An emergency food reserve should be calm and boring: calorie-dense staples you already eat, stored in ways that suit your climate and rotated before they spoil.
Decide what the reserve is for
Choose how long you want to be covered, for example a bad month or a poor harvest, and which people and animals it must feed. The books do not set quantities, so work them out from your own household. A written target makes buying, storing and checking much easier.
Build it on staples
The book says the foods that sustain you through winter are the calorie-dense staples: dried beans, dried corn, stored grains such as wheat, oats and barley, potatoes, winter squash and preserved meat. Pickles and fermented foods add nutrition and flavour but do not replace calories.
Storage methods the book describes
- Canning, drying, fermenting and pickling for seasonal surplus (see fermentation basics and drying).
- Freezing for meat and ready meals, which depends on a reliable power supply.
- Sand storage: unwashed, air-dried apples, sweet potatoes, yams and carrots can be kept in a large container of sand. There must be no moisture, which causes mould. The book says produce stored this way may lose some flavour and nutrients but is still valuable when needed.
- Vacuum sealing for dried foods, which it says can last two to three times longer than in ordinary containers.
Protect and rotate it
- Keep stores cool, dry and clear of rodents and insects.
- Label with name and date, and use the oldest first (emergency food rotation).
- Keep a ledger of what you have and check it regularly.
- Store water as well as food (planning water storage).
Consider your risks
Think about what could interrupt supply where you live: winter access, storms or a failed harvest. Plan for the hardest season, and make sure the food is usable without power if the freezer fails.
The Food Preservation & Storage guide pulls these methods together. For the whole picture of preparedness, see The Off-Grid Survival Manual.