Food ranks high on the list of importance in a preparedness plan. Most of us have experienced the effects of an empty belly and how that can change our attitude, perception, and mood. Your decision-making skills may be worse while hungry. With instability and uncertainty all around us, spend some time thinking about what it looks like to have a plan that includes food for you, your family, and your community. Are you in a position to live without going to a grocery for a day, a week, a month, or even multiple months? Do you want to improve your storage? Can you network in your community to create more resiliency for yourself and others? Let's look at some of the key issues that can help us create a plan to accomplish this.

Some of the variables to consider are the type of food, and how to store it, and how to prepare it. For instance, if you are preparing an emergency bag for your vehicle or workplace you may store some protein bars or ready-made meals which don’t require much preparation. On the other hand, your home food preparedness plan will contain a larger variety of options including long-term dry pantry goods that may require rehydrating and/or cooking.

You will have to determine your needs and ability for a variety of situations. How many people are dependent on you? Does anyone have dietary needs? If someone is vegan or has a food allergy, it makes sense to depend on your own storage rather than hope that emergency services will happen to have food for you. Medication and supplement needs should be examined as well. Having extra medication might be a necessity if it is life sustaining. Long term food storage can be found from companies that provide food with a shelf life of 40 years, like rice, beans, grains, etc.

Some options for preserving and storing fresh food include freezing, canning, root cellaring, dehydrating, fermenting, and pickling. You can store foods from your garden or orchard, and still have fresh ingredients for many months by growing your own. Establishing a backyard garden is a great little storage plan, but you can also stock up by visiting a farmers market during the season and buying extra produce, fresh and in season, for preserving at home.

There are many books to check out for the how-to for any of those techniques. Some require more work or skill than others, but most of us can come up with a plan within our abilities that will give ourselves and our community at least a little more resiliency and redundancy when it comes to depending on food systems. By learning these skills you can have food stored for an emergency without having to buy more expensive preserved options. Group buys with others can bring the cost down to buying bulk food. One of the words of advice passed down is eat what you store and store what you eat. Living by that can save money because you can intentionally buy in bulk for a cheaper price that you store and gradually use that supply and replace it.

Many communities host seed swaps where you can get seeds for free without any expectation of bringing seeds to share yourself. Tons of gardeners and growers are happy to share seeds with others for nothing physical in return. Some communities have year-round seed libraries you can access for free. If you can’t find a seed swap or seed library in your area, try starting one!