Prepardness: Part Two - The Mindset for LT Food

Okay, so preparedness again.

One year of preparedness is SOOO overwhelming. Seriously where do you start? I thought I would share how I decided to look at it, think it through and organize it. My way is for sure not the best or only way, but it’s a way that made sense for me and maybe it will to you too.

I decided to start divide things up into “smaller” tasks. Then I would concentrate on one thing at a time and never even let my mind worry about the category I was not working on. I know there’s the theory that you should start collecting a little of everything so you would maybe not have it all, but you’d be well diversified in an emergency. My brain couldn’t handle that, it made me anxious and overwhelmed.

Here’s how I divided it (in no particular order):

1. Long Term Food – 1 year of the more basics

2. More Long Term Food – 1 year of the extras (dried fruits and vegetables, seasonings, etc.)

3. Cooking and Heating

4. 72 Hour Kits

5. Personal Items – 1 Year or something close (Toothpaste, Shampoo, TP, deodorant, etc.)

6. Short Term Food – 3 month rotating supply

7. Water (at least 14 gallons per person)

I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll think of those after I finish these.

My 3 month was pretty good, so I decided to start with the 1 year Long Term Food Storage.

So first, my friend, Jenny (I’ll give her a name so I can refer to her), became my sounding board, reference and guide in many ways. She told me to get a book called . . . Food Storage in a Nutshell. It’s the Bible of Long Term Food Storage and I have lived and died by it. I kept it in my purse, in my car, and on the kitchen counter top for 10 months because I was constantly referring to it.

Second, I decided that since most of the Long Term food storage can be stored for 30 years, I was going to get it and not touch it for at least 25 years. I never want to have to think and worry about it again unless we HAD to use it and then it is there and that’s what it’s for. So, I am not concerned with rotating my food storage right now.

Third, I decided in a pinch I will learn what to cook with it (or hope someone else will help me). As for now, I DO NOT care what recipes go with what food. I do not care that I can make fudge out of pinto beans, I do not care that we don’t eat barley in our current normal diet, I do not care that I’m not sure how to mill whole corn kernels in to corn mill right now – you get the point. I will get the food that will fulfill our nutritional needs and I will figure out how to cook it later.

Fourth, I am not going to try to predict the kind of emergency or situation that will make it necessary to live on this food. We may in “tent city,” I might be living as usual in my house, I may not even use it in my life time. I’m just going to obey and not worry about it.

As I have started to work through these things one at a time I have been able to start looking beyond these things, at the next level. Recipes, cooking, incorporating things into your diet, etc. look like they might become manageable.