20+ Reasons For Storing Food
There are many reasons for storing food. Lots of good reasons for food storage.
Unfortunately, most people don’t pay attention to food storage. Don’t let that be you. Here’s a list of practical reasons why you need food storage. Read them and let me know if you agree. Got more to add?
Why Do We Store Food?
What Are The Reasons for Storing Food?
Convenience
One of the most practical reasons for storing food is convenience. Build up your own “mini mart” of sorts. It sure is convenient to simply go to your “deep pantry” area and pick out what you might want for dinner, for example. Seriously, that’s a great reason all by itself. It’s convenient.
Independence
Food storage enables a feeling of independence. It just happens. That’s probably because of subconscious assurance that you have plenty of extra. Naturally, anything that you do towards a bit more self-reliance will result in a bit more independence. It’s a good feeling. Food storage = peace of mind.
Because The Ants Do
“In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest…”
[ Read: Are you an Ant or a GrassHopper ]
Food Price Inflation
Food prices always go up over time! And sometimes rapidly and significantly! Food Storage is nearly always a good investment for your household. The more food you buy now, the less you will pay in the long run when prices are higher. Store what you normally eat. Eat what your store.
“The price per serving goes way down when you buy in bulk. Massively so. Bottom line – it’s more economical, especially when you cover the basics like bean, rice, wheat, salt, spices, etc. used in many recipes.”
[ Read: Food Price Inflation Hidden in Packaging ]
With An Existing Food Storage, You Can Wait To Buy “On Sale”
Here’s a secret: One of the beneficial financial reasons for storing food: When you have accumulated a decent amount of stored food (a deep pantry, full chest freezer, dry goods, etc.., basically your own mini grocery store), then you will have the luxury of (mostly) buying only when something’s on sale.
How’s that? Well, if you mostly eat foods from your stored food inventory, you won’t be forced to grocery shop for “needs”. Your needs will already be in your home. Thus, you can be picky about your shopping – buying items when on sale, etc..
Hunger Is A Motivator
A commenter here on the blog once said, “I have been hungry before. It was not a good feeling. I still remember that feeling today.” ” I try to make sure that never happens to me again. ever… “
Crop Failures | Large Scale Agriculture
We rely on big agriculture, corporate farming. There are times when major weather shifts will decimate crops or greatly reduce output. What happens next? Prices will go up on those products while availability goes down.
Systemic Risk of “Just-In-Time” Delivery
‘JIT’: ‘“Just In Time”‘ delivery: It’s pretty much how all distribution works these days. Basically there is zero extra inventory in stores (including grocery stores). If this is disrupted (for any number of reasons), there will be shortages. So this is a systemic risk.
Weather Event PANIC
Severe Weather Events: People preemptively freak out right before a forecast weather event (snow storm, hurricane, etc.). They flock to the grocery stores to clear out the shelves. Why? Probably because they don’t have more than a day or two of food! This is another reason for storing food…so you don’t have to be part of that crowd.
Weather Event – Actual Disruption
Stranded at home. A major snowstorm, ice-storm, flooding, hurricane, (fill in the blank) can leave you stranded at home for awhile. It may leave people isolated for days or even a week or more! Power and utilities are often damaged while roadways and distribution is affected (availability of food & supplies). Severe weather is one of the common reasons for storing food — for preparedness.
Sick, Injured, Recovering at Home
Unable To Leave Home: You might become sick. Maybe a health issue or injury has you home-bound for awhile. You will be glad that you have at least a minimal food storage and one less thing to worry about!
Job Loss
You Lose Your Job: It’s not unheard of to lose one’s job. Expected or unexpected. With no more paycheck, if you’ve built up a food storage supply it will be one less expense to deal with until you get back on your feet.
Drop in Income
Your Income Drops: It happens. For whatever of the many possible reasons, if you are suddenly faced with reduced income (maybe you retire, a pay cut, your spouse loses a job) – storing food in the house will be a relief.
A reader here said, “I learned from experience! We had a financial crisis. It taught me…if I hadn’t had a deep pantry we wouldn’t have eaten.”
For Those Reliant On EBT
(EBT) is an electronic benefit transfer system that allows state welfare departments to transfer money. Lots of people are on it, and I’m not judging here. For those who rely on this assistance, you can (and should) be smart with grocery purchases. There is cheap food available that could be added to a food storage. Forgo some of the more expensive products to make that happen. Just suggesting.
[ Read: How to Prep when you’re Broke ]
Pandemic
Just look what happened with Covid. Shortages! First the TP, then more and more foods. When people notice a shortage of something, they will buy more of that something the second they see it on the shelf. Quickly the supply chains are disrupted. Basically all of our food comes from a complicated supply chain. A pandemic will directly affect that.
Major Earthquake
Earthquake: For those who live in earthquake country, do yourself a favor and build up emergency food storage. The “big one” is going to happen. You don’t know when. It could be tomorrow. Building and infrastructure damage could bring an entire region into shutdown.
Terrorism
The follow-on effects of “terrorism” could be bad enough to limit movements and travel. The reasons for food storage are many. And this is just another one…
War
Prices go up as the uncertainties of war pressure the markets. The price of oil puts price pressure on everything, including food. You know that food prices will not go down. Rumors of war? Yet another reason for food storage.
Financial Economic Meltdown
Economic collapse of the current financial system could lead to a domino effect bringing down the entire system. If bad enough it could lead to an era similar or possibly worse than the Great Depression. Buy food storage now, while you can afford it.
Societal Chaos Being Triggered In Urban Areas
Social Chaos: Mass protests, rioting, looting on a grand scale, perhaps caused by a trigger event. More likely in urban areas of high population density. The trigger event could be nearly anything. We’ve seen it in the news, and it will happen again somewhere. Perhaps even widespread.
EMP or CME Event
EMP: An electromagentic-pulse, either man-made (EMP nuke) or a natural event (massive solar flare and CME). It could badly damage or destroy the electric power grid, anything electronic. We could be sent back to the stone age and most will not survive it. This is a worst case scenario, but worth mentioning.
Food Storage = Personal Security
A commenter on the blog said, “I went to observe my local super market 8 hours after the Hurricane had passed. There was definitely a lot of people panic buying. If there is a run on Food you do not want to be anywhere near the masses of people that’s for sure.”
Food Insurance
Another commenter said, “You buy insurance, hoping you won’t need it. You buy food, and you know you will use it. Even if some of it gets wasted, the majority of it will be used at some point in time. It’s crazy not to have food insurance!”
These are just a few reasons for storing food. To have extra food storage on hand.
Obviously you can build up your own food storage with your own grocery shopping, growing and preserving some of your own, and other ways.
For a quick way to bulk up on specific long term food products, visit our long time sponsor, Ready Made Resources. They distribute for a number of reputable preparedness food companies:
[ Read: Four Things That Affect Food Storage ]
[ Read: Food Storage Mistakes To Avoid ]
20 plus reasons for storing food, Joe and da Ho x 20!
Seriously, DW and I went to a local store that had many buckets of freeze dried food a few weeks ago, now all sold out ! Also noticed more and more items in short supply at local Market.
Yup store food.
Ken, You got it mostly wrapped up for reasons to have food storage.
I was able to buy the freeze dried/dehydrated food in a case each month while on a strict budget and poverty wages while paying off credit card bills and saving money following Dave Ramsey’s methods and living life of a pioneer for over 3 years. I qualified for food stamps, but I refused, and never went to a food shelf either. When I was poor back then, I didn’t think how poor I was…. I thought how rich I was in thriving and finding ways to increase my knowledge in foraging, gardening, hunting, bartering, cutting household costs, and do it myself projects and repairs so I could buy the food. It paid off well.
I don’t believe you can be so poor to not afford to have food storage, but even my siblings who were well off wouldn’t buy into it and claimed my mom was a hoarder because she had a months supply. She remembered the great depression and WW2 when meat was rationed. My siblings never had a hardship because mom hoarded a food supply. I, on the other hand when I left home, I experienced what having no food was like. Maybe that will make a difference to some, but it may come to late when SHTF.
Stardust,
“Poor” is a state of mind. You can have nothing and still be “rich”, if you catch my drift. I think a lot of us here have gone through a period of not having much to eat, and it made an impression. You are so right though, even if you don’t have much $$, you can buy an extra can or two and squirrel them away for lean times. Looking back on it now, those lean times for me were some of my happiest, and full days. Its all how you look at things, i guess. well, at least for me.
My youngest son recalls how we were never hungry when he was small even though we were ‘poor’ on the farm. My boys never went to school with a voucher for free food. I did without some lady comforts so they did not have too. Qualified for assistance, just chose not to. Proud of those decisions, you bet!
Stardust, don’t be surprised if your siblings show up at your house when the SHTF, after all YOU have FOOD! Oh ya, YOUR A HOARDER, GIVE US SOME OF YOUR FOOD!!
Stardust, Sorry I couldn’t help it, THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT! hehehe
You betcha! My brother who refused to listen to me about food storage said when SHTF he would drive 800 miles to bring his family of 6 (with 4 mostly grown boys) up to stay with me. Here I was making 8 times LESS than he was, and I had 6 100 lb dogs to feed… I told him if I will make sure I have a couple 50 lb. bags of PURINA dog chow for him. I never heard a word from him about it again.. The Devil made me do it too! .ha,ha, snort!
Having extra of what we use often gives me leeway to wait sometimes until things go on sale to purchase them.
Very timely article! I’m getting ready to do a batch of buckets packed and sealed.
Dennis Prager says that liberals do what feels good and that conservatives do what does good. For me, storing food makes me a liberal and a conservative. It feels good and it does good.
stay frosty.
Skeezix, Yes!
I thought that st joe was in charge now and we never needed to worry again cause he fixed everything right good!
Years ago, my state experienced a glitch in their EBT system, and payments weren’t going through at the registers. My SIL was on EBT (still is) and called me up crying that she couldn’t feed her kids and I needed to give her money.
So I packed up a huge tub of all my deep pantry meals, enough for a week’s worth of meals for her family.
Amazingly she didn’t want the food, only cash. Hmmmmmm
So I shrugged, and took my food, and returned home.
The end.
Here’s another reason for stocking up….most of us with gray hair remember the oil embargo back in the early seventies. Besides the inconvenience of waiting in line on your assigned day, the lines were long and slow. What if your residence or bugout location is quite a ways away from stores, and you can’t make it there and back? Granted, I’ll bet most here never let their tank get below 3/4 full….but unexpected things happen!
Wednesday, I had chicken dumplings, Sweet Sue, in a can BB dated 2011. It was delicious and it felt great being able to eat food canned for that long.
After the Ice Storm of Mid Feb of 2021, my wife vowed to never again give me grief about my gorilla shelving piled high with cans of soups, stews, spam, sardines, pasta, rice, pre-prepared meals in a box etc. I shared how we lost some stuff in the freezer but the non-frozen storage area that contains cans, dehydrated and freeze-dried foods is the bulk of our stored food.
Years ago, my brother shared the story about how he was so poor at one point that he made tomato soup from ketchup and water. Him and his friends were more horrified at my tale of going out with a 22 rifle and shooting my dinner that night in my off-grid AO. It is all funny now that I have stored food and I have to watch my weight. It was pretty serious back then and I came to realize that hunger really sharpens the instincts to build a good hide and shoot straight. I did not have a lot of stored food butt I had several boxes of cartridges for my rifle.
.We live in uncertain times. It is better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it
For sure. Have health insurance, vehicle insurance, home insurance, xtra food is another type of insurance. Might get used, might not.
To the new posters out there who may be lurking:
Both me and my wife are still working so neither one of us can or preserve our garden produce or livestock. Our freezer just died after 23 years of good service so while we wait for the arrival of the new freezer, it is time to re-establish our priorities in our storage area: Most of the food I have set aside for emergency is in the form of canned and dehydrated foods or dried foods that have an extended shelf life. This is what we broke open and ate during the Ice Storm on Mid Feb, 2021. Storing food by purchasing a bit extra each week for purposes of setting aside in storage is the first small step toward preparing for the next emergency. Most of us older people who have been posting here for a while have been doing this for years.
I want to encourage you who are reading this to get started by taking small steps now rather than being smug and bragging about what we have already.
Calirefugee,
This is a great post!
I second your thoughts. To anyone reading this who may be thinking about food storage, or maybe have a few things but feeling uncertain or overwhelmed… I was in your shoes a few years ago.
I had started to accumulate some extra food, and found this site searching for more info on food storage. I started with buying a little extra on grocery store trips. I stretched my food budget by stocking up on regularly-used items as they went on sale. For me, canned tomatoes, canned fruit in juice, a couple of extra packages of pasta, an extra 6-pack of canned Costco chicken, a 2nd bag of rice, an extra package of TP, paper plates or aluminum foil went into my cart as they went on sale, and landed on my home shelves. And those items grew steadily from a few days supply to a couple weeks, to a month. And so on.
Buy things you will use so you don’t waste them. Buy on sale and create enough stock at home that you don’t pay full price for most items because you don’t let yourself run out. I used to be you – just starting out and feeling uncertain. You found this site because you have the instinct to want to be more prepared – that’s excellent – there’s lot of great articles here to guide you and plenty of folks here to help answer questions. Now go for it!!!