There has been a fair bit of talk recently about food shortages the urgent need to stockpile. The world is a bit crazy at the moment with natural disasters wiping out crops and the Corona virus disrupting food supply chains. Have you noticed there are gaps on the supermarket shelves 6 months after the worldwide panic buying ?
Now I'm not a doomsday prepper or even an alarmist, but I do have concerns that access to some foods might look a little different and might get a little harder. Perhaps there will be a shift in where our food comes from. Maybe more will be grown or made in Australia ( or your own country ) but this will take time.
So I've taken it upon myself to stock up on items that store well long term. I've also made my family aware of what I'm hearing and asking them to add a few extra items to their grocery lists when they shop.
I've watched lots and lots of YouTube clips from around the world to gather as much information as I can about long term stockpiling ( which is 1 + years ). The items I've listed below were commonly mentioned by many stockpilers, are cheap to buy, have multiple uses and are mostly ingredients.
* Pasta - long, spiral, lasagne sheets. Take your pick although long spaghetti pasta takes up the least amount of room. Pasta does store well for many many years. Do not stockpile wholewheat / wholemeal pasta because it goes rancid over a short period of time.
* Rice. White rice can store well for many years. Make sure you freeze it for at least a few days to kill any bugs before storing in the pantry. Once again, brown rice does go rancid fairly quickly.
* Sugar. I prefer to stockpile white only because I can make brown sugar, castor sugar and icing sugar from the white sugar.
* Tinned meats like tuna, salmon, Spam and chicken. Did you notice that tinned meats were one of the first things to disappear during the March panic buying? I personally only stockpile tinned tuna and salmon because that's what we eat.
* Tinned fruit and vegetables. With country and state borders being closed, fruit pickers are not always able to get to the harvests in time for picking. Fruit and veggie prices are predicted to soar. Having a few tins put away will be a big help to your mealtimes.
* Tea. Unopened boxes of tea can last years past its best before date. I know this for a fact because I've been stockpiling tea for many years when it's on clearance or half price sales. Once the box is opened , store in an airtight container for freshness.
* Stock powder. Ok, this is something you probably didn't expect to see on the list. Unopened tins of stock powder last for at least a couple of years past its best before date. Stock powder always comes on sale in Winter. This is when I buy a couple of years worth. It can be used to make soups, to boost the flavour of a casseroles and risottos and to make your own gravy or flavour mixes.
* Salt. Salt can be used in food preserving, to boost flavour in cooking and has health benefits to our bodies in moderation.
* Herbs and spices. Providing they are stored in airtight containers, herbs and spices can last for a few years. Used in cooking and baking they give a welcome boost of flavour.
* Tinned soups. Although I make my own soup, tinned soups do have their uses. Tomato soup is very versatile and can be used for pasta dishes, casseroles and slow cooking. Tinned chunky soups can be made into an emergency meal for 2 by adding a handful of small pasta.
Flour,yeast, porridge oats and toilet rolls were all hard to get for a few months. I also like to have tinned fish in store.
ReplyDeleteYeast is still hard to get in some parts of America.. Thankfully I stocked up earlier this year.
DeleteMostly what you have said. We like to store evaporated milk as well as long life skimmed. We normally drink fresh semi skimmed but long life skimmed is similar in taste. Prices here in the UK have certainly risen. Our tea leaves have gone up 70p this year. Still a few items missing and a reduced choice. I have recently stocked up on flour and yeast.
ReplyDeleteI keep milk powder too but it's only good for about a year. Still, it's handy to have.
DeleteGood list, thanks Wendy.
ReplyDeleteI have all these items on my list! I have been restocking bit by bit although over the past couple of months although this is something that I normally do anyway prior to our Winter - which can keep you housebound at times. This year I'm adding more baking supplies and some luxury items and treats.
ReplyDeleteShelves are pretty much restocked here although there can be the odd item here or there that goes missing for a bit and I have noticed that some new brands have shown up - the first yeast that we saw was a brand from the UK that I've never seen before!
You are being very wise.
We've found new brands popping up too. Aldi is certainly promoting their Australian made products. I've noticed a shift in buying habits. Chinese made products are not selling as well as they once did.
DeleteI've been stocking up on all the things you mentioned plus dried beans of every variety. They will last years also but you may have to cook them a bit longer if very old. I have restocked everything I used when we were on lockdown for two months. That two month period also showed me where I had not just holes but massive gaps. Had no idea distilled water that hubby uses in his CPAP would be next to impossible to find. That has been taken care of! Great post Wendy! Toni
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you feel better knowing you are prepared. As hard as lockdown is, it's teaching us many lessons.
DeleteFantastic ideas. I have said a number of times that at Christmas time I found that our food supply was ageing and decided to use it up. I was caught out. Since then I have slowly started to build up a well thought out supply. I buy large bags of rice etc and repack it using my vacuum sealer. I store some in our very old fridge and bring it into the house as needed. I never used to keep any canned meats except for salmon. Now I have a broader selection and am keeping my eye on it so is used. I also added some bags of pulses and beans. These do not agree with me but if push comes to shove I would eat them.
DeleteI also found that we need more than food and water set aside. My Kindle broke and I have yet to replace it. I am missing it badly but have read many print books over the last few months. If you like to keep your hands busy lay aside a small stash of boredom busters. Keep some special treats for the young and the elderly. Food fatigue can become a huge issue. I am constantly thinking's about clothing as so much was imported. Now is the time to step back and perhaps make some different choices and old fashioned home sewing or knitting may become a great skill to have.
Lastly I feel it would be wise to prepare for Christmas starting now.
i keep a stock pile of tinned beans, chickpeas, corn & other vegies, just in case; we have a little community garden here for fresh vegies; i don't do much baking so no piles of that, mostly just what i eat; rice pasta keeps pretty well too.
ReplyDeletemost herbs can be grown & dried at home
it's a great list & good reminder
thanx for sharing
Love your blog Wendy, do you want to give us a guide for what you would buy to store for a month? I am wondering if you work on one tin of tuna and one tin of tomatoes each week or do you have another system thanks Marie
ReplyDeletePasta, Rice, Salmon, Tea bags, salt, sugar, and spices are all things we stock up on here. This is a great list. :)
ReplyDeleteI stock piled canned soups, baked beans and tinned spaghetti, I have roughly 60 tins as i want to have 2 months food on hand. Tea bags, 5 packets of the coffee satchets that were half price so if we dont have sugar and milk we can still have a coffee. Condensed milk, long life milk, tins of coffee and milk. Pasta, rice, dried yeast I'm not overly fond of but canned vegetables, and tinned milk. I also have adequate bottles of water bought half price. You can make a tast soup with soup mix stock powder or a spoon of vegemite and whatever vegies you have on hand. I also have 90 tins of cat food stashed under the bed. There is a tinned spaghetti sauce that i dont mind so yes i have a few tins and pasta put away. I guess we just have to be creative and think outside the box.
ReplyDeleteI am stockpiling most of the things you have listed Wendy, I also have a small supply of chocolate(hidden from hubby). I have written out a 12 week list of things to buy, this weeks items were cotton buds and cotton balls, cotton buds have been almost non-existent in my local stores but I managed to get some yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI am also stocking up on heirloom and organic seeds as they were in short supply early in the pandemic.
Margaret
Great post Wendy. I’ll get extras in again thanks to your list.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of the world we have had different issues. We ran out of things like flour and oats- because a major brand was having a makeover of their looks in April and shops were selling their old stuff away before getting the ones with new look... It was a miserable co-incidence. Now things that are missing from shelves are imported stuff like tuna.
ReplyDeleteI have bought some extra salt and jamming sugar and I'm making extra efforts to preserve all I can. Small glass bottles are nowhere to be found but otherwise there's not been shortages that I have noticed. Pharmacies have a limit for paracetamol and ibuprofein, but shortages of other medicines are from few years ago, not because of corona.
I stockpile a number of the things that you mentioned. I always make sure to have pasta and canned vegetables and the staples needed for baking, especially flour, sugar, yeast, baking powder and baking soda. Another thing I stockpile is oatmeal, it's breakfast as a cereal, granola, bread and muffins, cake... so versatile and inexpensive!
ReplyDelete