A Doable List to Start a Food Storage Plan

 
Starting out with food storage can be confusing and intimidating.  You may have picked up a few canned foods and ramen noodles, but where do you go from there?

Found a nice article over at Backdoor Survival:  20 Items to Kickstart your Food Storage Plan

The list is well-rounded and doable.

Check it out!

A Review of the Free Food Storage Analyzer from Emergency Essentials

I tried out the Emergency Essentials free Food Storage Analyzer.  They invite you to try it out and they give you a free $10 Emergency Essentials gift card for your effort.  It's a good offer -  I get to evaluate my own food storage, and I get a reward for doing so.  What a deal!

When you first get in, you are asked to provide the number of people, male or female and age of the persons you are calculating for.

It will tell you the number of calories you need in your food storage per day.

You then proceed to the analyzer.  In the analyzer you fill in the foods that you already have.  It will not allow you to fill in pantry foods unless you log in.  However, once you have finished entering the various categories - cereals, meats, fruits, vegetables etc, it will tell you how much you have on hand and what you will need.

Overall the Food Storage Analyzer was easy to use.  The instructions were thorough and walk you step by step throughout the process.  I learned a lot about my own food storage plan and "holes" in my plan.  I had to look through what I had to fill it out properly.  Including all the listing and finding what I have in the pantry, it took me about 20 minutes or so but it is worth your time.

I have a little ways to go in my food storage but I have at least a month's worth. I am glad I tried out the Emergency Essentials free Food Storage Analyzer.

Under the Bed Harvest Food Rotation System

I tried the Shelf Reliance Under the Bed Food Rotation System, hoping to add more storage space.

Here are the parts that came with it:

I laid it all out, got a few tools and set out to assemble it.

Two hours later I was still assembling.

The parts do not fit well together, and just when you think they will stay up, the whole thing falls apart.   I don't think I am totally clueless about building things-assembling bookshelves, cribs, futons etc.  The issue was the holes do no line up properly with the other parts.

When I finally got the shelf assembled, I found out it does not fit well under our bed.  Once assembled, it is 14 inches high.  The shelf is way too tall and I would have to elevate the bed several more inches.  In all fairness the height is specified in the Shelf Reliance website; my fault for not pre-measuring my under the bed space. 

Lesson learned:  Always measure your space before acquiring any new items.  As far as recommending this product, I give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars, due to the difficulty of assembly.