled a smaller 200-250 gallon tank on the roof that provides gravity pressure for showers, sanitation, etc. That water is being replenished 2-3 times a week as mentioned before. Even during the time when our water supply was interrupted the water company sent tanker trucks around to refill our underground tanks. Living alone then I was never in need of a refill but happened out the door one day as the tanker was refilling the house next door and asked if I wanted my tank topped-off. After several weeks my tank was still more than 2/3 full and my estimate then was that I could have gone on another two months or more with what was remaining.

Our three homes have four kitchens with moderate-sized pantries, the most recent will have the largest and we typically move supplies around to be used in these various kitchens as some products are bought in bulk and stored where most convenient. Each home has stationary propane tanks of moderately large capacity and we have several tall movable gas cylinders to use for back-ups and other purposes like portable heating appliances. We are not survivalists or looking toward end-of-the-world scenarios but consider buying and storing food and essentials in this manner to be convenient and economically sound. We also feel we have the ability to sustain ourselves if our supply lines get interrupted for an extended length of time. We also hope that never happens but can deal with it if it does.

Good thread. S&F

Originally posted by mamabeth

You really need to keep your stocked pantry a secret.
If people know you have a lot of food stored in your house.
When SHTF happens,they will head straight to your place.

Most of our neighbors are probably stocked-up enough to last awhile too. The real bad-guys are more likely to hit the corner market before they come trying to get into our homes for a bag of beans or a few cans of spaghetti sauce. Mexico has plenty of poor people but we have very few that are actually starving or homeless, and those that may be on the verge are kind of used to it.

This thread was intended to show people there are advantages to stocking food and being prepared other than just worrying about catastrophy. It was not intended to create conflict between people, especially those who share the same awareness. I don't need a bomb shelter but some people may want one and can afford to do it. Maybe if I lived near a nuclear power plant I would build one myself and turn it into a pantry/fitness room. I don't live near a nuclear power plant though and the necessity for one is not really cost effective. I do have a basement though.

I find peace of mind knowing I have backup heat. Last year My furnace acted up and it was 5 days till I could get the part for it and get it repaired. It wasn't a common part because the furnace is twenty years old and the company went out of business. It's still a good furnace but I just had to wait. I fired up the woodstove and was able to heat my house for that week. I have a little wood in stock because we have a fire ring outside and have campfires and cookouts in the summer. Having an emergency heat source in the northern climate is not only sensible, it is advisable. In this particular case I could have used electric heaters also and I do own a few oil filled ones that look like radiators.

If someone wants to bug out for any little thing that happens that's their choice. That could be an adventure on it's own. Sometimes a spontanious vacation and a few nights in a motel with a hot tub and pool can be fun. Have a neighbor or friend check on you're home occasionally. If there is a major catastrophy here, which I doubt because of our geographical location, I will send my family away and watch over their properties. If it's something real dangerous I will leave also. If a tornado hits my house we will go into the basement but there's not really much we can do. Hopefully my homeowners insurance will cover it. I Wouldn't want to be stuck in traffic if a tornado is coming at you. I got trapped between two tornados on a backroad in Sheboygan Wisconsin one day in 1980 and took a sideroad to Sheboygan Falls to get away. I spent six hours in a bar. It was a Great excuse for getting drunk. No matter how you see things it is not advisable to panic or get irrational or get drunk then drive.

Our family has a root cellar and food pantry, we garden and have quite a bit of food on the hoof. I don't understand how anyone would not have food set back...just in case.

No, the world may not end next week, but when it snows... like it did in Nc in 2000 and 2002 over 2 feet... or when we have a hurricane come through..like Hurricane Fran in NC back in 1996 or Floyd in '99... and the stores were shut down... we can eat just fine.

We have ice storms, power outages from tornadoes and wind storms... sometimes we simply can't get to town. Unexpected guests for dinner... no problem.

And then there there are the times when we simply have a hard time and don't have the money or some unexpected expense pops up... If you have teenage kids, you know what I mean... go a couple of weeks not buying groceries of any sort... no problem. We eat pretty good.

And then there are the real end of days events...What do you think will happen if Israel hits Iran? What will happen when Iran shuts down the Straits of Hormuz and gas goes to 5.00+ a gallon? How long before that price increase is passed on to the consumer in food prices, commodity prices, manufacturing...?

What if it grows into a real war with big oil producers Venezuala and Iran and Russia allied against the US and western countries... what happens if Pakistan jumps in on their side and then India on ours? Don't think it can happen... go read your history books...

At the very least, a food pantry is just a good sense...