One: Food
Quite possibly the easiest concept to grasp for any “want to be” prepper. You will need food in order to live. The problem you will have is that supermarkets will no longer exist. Food will no longer come on a shelf. In reality we are going back to caveman style.
In the long term you will need to grow and catch your own food, however in the short term that isn’t likely to be possible. In the first few months of any doomsday event you are going to want to stay hidden, possibly even for a few years. You need to be prepared for the short term.
If a doomsday event is predicted on the media then your local supermarkets shelves will be wiped out in minutes. Trust me this will happen. You have to prepare now.
You should aim to store, as a minimum, a one year supply of food for yourself and your family. In an ideal world many preppers look at storing two years supply. This obviously is going to be expensive, however, it is a far better prospect than fighting other humans for the last bag of pasta on the shelf in the supermarket. It will take some considerable thought as to how much food you will actually need for a whole year. Five tins of baked beans and two packets of pasta isn’t going to get you very far. Sit down and work out the numbers on paper for your own particular situation.
Clearly you can’t store fresh food. There is little point in storing frozen food either, in a doomsday scenario electricity is likely to stop. Unless you go really hard-core and have your own generator in place it is far easier to store dry and tinned goods.
The obvious starting point are carbohydrates, in reality this comes down to rice and pasta. This will become the bulk of your food supply. Another good source are pluses. Keep the goods in the bags they are purchased in they will last far longer than if left open to the air. Never store bagged food on the floor, vermin will find a way in. In fact a golden rule is never store any food on the floor at all.
Then you need to look at tinned goods. Tinned food is fantastic, it lasts for years and years and still tastes good when you open it. You need to think about your nutritional needs, you will need protein, you will need fats and you will need vitamins and minerals. The beauty is that all of these needs can be taken care of with tinned food. Both meat and fish are supplied in tins, fruit and vegetables also. The range of goods is vast, there will be no need to be eating the same food every day for the next two days.
It may be the case that it makes more sense to buy at least some of these goods from a wholesaler or cash and carry type store. The cans of food are far larger in these stores and are often more cost effective to purchase. If you are feeding a family of five, how many tins of tuna will you need to open? Two? Three? More? Isn’t it better to have one large tin than lots of smaller ones? Tins are also very easy to store and don’t take up a lot of room, you can stack them very high and thus the space required is far less.
After the carbohydrates and the tined essentials are the extras. The things that are likely to make your life more bearable. A range of sauces in jars is a good idea, especially when you make pasta. Then you could consider things like gravy granules. Instant coffee, hot chocolate and tea bags are a must together with a combination of both long life and powered milk. Soups are another excellent choice, they are filling and are very easy to cook.
You may also like to consider stocking a range of dried fruits and nuts. You need to check how long these goods can be stored for safely, the last thing you need in your store is food that is going off.
Finally you need a store of salt, pepper, possibly sugar, flour and dried herbs.
One truly essential item at this point is a tin opener, with the majority of your food store in tins, you are going to need to get access to the goodies. A simple suggestion is don’t go for just one tin opener, as they all tend to blunt and break. Store at least ten openers and make sure they are different models.