In the developed world, with our readily available food supplies, most of us do not take much consideration of how much food is in our homes at any one time, Why bother when all that is needed is a trip to the corner shop when supplies run out. What would happen though if you were prevented from restocking your larder by interruption to food supplies by transport or petrol strikes, floods or bushfires, terrorist activities or more personal disasters such as illness or unemployment? Even for those of us who produce our own, crop failure or contamination of our home preserve is not a disaster.
A study done in the United States a few years ago put the average household food supply at sufficient for a little under a week and there is no reason to assume that most of us are any different . As an experiment, just before your next grocery shopping expedition , note down how much food is left in the house and then REALISTICALLY work out how long it would take your family to go through it . It can be very enlightening to see just how dependant we are on that corner shop .
One obvious way to reduce this dependence is to maintain a store of food in our homes , this can act as an emergency store if food supplies are interrupted for any reason . There are other advantages also , stored food acts as a hedge against inflation by enabling you to use food bought before a price rise longer. It can save you money when you buy food for your stores in bulk and by providing a backup against running out of that critical item and having to bolt for the convenience store , paying a higher price and wasting time and petrol . Depending on what you store it can also increase
the variety of dishes that you can prepare at any given time , so it causes less problems when people drop in unexpectedly and stay for tea . Even the government recommends keeping a minimum two week backup supply of food in case of natural disasters so a household store of food makes sense .
A home food supply can be very important if you have children as they are the first to feel the effects of food shortages . They will also slowly starve on a diet that will keep an adult fit and healthy so it is important to take account of their special needs ( carbohydrates , vitamins , minerals and essential fats ) in any food storage system . Both children and adults will starve themselves to death if they can't get food they find palatable so don't make the mistake of thinking " If you're hungry enough you'll eat anything " as this has been proven tragically wrong in the past .
It is therefore best to follow the rule :
STORE WHAT YOU EAT AND EAT WHAT YOU STORE
In other words don't go out and buy a dozen cases of tinned curried quail eggs that are cheap on special unless you and the family genuinely enjoy curried quail eggs . If a new product looks interesting or is available cheaply then buy a small amount and try it out on the family , if there are a number of takers include it in your storage program , if not forget it ,no matter how cheap it is . It is better to pay more for something you are guaranteed to eat and enjoy than cut costs and find when it comes to the crunch the family won't touch your stored food .
