Food storage: Something we all need, few have enough (or any), and of those many have a food museum.
What is a food museum you might be asking? It’s food sitting on a shelf you will never use! Just like when you visit the local state park and get to look in the old buildings showing life from the past, unusable food placed on a shelf is your private museum. With a huge admission ticket price, too.
We are all guilty of this. We know we need to store food to be prepared. So, we buy dozens of items our family will probably hate and call it food storage. Never opened, collecting dust. Hello cans of chili…
Sure, you might eat the chili when crap hits the fan. And I would be willing to bet you will be suffering soon enough too. Throwing food into your diet you are not used to is a recipe for disaster. And probably very unappetizing to boot.
Instead of collecting food and putting it on display, a better route is buying food your family enjoys. And if all you eat is boxed pizza, now is the time to figure out how to make those from-scratch. Pizza dough, sauce, and cheese can all be made in the comfort of your kitchen.
Basic ingredients are easier to stock, and often last longer than complex versions pre-made.
And just like the can of chili, MRE’s are NOT great food storage. Unless you are one of the weird ones who totally enjoys their taste (and yes, I can call you weird if you love them, since I have eaten enough MREs to know they are horrible), nobody is going to want those things.
Most freeze dried packaged meals or MREs are great in a pinch. Or hiking to the summit of the local mountain. They do not make for good food storage, even if they last 20 years or more.
Next time you go to buy that boxed meal or canned chili for food storage, think twice. You might just be creating a better food museum.
If you want to stop building your museum and start building a working pantry, check out this week’s article about food rotation and menu planning.