Food Storage Plan

Susan set up the first Prepared Home web site in 2002. She added a few articles and they sat there and sat there. The idea was to sell an ebook or two. but the firs two topics chosen did not prove to be very popular.  Other things captured her attention like teaching ethics and philosophy in a college.  So they sat there and sat there.

In 2010 she decided to update the site so that it used the same format as the sites that she had created in the previous year or so. She used some of the same materials. The old articles were listed as oldies but goodies.

In 1999 Susan had gathered a stock of food that she hoped would last two people about three months just in case the world as we knew it came to an end. We know that this did not happen but it was good experience. Very little if any of that food was wasted because it was well organised. Yes it was challenging finding places to put it all but it was invaluable experience.

Susan knows what it is like to put these principles into practise. Whether her choices would have sustained the household during stressful times cannot be proved. What can be said s that if the worst had happened then they would have been in a better than most to have survived. The stocks were allowed to run down it which meant that less was spent on food for a year or two.

The things that she had learnt were written up into a textbook that could be used for a course on food storage but she did not go on to develop the course itself.  Since then technology has moved on and it is now possible to off the same material in an online format.

She had started to do this but them prevaricated over putting the finishing touches to it. The rumours of possible problems ahead kept on getting stronger and stronger.  In the end they became so loud that she stopped putting off the day when she added the finishing touches to the course and finally spent a couple of hours making sure that everything was as it should be.

Of course it would be far better if we pulled together such a plan and did not have to depend on the food that you have stored.  On the other hand following this system of thinking through your plan you will be able to keep the amount of food wasted to a minimum so helping everyone including yourself.

• Did you regret not having a store of food available when the snow came down and it was an effort to go out?
• Have newspaper articles with headlines like “9 meals from anarchy” made you stop and think about how you would cope if the food distribution system broke down and the shops emptied quickly?
• Have you heard people speak about their fears of an increasing food shortage and want to increase the amount of food you keep at home just in case?
• Are you trying to be better prepared for the future?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes then you need to seriously consider developing a food storage plan.  Why a food storage plan? One of the problems with food storage is that if it s not done right then it can do more harm than good. One reason why people are wary of storing food is because last time they tried doing so they ended up wasting a large part of it. Have you heard the saying “if you fail to plan then you plan to fail”? In other words if we do things in a haphazard way then we will not achieve what we want to achieve.

Waste not want not

One of the tragedies of modern consumerism is that some people grab more than they need because they are afraid that they will not have enough while others do not have even the basic necessities of life.  I remember my grandmother telling the story of a neighbour of hers who stored soap during a time of severe shortages in the 1940s. Forty years later I could still hear the annoyance in her voice at the waste when it was dug out of where it had been hidden. Her point was she had only made the shortage worse by gathering stuff and not using it. There is a balance between being greedy and taking care of ourselves in a responsible way. The best way of achieving this kind of balance is to stop and think the issues through carefully. That is what this course is designed to do.

What do we cover?

This course has been divided into 6 sections.

1. Why and why not? – The idea here is to help use work out what the goals of our plan is going to be?
2. Making choices – What are going to have on hand and why?
3. Storage ideas – thoughts and suggestions about how to safely store food
4. Planning to get it right – making sure all your ideas come together into a workable plan that you will be able to use from now on
5. Other ideas – like becoming self-sufficient and  long term food storage
6. Lists – suggestions drawn from a number of sources especially from the era of concern about the Millennium Bug when many people’s thoughts were focused on how they would survive if things did not work out.

A course like this that tries to discourage greed in one respect cannot demonstrate it in another. That is why the subscription fee has been set at the level it has. Charging £5 a time to subscribe to this web site so that you can access this material will make it very hard to become a millionaire. On the other hand it means that the investment of time and resources taken to create it will be respected and in time repaid.

Interested sign up now! Remember it is only £5. What a bargain!

Please note that when you sign up to access these materials you will automatically be included in the list of people who receive copies of the posts made to The Prepared Home blog.

In its previous existence (i.e. before it was based on a blog) a collection of links was gathered to support this course. The idea was to develop a resource for those doing the course. It was supposed to be the online equivalent of a list of books to read to add to what you learnt in class.

This list was set up on a third party service and was divided into a number of sections, one for each stage of the course. The internet is changing and growing all the time with new things appearing and other things disappearing. We will tell you where to find it once you become a member.