LONG TERM FOOD STORAGE HACKS - PANTRY CHAT #30

[Music] hey guys this is Josh and Carolyn with homesteading family and welcome to this week's episode of the pantry chat food for thought what number it is thirty thirty-one we started this at the beginning of the year so you know we're getting closer yeah closer a full year yeah it's been a lot of fun this week we're gonna be talking about building up your food storage so starting to create a larder and your supply of food and the supplies to you not only if you're homesteading yeah wherever you're at even in a totally urban environment you can build up food security for cost savings for being prepared yeah for better health whole lot of things it was a great topic no matter where you're at yeah but before we get to that yeah what hey if you want to skip out on the chitchat check the timestamps in the description and you can skip right on ahead to the main topic that you just introduced absolutely what's going on um pumpkins pumpkins are going on a lot right now we are starting to use up some of the funds we would still have a quite a few here we brought in quite a few pumpkins from the garden this year a couple different varieties of my favorite favorite pie pumpkins luxury pie luxury that's one of our long-term we've stuck with that variety for a very long time luxury pie if you have not grown your own pie pumpkins and you're used to just seeing those things at the store buying those little ones at the store you might be surprised because if you get a really good variety of pie pumpkin for us luxury pies done really well um they can actually be very sweet and you need to decrease the amount of sugar in recipes so I really like that because you can you can use less of a sweetener and have really good pumpkin pie means we get it for breakfast sometimes sometimes we get more like that yeah daddy's in the breakfast casserole breakfast master all download free down geralyn's recipes this is gonna come out as a how-to in the next few weeks this is a pumpkin spice dehydrator cookie mmm it's like pumpkin leather no I got its pumpkins but you are gonna test me but you didn't get it like eating a little bit of pumpkin pie but it's in a healthy letter form like in shelf-stable so you are those great snacks for kids Bert and it uses maple syrup instead of any sugar so we will really really like that and again if you're using your own good pumpkins you can decrease even the maple syrup yeah we got a special one today this is persnickety peach chai from farmhouse tea's well you guys haven't gotten any other teas yet you have to go check that out yeah farmhouse teas see em this is one region really good okay so I've been dealing with pumpkins and cooking on the wood cook stove go well together they go really well good so um that's me what have you been doing winter prep um we are still basically just getting settled in yeah for winter finishing up some work on the barn getting in our wood shavings that we'll use for bedding in the barn yeah and still have some winter prep on the garden that got put to the side so we're trying to finish that up getting all our beds amended and mulched and ready for spring hopefully gonna get to rebuilding a bean tunnel a lot of you guys have asked for how-to on that and I actually put them too close together and a couple other technical things and so I want to move one and redo it and I'm hoping to use that opportunity to create a video for that so we'll see if not this fall the spring but I'm trying to get to that soon get in the garden ready for spring and just a lot of really getting ready for winter with that getting ready for hunting I'm excited about taking a little bit of break things are starting to slow down and I get out do a little hunting yeah for the hopefully putting some medicine in the freezer though this is the first year here I'll be hunting so it's a new area for us so we'll see okay how we do don't be good no I don't think we've talked about how we got new chickens hmm that's right we've got new baby chicks egg layers egg layers 50 of them it seems a little counterintuitive counterintuitive thank you to be buying your egg-laying chicks in the fall but if you really want to get the best production out of your egg layers you want them coming into their first lay season right at the very very beginning of spring late winter especially for those of us in a northern climate yes yeah right so this is to get the best use of our eggs and one thing I'm excited about I haven't talked about this much but I'm working on a whole permaculture barn pretty sound up integrating a lot of systems in the barn yeah yeah and the chicken coop is moving into the barn yeah so that they can participate in helping them some of the other systems plus so that they've got a little better environment and out of the coop so these chicks are getting started in the barn in the yeah and so right so even this winter I'll get to let them out and they can roam the barn and help us in a few different ways so I'm really excited doing there absolutely all righty so question of the day this is actually we got a whole lot of questions on this topic or several anyways and it is about Carolyn's journal we're interested in that journal where you got it yeah and what's in it yes this is my book of secrets this is my special book I have been recording my favorite recipes and notes and all sorts of things in here I've got oh wow I have so many amazing recipes in here I can't even tell you I've got years totals of like Mike and amounts I've counted up canning amounts I have not done that the last year too I just can so much so I kind of lost track we've got things like Josh's yeah and our breakfast officer breakfast sausage recipes so one day guys I am going to get this published for you one day you can see into this one day that's that's a far out project but I'm still filling it for now with my super special secrets but the book itself was a gift from Josh it came from Colonel Littleton in Tennessee they do fine leather work and I love it you can see it's kind of well used and beat up it's got stains all over it and everything really nice so the only drawback I'd say on this is that it doesn't lay flat yeah in the kitchen that's a little hot there their internal we've got a couple of these and these booklets are tough yeah they're very nice and it'll last a really long time colonel Middleton's if you look them up great small leather I wanted to share one comment by somebody though about your about your talk a couple weeks ago okay it was on the how to put three homemade meals oh the table and I just this just summed up something we were talking about efficiency and production a little bit here and there in chocolate box cottage it sounds like a fun place you'd like that oh yeah you know you know who check the box cottage is don't you oh no no you don't know I don't I'm in a dark that is Michelle who is our moderator one of our trusty hey Michelle how our exclusive bread group for a class in fact I was gonna give her a shout out today because she just started a brand new YouTube channel and she has great content you guys getting a YouTube channel started is really really tough yep so you guys would do her a favor and jump over I'll put a leak link in to her new channel do her a favor of subscribing to bump up that subscriber count' but you know what you won't be disappointed because she putting out great stuff she's a master preserver a Master Gardener and I think a certified nutritionist like she is an amazing amazing person she knows her stuff and you will not be disappointed with her videos so hop on over that was a great segue to know I do I know Michelle said turning our kitchen into centers of production is a key strategy yeah and she went on to a few other things but I just loved that thought of thinking strategically about what we're doing and building skills and building up to homestead and the kitchen really is the start a lot of people think about homesteading and going out and growing everything in animals and then of course that is that's an integral part of it producing our home but if you don't have the skills and the strategy in the kitchen mm-hmm you're gonna have problems if you're out here bringing everything in and connecting that loop right and so this was also in regards to children and having children in the kitchen and working with them and yeah and so there's an overall strategy there but I just thought that was a real poignant point and good just a good thing a good thought there Michelle it is a key strategy for the life and the things that we are all working towards right yeah and if you don't have your your kitchen working most of the rest of the homesteads not gonna work right because most of it comes back into the Kent kitchen one way or another we end up with a lot of waste you know a lot of you know wasted effort food yeah if you don't have a good strategy there yeah it's very good yeah and including the kids in that really you know adds that it doesn't help yeah okay cool all right well I think we can get on to main topic building up your food storage all right and basically this is just some strategy and some tips that we've employed over the years and learned to go from week to week grocery shopping or even month-to-month grocery shopping to long-term storage and security and that's both a great thing in light of just some of our modern production systems and of an overall homestead lifestyle it's it's important really integral it is it really is and it doesn't mean that you can't go still grab a few fresh things at the store here in the air sometimes that's nice but it's building up that base supply of food in your home right yeah yeah so okay first off why would you want to stock up why why do you want to do that if you have a grocery store just the other up for us the grocery store is half an hour away so that's a great start up a reason why but for some people the grocery stores you know block over it doesn't take that long to get there so why would people want to stop it well number one on our list is saving yourself money yes buying in bulk yeah stocking up saves you money it absolutely saves money but you wanna know how come all the way yeah well but when you buy when you buy in bulk you end up saving money on that because it drops the per unit amount on whatever you're buying you know sometimes that simple as simple as doing something like going to Costco and you can go buy a big bowl package sometimes that means more thinking behind it like that buying 50-pound bags there's some Resource Development there I'll do that and we'll get into that a little bit more in a minute but um but you just end up saving a lot of money on the product itself but I've gotta say you also spend a lot of save a lot of money there we go save a little money on trips to the know if you guys are that way but especially if I'm shopping with kids it's like oh let's grab a snack and let's grab this and then oh I needed that thing I just didn't put it on the list and wouldn't that be nice to have it's like the obligatory extra 20 bucks at the grocery store every time I go or whatever it is you know if it's Walmart might be a little more Target or something we don't have one of those around here well and that thought of it not only saving you dollars by getting a better price point per pound per volume whatever it is and you're saving money with trips to the store that leads right into saving you time as was the number two yes yeah and your the time spent shopping mm-hmm right that's not as many trips to the store yeah yeah and matically saves time especially if you start factoring and having kids because your mom you gotta take the kids with you or dad I've only times I've taking the kids in the store whatever it is dot just takes time and you're saving yourself time figuring out your lists and going and actually picking that food up absolutely okay so the number three reason you'd want to stock up on food is I like this one food security yeah this is a really good one it really is yeah it's really important and we should all have a base a line of food storage in our homes somewhere just for food security if you've been through hurricanes if you've been gosh it's been a while it seems like since we've had a major earthquake in this country that's disrupted but hurricanes certainly tornadoes even the fires in California when you start having problems the food on the shelves go fast yeah and the grocery store in the grocery store yeah yeah and so there there's just one reason right there to have food security besides just our own being stocked up in the house and the flow of life yeah because even outside of a big disaster like an earthquake or hurricane you know we all have those moments of little disaster we all have those emergencies we all have job loss and all of a sudden you don't have the income coming in that you expected there are all sorts of different things and having that food stocked up can really help buffer the effects of that well and here's another one that really ties back to money a little bit that a lot of people don't think about our dollar is continually losing value okay inflation is continually degrading the value of the dollar always something bought today at a good price that you can bulk up on and you don't have to buy six in two months from now that main seems small but it's better than money in a savings account here your your money and your savings account doesn't earn anything anymore and a regular savings account when you make a good purchase at a good price you can hold on to that and use that out into the future you're fighting those inflationary effects right and so for me that's that's a big one that is it's a money saver and it's a security it's a hedge yeah against that well anybody who's been shopping for the last few years has really seen that because the prices just are going up and up especially for good quality food you know yep absolutely yeah okay number four reason I really like this one you use you waste a lot less you have a lot less less waste if you're buying in bulk or if you're producing something yourself you're not getting all the waste from the little packages of things you know years ago you and I started measuring some amount of our self-sufficiency by how much waste we were producing and trying to decrease that it's a great way to measure whether you're bringing in a lot of stuff or if you're producing it yourself because you just have a lot less waste when you produce it yourself or when you buy bulk and we tend to think of you know using less energy and less waste a lot of times and light bulbs and energy usage that's true but every bit of that packaging has an energy cost to it every bit of it just like there's an energy cost to going back and forth to the store more times yeah and so it's not only less waste and plastic it's less waste and energy overall the more of us can can you know and of course producing for ourselves ties into this but the more we can buy in bulk you're saving wasting less energy yeah I think another one and this is probably particular to us and a larger family is that you can tailor when you buy in bulk and you're therefore taking your food say your wheat or whatever it is you can tailor it to the sizes for the meal for that day or for the whatever you're cooking right so you have less tendency to over you know make something yeah and not use it and let it go to waste yeah yeah cool so those those are our key four there's probably some other ones we could come up with but good reasons why it's a good idea to start down this journey yeah stocking up and building up an extended food storage right okay so as we get into the particulars of how to do this how to stock up we've come up with five different rules that you really need to consider follow pay attention to at least acknowledge before you start stocking up on food yeah okay mm-hmm okay rule number one stock up on what you will and do actually eat just go buy a bunch of dried good that are gonna go in the back somewhere that you're not interested in if you don't eat canned asparagus don't put a bunch of it on yourself you're not gonna like it later any more than you like it now so you know just make sure that you are actually filling your shelves with things that you do eat you want to eat you like eating your family will eat all of those things and you know that seems so obvious to say but it's so many times I've heard from people who are like I got all this stuff I don't like it this is what when bought a bunch of bulk stuff to have security on the shelf for an emergency or whatever and they all they think about how useful it was and so I don't know if we talked about it later in here because when you do that that fits into a rotation right right yeah and so you're always using your bulk stuff you're always eating off of your bulk supply then that's not a problem yeah yeah it's a good way to go okay okay rule number two stock up on ingredients to pantry meals first so you have a backup would you explain that okay all right that was my note so a pantry meal something that you can make right out of your pantry because you have all your ingredients okay classic example of that would be spaghetti mm-hmm you know you've got your noodles you've got your spaghetti sauce you've got a meal maybe you have some canned meat ready to go and you have a meal that can come straight out of your pantry you don't need additional ingredients make sure that as you start stocking up you think through a few meals that your family would eat normally and and I can't stop every video that one doesn't okay okay sorry I gave you an edit time so make sure when you're stocking up that you think through a few meals that your family would like to eat and pantry meals and make sure you stock up on some of those things first so that you're giving yourself a backup now this is really important because that means you will save money on going out to take out or buying the convenience meals from the grocery store things like that minute moments that'll give you more money to get more food supplies next month right really and we'll talk about ways to stock up a strategy here in a minute hotel thing right how to do that because that can be a challenge how to enter into that because the purchases are larger yes and so that's hard on the budget to get started yeah but keep things moving along here rule number three prepare your storage space and/or method before you stock up right we spent a whole pantry chat on that last week yeah so go watch that one but make sure you have something to do with the bulk amounts of food you're bringing in it's as simple as that you know and but let me say way it doesn't have to be perfectly ideal no okay doesn't says they say you're gonna get a bunch of winter punk you know storage squash sorry where's my pumpkins and you don't really have the ideal place for it you can still find niches in places today you can buy apples and bulk and find places for it you know root crops there's a lot of things whether you're growing them or you know finding a deal buying in bulk you don't have to have the ideals but you do want to plan ahead or what you're gonna do it you don't want to go home and you know go buy 150 pounds of potatoes and then come home and figure out what to do I know yeah think about it beforehand okay rule number four change to a producer mindset start learning to buy bulk and or and it would be a and grow and raise your own food so that you can make sure yeah mostly your ingredients right so if you're buying things or if you're raising them buy the ingredients to something and make you and that's where you're gonna have a lot of them savings that's where you can have a lot of money savings instead of trying to buy bread in bulk it's a lot more cost-effective to buy in wheat hold a wheat and make your own bread not only you're gonna end up with a better product you're gonna end up with a fresher product in the end and it's gonna be a lot a lot cheaper and you know I want to say again and we've talked about this from time to time buying in bulk is a great skill set for entering into the homesteading lifestyle if you're not there yet and you're working on transitioning and you're thinking about where do you put your resources right now how do you build skills buying bulk is huge not only does it save you money it teaches you a skill because things are seasonal on the farm your meat comes in all in bulk your vegetables come in all in bulk you want to buy your feet at a certain time of the year there's so many things that happen in bigger batches and you have to learn how to produce that way and consume that way so even if you're not producing by buying in bulk and getting into that mindset and that skill you're producing a lot of skills that are very conducive and needed to furthering the homesteading life absolutely okay one more if that's right no how long what you're buying is gonna last and by appropriately some things are gonna last longer than others so you got to consider that you probably if you're buying something like dry beans those will last just fine and a bucket on your shelf for you know five years you can buy a lot of dried beans and have them last alone why did I stay dry at some some environments they may need care they may need to be sealed or so right but you know if you're buying olive oil you don't want that sitting on your shelf for five years it's gonna go Rance no matter how much no matter how it is exactly you need to be buying that at least every year from a good source maybe even more often if your storage you know area is not ideal so so know what it is you're buying know how much of it you are going to consume in its good period only get that amount good good great so okay there's how to now we want to talk about ways to starting to stock up ways to get this going right so this is kind of our countdown to our favorite ways we have four ways to stock up here and okay number four is buying the buying more packages okay buy more buy more packages that does not mean go buy more packages than you're already fine but it does mean if you're going to the store to buy something instead of just getting one of them that will get you through you know a few days maybe a week maybe even a month by two by three by four stock up on your shelf and get a a little bit that way you start always having a rotation where you say oh I'm down to three of these things I need to buy a few more right and that just make sure you always have the support you're never running out this this helps with your budget too because you have to start budgeting differently when you buy in bulk yes and so going out buying 50 pounds or 100 pounds of something can be challenging all of a sudden you say okay I'm gonna start buying in bulk and you start doing here oh wow this is a big bill yeah yeah and it is and so transitioning the weight Carolyn's talking about and at first keep buying the small thing you were buying but maybe by double yeah you know right yeah and then the next time you can afford it by a little bit more and you start to condition yourself and your budget you can start budgeting for that and work up to those larger purchases that are really required to do bulk bunyan well yeah yeah absolutely by buying those more packages well and another thing that we I think we touched on in the last week's video a little bit is that when you start bringing in bulk things your storage systems have to change and sometimes that means you need to purchase containers or something to buy up to store large amount and so if you do that kind of gradually it spreads out that cost and work up to it yeah absolutely absolutely okay yeah we're going here yep next is to buy bulk packages yeah move up in size now sometimes grocery stores have bulk package aisles and buy bulk packages for like Costco the Costco idea is that sometimes Costco has big bags of things sometimes they have a bunch of little things packaged together the little things packaged together kind of counts as the buy more right the big bags of things that's where your real cost saving comes in that is the bulk packages now a place like Costco other box stores sometimes has that sort of thing but you can also look into one your local food co-op go to your local health food store and ask about bulk buying opportunities no there may be a group in your town a lot of places there are groups that order directly from bulk buying company you guys dig for that sometimes they play now so don't just take one or two answers and think it doesn't exist sometimes it's just not asking you just start asking around where can i buy bulk foods another one to look into is as your standard we love it as your standard and that is a bulk buying opportunity where you they deliver to your town you go meet the truck and get your book foods it's a that's a wonderful system you're really I wish there was more localized suppliers like them but they've just done it so well and they're one of the few that do what they do and so it's a great entry place yeah and we still rely on that we still might you know there's things we don't produce and we buy from so yeah real good so those are some great ways to get some bulk packages and in bulk buying that's one of those places you really have to make sure you have your packaging ready okay don't go buy a bunch of 50-pound bags of your storage ready your storage yeah for when it comes in the house because you can't just leave those things in the bags special especially a lot of your grains like we buy all our grains and bulk our sugar right Saul or flour rice for beans or coffee you can't I mean you can but it doesn't work well we'll just leave them in the backs yeah there so you need that storage solution first yeah so look into that before you get going on that well but then try to put the linked as our standard down since women shouldn't okay okay so next would be to buy bulk from a local producer in season right yeah and preserve in store so this is our second favorite option for bulking up your food supply right find a local producer and this this can be for meats vegetables depending on where you live grains most most places today there's gonna be some relatively local producer for quality meats and quality vegetables okay you know that's just growing more and more dairy that's growing more and more and so there's lots of different ways to put that up and store it bulk and then you have your grains and a lot of those that depend on where you're at you may or may not that's that's very regional right yeah and so that may be harder and you may need even to buy in bulk as your standard or some co-op yeah and sometimes communities get together and do a really big order truck it in from a farmer who's further away we know that happens here quite a bit and that works out really well if you can get a community together now what comes with it though is that you do have to preserve food if you're buying fresh fruit fresh produce in bulk yeah in season which is a great way to do but you do need to learn how to preserve are they ready to preserve it - can it to dehydrate it to freeze it firming jaw and this is one people kept talking about freeze drying it yeah yeah this is something we will get into eventually but we feel the entry cost at this point is still too high to make it worthwhile for our worthwhile and for most of you but it's getting there it's coming down and and it is it's an awesome food preservation about that you know it's a little energy intensive but you want to talk about you know storing some of those other foods fresh foods that are hard to store long term other than canning which is great I want to do all the kados freeze-dried there's just no other way to do so for those of you that are thinking of that yes that is an excellent option other than the energy consumption and the price points to enter yeah so we plan to do that eventually Thanks still waiting for those prices yes it what's her number one method for stocking up your food storage I know you young lady pretty young lady grow your own thrive your own food yep start to grow your own and preserve your own yeah none of us can do all of that for ourselves on a percent of it but but a lot of us can do send a lot of it some yeah - a lot of it absolutely absolutely you're gonna get the best nutrition the best value for your money put in the best other benefits I like being out in fresh air so it's a really good way to go absolutely and that's a journey so just keep hanging with us and we'll keep talking about all that because I thought we like to do well you really do okay before we wrap this up we talked about a method helping people the economics we talked about why we talked about why yeah if we're recapping oh okay were you right no I wasn't recapping I said we promise to talk about okay the economics how to get started okay fine book because sometimes you go to buy that 50-pound bag of beans it's more expensive than a one-pound bag of beans right maybe that unit doesn't fit in the budget a start right it might not so how do we do that to make that worthwhile well you gotta have a strategy yeah yeah and you have to start small right so I think you you who you handle the food budget so you start to just increase little bits that food budget is that how you've done as you stock up yeah as you stock up you have one less thing that you have to buy every month because you that 50-pound bag is gonna last you a long time if you're used to buying one-pound bags every month so then all the sudden you have one less thing you have to buy so you can roll the money you would have spend on that one pound of beans into buying something else bulk right doing it that way starting to bulk up on a new thing every month is a great way to get into it without spending too much money on it and that's a great entry way for it and you just start to grow that and another thing I would add is consider seasonality when you're picking what things yes you know start and start bulking up on certain things in their season right and that just starts to get you into a rhythm and you'll grow into that as you can increase that and it just means that the other side you have to do is you have to start to save a little bit you can't roll it just all over you start to got to put a few dollars away every time so that that those purchases continue to get larger and larger until you can get to the cycle that you want we kind of aim for a one-year cycle generally right but whatever that is for you six months a year for some people maybe it's longer but you need to be able to save a little bit at the same time as you're increasing other ones so that you can keep growing and so little little steps it along along you've heard us say start small that's a great place to start small with a good strategy you will just increase your food storage and your ability to take advantage of better deals and all kinds of stuff you're really yeah really it grows really quickly if you can just be consistent but chip away at it yeah absolutely so all right guys start building up your food storage and we'll leave you an EM card to the video last week okay yeah the organizing the food storage key key element to this yeah and looking for - next week we're getting close to Thanksgiving which is exciting yeah it's my favorite times of the year we have a lot of fun family traditions around Thanksgiving and you know every year the table is filled with more and more of our homegrown home raised yeah great food so it just really feels like that harvest celebration time to be thankful yeah so we're gonna talk about a homestead Thanksgiving and how we prepare some of the traditions we do and some of the meals and I give you tips on cooking for a large gathering like Thanksgiving there's a lot of times we find ourselves cooking for a lot of people absolutely yeah all right you guys well thanks for hanging with us don't forget to share like and subscribe yeah we'll see you soon [Music]

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 42,690

Rating: 4.9500523 out of 5

Keywords: Homesteading, Self-Sufficiency, Sustainable, Living, Permaculture, Homesteading Family, Food Preservation, food storage, long term food storage, emergency preparedness, prepper pantry, food storage prepping, food storage ideas, food storage room, food storage containers, food storage organization, food storage hacks, food storage pantry, long term food storage prepping, long term food storage pantry, long term food storage ideas, long term food storage on a budget

Id: AklC8RezmjI

Length: 33min 36sec (2016 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019