Has the thought of a natural disaster ever crossed your mind?

Are you prepared to live off rations and water for days if a storm or earthquake was to hit?

Building an emergency food supply is a good idea. It will not only save your life, but it will also make you feel better about your future.

It’s simple, cost-effective, and essential for any household.

Here’s what you need to know about building a survival food supply that can help you get through any emergency situation.

Setting up a Budget

When building an emergency food supply for you and your family, you will want to consider a few key factors before making purchases. The best place to start is with a budget.

The first step in creating your budget is deciding how much you want to spend. It’s important to be realistic and flexible here. You may want to set aside money from each paycheck and slowly build up your stock over time. Or, if you’re able, you may choose to purchase everything at once. 

Either way, it’s important that you don’t overextend yourself financially in case of an emergency where you need funds for other things like medical care, evacuation costs, or repairs around the home.

How to Calculate Food Storage Needs

Stocking up on more than you need is wasteful, and stocking up on less can lead to a whole lot of stress if you find yourself in a situation where you need it. Luckily, calculating how much food is needed for a given amount of time is pretty easy.

Here’s the formula:

[number] people x [number] days x 2 cups/person/day = [number] cups

So, let’s say you have 3 people in your family, and you want to build an emergency food supply that will last 10 days. You would do this:

3 people x 10 days x 2 cups/person/day = 60 cups.

You will want to store 60 cups of food for each person in your family for every 10-day period—whether that’s two 5-gallon buckets, one 5-gallon bucket, and another small container. This formula works for any kind of emergency situation, whether it’s a hurricane, snowstorm, or something else.

Best Food Items For Your Survival Kit

Here are some of the best foods to stock up on before an emergency situation:

• Canned foods with high-fat content. This includes peanut butter, potted meat, and tuna. Aim for canned goods that don’t require refrigeration before opening.
• Dried foods like pasta, rice, and beans. These foods will give you a good amount of bulk, as well as important nutrients such as protein and carbohydrates.
• Powdered drink mixes will help keep you hydrated while adding flavor to your water reserves in case they get too bland drinking out of the tap or other sources.
• If there are babies in the house, make sure you have infant formula on hand; it is essential that babies receive proper nutrition to grow strong during times of disaster. 

In addition, it may be wise for mothers to consider breastfeeding if possible given how long this situation may last (and remember there is no age limit on breastfeeding). Another option is buying baby bottles that can hook up directly to a faucet so infants can still get water without eating solid food yet.

• Pet food. It’s easy not to think about pets in times like these but they still need their meals as well! Make sure if there are cats or dogs in the home that their food supply lasts throughout your crisis period; dog bones and cat treats also double as great snacks for humans!

Where To Store Your Food Supply

In order to make sure that the food in your supply doesn’t spoil or lose its nutritional value, it’s important to store it in a safe, stable place. 

Here are a few tips on where to store your food supply:

• Don’t keep it in a damp place. This can lead to moldy food and is generally not very tasty.
•  Don’t store it somewhere hot, either. It’ll go bad much faster, and let’s face it—if the power goes out and you have nothing in reach but black beans, do you really want them warm?
•  Keep it away from direct sunlight as much as possible. Sunlight increases the rate at which vitamins break down in foods.
• Try not to move it around too much. While this may be difficult if you’re stocking up for a zombie apocalypse, our bodies can handle slight changes in temperature—it’s having them constantly fluctuate that causes problems (and ultimately leads to foodborne illness).

Long Term Storage of Food 

The best way to keep food from spoiling is to vacuum seal it. Vacuum sealing will allow you to store your food for up to five years without worrying about it going bad. The vacuum sealer removes all the air from the bag, which prevents the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms that cause food spoilage.

Vacuum sealing is a great way for people who want to preserve their food for longer periods of time but do not have access to or space in their kitchen cabinets or pantry area. You can buy vacuum-sealed bags at most grocery stores, but they are expensive and they do not work well if you have large amounts of food that needs to be stored long-term.

You can buy a vacuum sealer at any hardware store, but they are not cheap and you need a special machine in order to seal the bags properly. There are also many different types of vacuum sealers available including ones with automatic sealing functions or manual ones where you manually create a seal with your hands.

The benefit of using an automatic vacuum sealer over a manual one is that it will take less time and effort because there will be no need for you to constantly check on the bag every now and then while sealing it manually would require constant monitoring.

Rotate Your Emergency Food Supply

Rotating food supplies is an important part of building an emergency food supply. When you are trying to create a food supply that will last a year or more, you want to make sure that you consume the oldest items in your stockpile first, and replace them with newer items. This will help ensure that your food doesn’t go bad while it sits on the shelf.

The easiest way to do this is by keeping an inventory of what’s in your pantry, and when you buy something new, put it behind whatever is already there. Then when you use something, bring the item behind it forward and use that one next. This rotation system requires no marking or labeling of products at all and helps ensure that you’re always using the oldest products first while replacing them with fresher products.

We hope this guide has given you some ideas for how to get started building your own emergency food supply. Remember: The sooner you start, the better prepared your family will be if something happens! 

And the best part is that even if nothing ever goes wrong, you’ll still have that peace of mind knowing your family can make it through anything life throws at them.