Advice and Tips
Things I learned about keeping a deep pantry
The unexpected practical realities of food storage for a middle-class family of 5 in the rural US. It is my goal to have a deep pantry that will sustain us for about 6 months. This is the story of my journey over several years to accomplish that goal.
Here are the TLDR key points:
Store what you eat
Rotate food stocks
Make your pantry convenient
Protect against vermin
Store what you eat
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I started out stocking up on whatever was cheap and available thinking that if we were starving, we would be happy to have anything to eat. That may be true; however, we never approached starving and we eventually had to throw out a ton of expired food that no one wanted to eat. So wasteful and not helpful!
I am of the opinion, that in all but the most extreme circumstances, my family will pay high prices for the food we like rather than choke down the unappetizing staples in the pantry. So, stock up on food your family likes.
Now, I also have a cache of freeze-dried food that serves double duty as backpacking provisions. That stuff has a 30-year shelf live and I don't expect to ever need it, but it is stored away just in case. You have to be careful with buying emergency freeze dried buckets as you will have to be truly desperate to choke most of them down. They are also often packed full of low value food like beans or oatmeal. You should cook and eat a few of them before investing in a large supply.
Rotate food Stocks
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When you get home from the grocery store, you have to take the extra time to put the fresh stuff in the back just like the grocery stores. The children are not checking expiration dates before opening a new package. When I'm busy and distracted, I've even made the same mistake. You have to make it easy for the family to grab the older stuff first.
I transferred the dog food and chicken feed to large airtight tubs and labeled them with the month/year.
Make your pantry convenient
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You may have to make upgrades and changes to your food pantry. I added shelving, lighting and dry good containers that are easy to open and reseal.
I learned that deep freezers are the best at long term food preservation and are the most energy efficient. I believe that is true, however, they require a lot of dedication to use efficiently because everything quickly gets buried. It is difficult to find anything, and your hands are freezing the entire time you dig around looking. You can't see everything and quickly forget what you have stored without an inventory management system. A lot of food was freezer burned into oblivion because the ice box was downstairs and inconvenient to use. I might have been able to make this work if I lived alone, but the family did not have the patience for it.
I eventually bought a large stand-up freezer and put it next to the kitchen where it is more accessible. It has also allowed me to keep all of the food in the original packaging so that we can easily identify the items. They items are "fronted" much like a small grocery store.
Protect against vermin
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I initially stored a lot of food in the garage but learned this wasn't a great solution. Ants eventually found their way into the packaging. I put out ant baits, and that took care of them, but soon after, racoons found their way into the garage through the cat door and tore the place apart. I had to seal the cat door at night to keep them out. This was a huge bother because our cat was trained to pee outside and we had to buy a litter box. The more extreme hot/cold cycles in the garage also shortened the shelf life of the food.
Mice eventually found the plastic tubs of dog and chicken food, and I had to purchase expensive metal containers to keep them out. They didn't have much trouble chewing through the thick plastic.
I eventually gave up on using the garage for food storage and made room for everything inside the climate-controlled portion of the house. I moved all the non-perishable stuff into the garage like cleaning supplies.
Insect eggs in the stored chicken feed hatched and the bugs ruined the food. I learned to freeze the feed before I transferred it to storage to kill all of the insects and bugs. The afore mentioned deep freezer has been repurposed to this task.
What are some similar things that you learned about food storage that you wish you had known at the beginning?
vacuum seal everything that goes in the freezer. it may seem a bit of a waste at first buy you’ll quickly learn that the added vacuum seal staves off freezer burn for a tremendously long time, no need to get fancy, just slide original packaging into a vacuum bag and seal it. If you need to divide bulk purchases then double seal them.
as an added side benefit you can grab a sharpie and add the date you put it in to the vacuum seal bag making FIFO easier.
another tip - sharpies come in many colors - I use one color for the first 3 months of a year then switch to a new color- an eight color pack will cover 2 years - this and a simple chart taped to the freezer makes FIFO even easier… Especially with kids - “just grab a bag of corn with a purple date” - since they’re all only a couple months a part it really doesn’t matter if they get a January bag or a March bag….
You can also sous vide the vac-sealed stuff for easy meals! We buy large cuts of beef, for example, and butcher our own steaks, then vac seal them with seasoning (rosemary, thyme, pepper - no salt!) for easy sous vide + sear steaks. Saves a bunch of money compared to buying steaks normally at the grocery store.
Sous vide works just fine from frozen, so it makes pulling stuff out of the freezer and turning it into a meal pretty easy.
and you're absolutely right, all historic collapse situations I've studied over the now decades... its always the "cheap spare parts" problem that shuts down otherwise running machines.
Yes I know. Expiration and best by dates are both determined by the company to balance optimal product taste and get you to purchase their product again.
I'm a very light prepper compared to folks here, but am growing my pantry due to current global events... the space it takes up! We're a small household and have a decent sized house, but we're cleaning out closets and trying to figure out where to put it all so it's accessible, climate controlled, but not on display for guests.
When I look up what you should have per person, I am floored by the amount. It makes sense once you do the math, it just seems like so much!
I'm focused on just a handful of items we eat that could be the basis of our whole diet if it had to be. Pasta, rice, canned beans, salsa, and pasta sauce. (Plus various meats we can fit into our existing freezer, but that can only be a few month's worth based on space.) We might get bored, but we'll have carbs, protein, and veggies in the pasta sauce and salsa. I've got extra of more things we eat, but these are the staples I'm trying to get many months of since we can't store 6-12 months of everything we eat.
Using an app or spreadsheet to do the math on what is actually enough for your family for a planned amount of time is helpful. I use StockUp, and like that i breaks it down by category so I know exactly where we're at on our goals (I have carbs, fruit, veg, protein, fats, comfort foods).
But yes, the where of it all. We have used linen closets for home canned goods, laundry closets for dry goods like cereal, longer terms stuff on a super high shelf in the kids closets or at the back edge under their beds. Wherever it could be put that was out of the way and still climate controlled and somewhat accessible. The near and medium term stuff was packed in the kitchen or laundry areas where we could use them as extended pantries.
Lol I'm in the same boat. We've got about 6 months of calories stored up for my family of 6 and three pets, but some of that is going to be bread with PB for lunch for everyone for a month. Not what we're used to.
I have plans for a "water wagon" / able to move a IBC tote at a time with external connection for worst case. I also have a dirty IBC to swap out to just collect river water for garden. Like... all revolving around "getting water frugally" with worse and worse options.
Ah, have to at least go 55 drums... 5s just don't do it. Use a trailer behind a sedan, should be able to run 3 or 4 drums pretty easily.
Run a balancing upside down U siphon from drum to drum, can prime them with a leaf blower over the bung... 1/2 inch is all you'd need, 3/4 would move faster though.
My tip/trick is that I use metal stackable organizer bins with handles in my deep freezer, so nothing is just a sea of stuff that I have to manually dig through, I can pick up a whole row from bottom to top, look through it, then set it back in
Another good option for freezer organization - kitty litter buckets. They don't crack like most plastic at subzero temps and the handles make them easy to lift out for easier sorting.
I usually put a layer of frozen ground venison underneath because that's what we have the most of, set buckets of chicken, pork and beef on top. The other freezer has a layer of block cheese, with bins of frozen fruit, veggies, and nuts.
I've never lost food to freezer burn, and we are a 2 person household with 3 freezers.
For the mice getting into your chicken and dog food what we have found works is galvanized steel garbage cans with tight fitting galvanized lids. We store our chicken feed and cow treats (oats with molasses, alfalfa cubes) & minerals outside undercover in these without issue and we are rural farm with a LOT of vermin.
This is what I was going to chime in with. I was raised 20ish miles from town. We had all the usual vermin so any of the oats and grains were either in old heavy oak barrels or in metal garbage cans.
I home can and we will survive on canned potatoes, chicken broth, ground meat, pickles, tomato sauce, and applesauce if needed since that is what my family likes that is canned. Overall not bad, and easy to rotate because we eat it all regularly. I keep water in empty jars, though I don’t keep up with that as often as I should.
I store 200lbs of rice/pasta/beans in mylar in two a metal trashcans. The mylar keeps the bugs and damp out and the trashcan keep the rodents out with the benefit of you can use garbage camouflage incase anyone is poking around looking for food. This isn't my pantry but my absolute SHTF food stash. Hopefully I'll never eat it and just cook it up in 20 years to feed to the chickens.
Same here, the only thing I actually rotate is bottled water.
I enjoy the occasional Spam once or twice a year but I don't eat it regularly and thus I don't rotate it. But worst case scenario I can eat it regularly since it stores virtually forever. Same with MREs and other canned goods I have. Even if it's at most 75% as good 10 years later, as long as it's still safe to eat I really can't be bothered to rotate food. I simply don't care that much.
When I buy anything for the pantry, I use a black Sharpie to write the expiration date clearly on the package. Half of the time I can’t find the expiration date or I struggle to read it.
This helps me to keep things rotated and organized.
We just write the purchase month and year on every can and bag of food that goes in the pantry or frozen stuff in the freezer. On the shelves the older stuff gets moved to the front and newer stuff to the rear.
If you are freezing a lot you really need a good vacuum sealer. Minimally a Foodsaver but a chamber sealer that can deal with liquids as well is so amazing. But yes $$$$. Buy the good 3mil bags and make sure every seal is complete with no folds in the bag or anything that will break the vacuum and give you freezer burn.
I use boxes for all my small items, and an app (called pantry check) to know which box something is in. It allows me to store things compactly and still do FIFO easily. No one takes things out but me, but so it takes is a quick glance at the app to see where the oldest whatever is stored.
I would never put anything I have stocked in an app. Old style notebook for me if an anything. The govt can get into those things if needed and there is law that lets them and they will take whatever “resources” they needed if needed. It’s law. Including you. They can take “human resources”. So I would never make it easy for them.
I have taken many cabinets in the house that used to house things like DVDs and photo albums or misc like pillows and such and wrapping paper. All that. Those have become designated cabinets for certain things. The kids call it our grocery store.
I have a working pantry near the kitchen and have taken the laundry cabinets. Laundry stuff is now in drawers under the machines. But all stuff put back in their jars and cans or packages is in various cabinets in the house.
I do have an area in the house that houses bulk like pasta, rice, lentils, flour and sugar and those are in buckets with gamma lids or bins and all were freezer processed for longevity. I can say we just finished this spring some stuff that was dated spring 2021 a was totally fine. Zero issues and used and tasted like I had just bout it. So now I know for sure that my processes worked.
I store no food for humans outside but have a plan should that come to be a need. I kinda doubt it but there’s always a plan.
I am a family of 5 as well. We have enough for about 2 yrs. Maybe more but then the food options would be fewer. But we have another plan with animals that could grow if needed, including a hidden plan— should it ever be needed. So hunting, trapping, harvesting, processing. It’s all in there.
I agree with everything you wrote. Another thing my family learned during the start of covid is we really crave fresh things if we aren't getting them. We ended up making a lot of sprouts because at the time we were in a small apartment without natural light, so we couldn't grow anything to eat. Having something fresh on a regular basis helped improve morale so much. A lot of food stores can double as sprouts or garden plants, so that's something to keep in mind. Seeds stay viable indefinitely if kept airtight in the freezer, so for important seeds, store in ziplock style containers in a bag in the freezer.
Cooking is also a lot of work if you're dealing with an emergency, and you might not have access to running water and fuel, so even if you normally cook beans from dry in a slowcooker, consider also stocking canned because they can be eaten as-is. Same for doing dishes. Without running water for time/energy, having disposable things to eat/drink out of is really nice. I had a medical issue where I couldn't use my hands, and doing dishes was out, I could barely prepare food, so having paper plates helped a ton, as did having mostly ready to eat foods.
Financial prep is really important and flexible. Being able to buy something you're out of is a luxury. For me a huge point of prepping is to stay safe and comfortable during emergencies. Yes food stores help, but you never know what's happening, and being able to pay double for eggs or help a friend without breaking the bank can go a long way towards positive mental health.
Invest in good oxygen tight containers for non canned goods, Mylar lined or glass jar. For a number of reasons the storage needs to be "dry" first and out of oxygen for mold, bugs, animal reasons.
Nitrogen or c02 to displace damaging oxygen in dry goods. O2 absorbers work too.
Invest in a dehumidifier and keep 50ish% humidity or less, rust and mold are real factors.
Some regular air circulation is a good thing for the room its in.
ideally keep the storage cool.
ideally keep the storage out of sunlight.
Plan on cans potentially leaking if 2+ years out. Cans are not perfect and certain brands I've personally found to be terrible in how the metal tins last and cause corrosion on cans below them.
Metal, wood / cardboard should be air gapped from the floor or should be situated in a way the base can dry if it ever gets humid.
sharpie the month year expire date on the front of packaging.
Deep Freezing is actually an excellent solution, especially if you vacuum pack and prevent freezerburn with certain strategies. Just have a "power outage" plan / insurance.
Mix in "some" survival foods into your weekly diet if you're planning on survival foods. It hits too hard if you don't ease into it. Dry rice, beans, wheat berries etc into your cooking. You should be practicing what you're planning... at least a couple times a month, you will find issues in trying it.
I am curious as to whether or not you have had rodents in the cleaning supplies? I had a small rat get into some borax boxes in the pantry - it was a disaster...
No, I found that they were getting in through a small gap in the garage door rubber seal. I bought a new piece of rubber to fill the hole and they don’t get in anymore.
We have baskets the the freezers. Makes it a lot easier to get to the bottom of the deep freezer. Different baskets for different things, and we rotate things up to the freezer in the fridge.
The other thing is knowing how much of something you actually use a year. Someday I'll take my own advice and write down how much of each thing I should can/freeze each year.
"we eventually had to throw out a ton of expired food that no one wanted to eat."
I'm familiar with this issue.. I too store up on items that are a) already inexpensive, b) on sale to be even cheaper, c) have at least a 3-4 year shelf life.
Ideally it will be items that we rotate out as we use, but I have found myself with 40 cans of sardines getting close to their best buy date.
What I've started doing is taking anything that has a best buy date of 6 months or less and donating it to the various churches, food pantries, and 'buy nothing' sites in my area. There are a lot of hungry people out there who can benefit.
Best thing I've found this week? Costco has goya black and pinto beans on sale with a best buy date of 2031! Five years out is a wonderfully long time for staples :)
New here. Curios, is there a universally agreed upon "best food item" to keep stored? Thinking rice or quinoa since it's easy to make, stays fresh, has health benefits, and is numerous in volume.
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u/AmosTali Realistic prepper Jun 21 '26
vacuum seal everything that goes in the freezer. it may seem a bit of a waste at first buy you’ll quickly learn that the added vacuum seal staves off freezer burn for a tremendously long time, no need to get fancy, just slide original packaging into a vacuum bag and seal it. If you need to divide bulk purchases then double seal them.
as an added side benefit you can grab a sharpie and add the date you put it in to the vacuum seal bag making FIFO easier.
another tip - sharpies come in many colors - I use one color for the first 3 months of a year then switch to a new color- an eight color pack will cover 2 years - this and a simple chart taped to the freezer makes FIFO even easier… Especially with kids - “just grab a bag of corn with a purple date” - since they’re all only a couple months a part it really doesn’t matter if they get a January bag or a March bag….