I have thought about that too.  

Beeswax candles....canned beans protein, water . artichokes woiuld be good for vitamin c.  
 

I haven't done any canning but recently sliced up bell peppers and and froze them.  

ERic from http://defeatmodernism.com usually has good tips..

First thing is to make sure you have a 3 days supply of water.

Second obtain a 14 day supply of water. 2L bottles are great, small water bottles are good, stay away from gallons as they leak.

Third obtain a 14 day supply of food that is ready to eat.
Tuna, canned fruit, trail mix, crackers, cereals, pb, thing your family will eat. Work this into your meals so you rotate them. Have days where you prepare all meals from the shelf, without electricity or running water.

After you have those done I would look into long term storage. You can buy #10 cans or 6 gallon buckets with the oxygen removed.  Then start to use these foods in your families meals. I can recommend Walton Feed. Sometimes they have groups that buy in an area. Emergency Essentials has low shipping, but you need to order 200 pound minimum I think. LDS Canneries have cheap great prices.  If you buy the large bags, you will have to pack it yourself though. You would need a mylar bag, o2 absorber and a six gallon bucket, so remember to add those in the cost.

You may want to invest in an electric wheat grinder to use your store wheat. It takes practice to learn how to bake with whole wheat flour. You can also put whole wheat berries in a crockpot and add a sweetener to them or just add them to meal like stir fry. Start making bean soup one night a week if you don't normally eat beans now.

I love gama seals if you are using 6 gallon buckets.
http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_MS%20L700_A_name_E_GAMMA%20SEAL%E2%84%A2%20Lid%20-%20White

Is it prudent to have a minimum supply of canned and/or stored food?  If so, what is the minimum length?

You always want 72 hours of food (that is ready to eat) and water available. From my experience going though two natural disasters where the power and water were  off, I say store enough for 2 weeks.


"They" say 1 gallon of water per person per day, but you need more than that if you want to flush a toliet.

If you live in ND and have know a farmer that that will sell you clean wheat for cheap, it's probably a savings to pack it yourself. I've found the food storage companies  to be competitive and a good source for clean food and supplies.  It depends what you are buying too, freeze dried food is much higher than say grains and legumes. One thing about buying the grains already packed is that it's done properly, there is no learning curve or expensive with a failed DIY. I bought wheat from Walton Feed, but rice I packed myself. So it does not have to be one or the other.

As far as prices go, I would not buy a MRE kit for a year. I think it's important store foods your family will eat and use foods that you have stored. You can start small, buy 50 pounds of beans and 50 pounds of oats and start using them.

I agree with you in case of a real event, it's not going to matter. For natural disasters when you have to hurry up and wait for things to get set up again or just to have some food set aside due to inflation, preparing some can make a difference.

Tiffany, have you tried a round tiered sprouter? If so what do you prefer about the one you linked?

I don't have one at the moment but have sprouted a few times from a 2 gallon glass jar. It's takes more effort to keep them from molding so I do want to get an actual sprouter. I've only seen and used the round tiered ones so I am curious if you know of any differences.

There's more on this in The Catholic Bunker section, but:

Start off buying a bit of extra food you already eat with each visit to the store, to not drop a pretty penny all at once. Buy stuff you already use, just a bit extra on each visit, but make sure it's the less perishable stuff (think cans, and peanut butter, then tuna, spam, canned beef, canned green beans, [canned spinach is awful IMO], different beans [beans are a nearly perfect food]). Store amounts based on calories per day/per person-- if you don't actually look at calories and do the multiplication, you'll prepare meals that won't satiate and you will go through your food storage faster than expected.

Buy a *cheap* multivitamin from Wal-mart, your diet will be repetitive and  this is better than nothing.

Do not screw around with water. Spend the money. This means, if you don't have well or spring, buy a 50gallon PETE plastic drum (est. 2-3 gallons per family member per day). For water, buy them new (you're not supposed to be able to buy reconditioned drums for potable water, but people will lie what theyre using it for to save 20 bucks. They should be blue. If your municipal water is chlorinated you will not need to add a few tsp of (unscented) bleach (*not* the 'splashless') when you fill the drum, but it won't hurt except to make it taste chlorinated. Don't screw around with a a bunch of water bottles, milk juge, etc.  They're not suitable for long term storage, breakdown easily, don't save much money or time versus doing it right, and aren't opaque (usually clear plastic!) so allow light to grow stuff inside the water, and allow things to leach through the plastic, and stack poorly if at all.

Here in everything-overpriced California, such a drum is 40-50 bucks, you will see them cheaper. You'll need a hand siphon pump/bung wrench. Just spend the 10 bucks instead of making things harder on yourself.

Store bleach. It cleans 'stuff', even dishes, of course floors/surfaces and even wounds (ouch), sterilizes things, and can make water potable. Stores well, and is dirt cheap. People don't think about sanitation. Store other cleaning items of course, but bleach is very versatile (and cheap).

Once you got cans of meat and greens (that you will eat) from your regular grocery store, buy canned wheat and other items from the mormons (Deseret store). The price is hard to beat, the quality is great, long shelf life, wheat is versatile.

Often forgotten: get some seasonings and spices, pick up some hot sauce (hot sauce has quite a shelf life!). It will help vary food flavor (did I mention your diet will be repetitive?). Get some Tang for Vit C and to vary your water flavor sometimes.

If you have a cool dry cellar or large pantry, preserve garden grown vegatables, stews, meats, even pasta dishes!: a thousand times more tasty than cans.

Get Spigarelli's book (Crisis Preparedness Handbook) once you've done some basics.

Weapons. Ammo. Lots of light (candles, lamps, survival candles and wicklamps), dynamo/crank LED lights, some NOAA weather and other band radio that cranks, etc. First aid items are a post in themselves. A way to cook besides fuel fires (there are entire sites with solar oven plans you can read for free and you can cook with cardboard and foil or mirrors if you have sun). If you have ample fuel sources fine, but solar ovens are small/light and portable and cleaner (and make no attention-getting smoke!) and easily improvised thus you can make one if you find yourself in unfamiliar or urban surroundings. It's knowledge worth having.

On this last note: I always says the *most* important thing is not 'stuff' but skills, yet people stock up first and defer learning indefinitely. Do not do this. *Learn*
Learn first aid. Learn first aid, but beyond that: military training manuals teach essentially field surgeries. How to deal with infections, set bones, severe burns (you'll need to make field IVs!), growing food, hunting,  defense, orienteering/navigation/hiking, sewing and on and on.

Skills are much more important than stuff: Weapons without a marine are useless, a marine without a rifle is still lethal.

Bleach does not store well! It is very important, but it does not store well. It needs to be kept between 50 -70. If you live in the south, homes may get hotter than this.
 
For bleach kept for emergencies, I would replace it every 6 months. Write the date on the bottle when your purchase it. After the six month mark, donate it to an animal shelter telling them it needs to be used first.