How To Build A Prepper’s Pantry
An insurance policy against hunger
Last time, we covered why you need a prepper’s pantry. Today, we’re going to discuss how to build one.
First, let’s address comparisonitis. Never heard of it? It’s the bad habit of comparing ourselves, our circumstances, or our skills to others. Our parents used to call it “keeping up with the Joneses”. It’s a thing, even among those of us in the preparedness community.
We’re all different. Our circumstances and dynamics and family units are all different, so it’s not really fair to compare ourselves or our situations to anyone else. It does no good to aim for shelves and shelves of food alongside 55-gallon drums of water if you live in a basement apartment. You’ll just stress yourself out. My sons have a saying, “you do you”. Basically, you have to work with what you’ve got. So if you live in an apartment, you’re going to have less room than someone who has a home and a two-car garage. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a prepper’s pantry. You just need to be creative about it.
Go through the rooms in your home with a pen and paper. Okay, maybe not the bathroom.
List the room and where you have wasted or under-utilized space. You might have wasted space under your sofa, or even behind it. Maybe there’s room for a bin or two in the bottom of your closet, off to the side, or under your bed. Maybe under the nightstand? If you reorganized the cupboards in your kitchen, could you find space in one you don’t use all the time? Or maybe under the counter? Think creatively as you go through your living spaces, no idea is too crazy right now. Write it all down.
(I know a person who has their stockpile in two bins that hold up a piece of plywood, with the entire arrangement covered by a large tablecloth. No one knows that’s his prepper’s pantry!)
If you have a corner of the basement you can use, or a spare room and space isn’t an issue, knowing where to put your stockpile won’t be a problem. But what should you store?
Everyone’s dietary needs are different. There are folks who can’t tolerate gluten, others can’t do dairy, and others can’t have nuts. There are vegetarians and others who don’t care what they eat. You know best what foods you and your family can and will eat.
Before we get into the physicalities of your pantry, let’s be clear on what a prepper pantry is, and what it’s not.
The food in your cupboards in your kitchen is a working pantry. Ideally, that’s not where you’re going to locate your prepper’s pantry.
A prepper’s pantry is your food back-up, designed to last you and your family an extended period of time, from a few weeks to a few months. Some folks have been fortunate and determined enough to build a supply of a few years. Not everyone can do this, and that’s okay. This isn’t a competition to keep up with someone else. This is about being as prepared as you can be for yourself and your family. Keep in mind, that there is a reasonable way to do this without spending a bunch of money all at once.
The prepper’s pantry has two parts, non-perishable items and perishable. I’ve seen some pantries large enough to include a small freezer beside the shelves. If you’re able to include a freezer for long-term storage, I absolutely recommend getting one, even second-hand. As long as it works and fits the space you have, that’s all that’s important. If your circumstances don’t allow it, focus on the storage of your non-perishables.
(Not my pantry, regrettably. Photographer unknown)
Where To Store Your Food
The ideal place to put your pantry is somewhere dry, cool, and pest-free. What this space looks like is different for all of us. Some people have a basement they can convert into a food-storage area with lots of shelves, spaces for buckets, water cubes or large packages of toilet paper. A basement that floods every spring will require a system that includes off-the-floor shelving, buckets with oxygen absorbers, and moisture-proof jars. Some people have a closet they seldom use that they’ve added a light source to, along with sturdy shelves. A crawlspace under stairs can also be converted with a little creativity. Each of our homes will be different, and with that comes different challenges and benefits.
No matter where you choose to store your prepper’s pantry, make sure it is a dry, cool place that is well-lit, easily accessible, and easily organized. Otherwise, you’ll never want to use the space. Make it as easy to use as possible.
So let’s assume you’ve found where you want to keep your prepper’s pantry.
What goes into building up that insurance policy against hunger?
Food Storage & Cooking Equipment
A pressure canner is a terrific investment that pays for itself over the years. You can preserve far more with a pressure canner than with just a water bath canner. With a pressure canner, you’re able to “can” meat such as ground beef, ground pork or chicken that you got on sale. This is a terrific way to store ground venison and wild fish too. A pressure canner allows you the freedom to store your food in a way that uses a minimum of energy. Freezers are great but rely on a constant supply of ongoing energy to keep the food inside in a suspended state. Interrupt that energy supply for an extended period of time and the food inside grows slowly warmer, starts to thaw, and age. As many people have discovered after 24–48 hours without power, freezer contents do not age well once they warm up. Home canning is a safer alternative. In the prepping world, it’s often said that backup systems can save your life. So I recommend having two or more ways to preserve your food.
Dehydration, home canning, smoking, freezing, and fermentation are all popular ways to preserve the food you’ll eat. Some foods lend themselves more readily to one type of preservation over another, and you’ll need to keep this in mind as your pantry grows. For example, freezing cabbage limits what you can make with it later. Once the cells in the cabbage freeze and thaw, the leaves begin to break down. But if you like sauerkraut, you can ferment your cabbage. It keeps much longer as ‘kraut than it would simply frozen. Potatoes take up a lot of room in the freezer, so you want to explore alternative ways to keep those. You can slice them, stack them in canning jars and pressure can them. Preserved this way, your potatoes could last for a couple of years. Stored in sand, in a cool, dark room, your spuds will only last a year, at max. It’s still a useful storage technique, just shorter-term. Fish fillets that have been cold smoked and then frozen will last much longer than fish that have just been frozen. More about smoking later.
But while you build up your prepper’s pantry, you’ll have to decide on how you want to store your food according to your own circumstances. Not everyone has two freezers, a pressure canner, a water bath canner, and a dehydrator. Not everyone is going to want to freeze their tomatoes. Some folks will dehydrate them and store them in vacuum-sealed bags, and then store those bags in a bucket with an oxygen absorber. Some might prefer to shop online for a year’s supply of food, but this is an expensive way to acquire all the food you’ll need. While this is an immediate solution, one of the drawbacks is the lack of personalization. When you build your own pantry, you’ll store the things your family likes to eat.
Not to be overlooked are food-grade buckets with air-tight lids. These can be purchased at any hardware store or numerous places online. These can be further fortified by lining them with bags and including oxygen absorbers, if you choose. The buckets can be labeled and stacked, but remember to store these as close to the floor as possible. For obvious safety reasons, you don’t want to store your full buckets on the top shelf.
Another useful piece of equipment you’ll want is an alternative way to cook fairly rapidly. A propane camp stove that uses small bottles of propane can be easily set up outside and used when your stovetop is unusable for an extended period of time. You can purchase the stove and a bottle of propane for it relatively inexpensively, and buy further bottles on a regular basis if you choose to go this route. In case of a days-long power failure, you could set up a rough outdoor kitchen if you have plywood and a couple of saw-horses. Another option is a propane barbeque. Larger, easier to explain to a nosy neighbor, and more versatile, with a few adjustments in cookware you can cook almost anything on it. We’ll discuss this in more detail later. Also available are butane camp stoves. These are cousins to the foldable propane stove and run on the same principles.
One integral piece of equipment that many forget is a hand-crank can opener. Here too, there are plenty of options. You can get the most basic model at almost any store, or you can shop around for a larger one with padded handles for arthritic hands. Whatever kind you decide upon, two is better than one. They don’t make things like they used to, and it wouldn’t be good to have your only can opener stop working for some reason!
Tip: In the prepper world, there is a saying, “Two is one and one is none”. It reminds us to make sure we have backups.
Another way to preserve your food is through the use of a root cellar. If you aren’t lucky enough to already have one, you can make a small one out of a metal trash can with a tight-fitting lid. Find a spot near your house so you don’t have to trek too far, but high enough that rainwater won’t collect inside. Dig a hole deep enough to bury the can, but leave an inch or two above the dirt. Put the items you want to store inside the can, then put the lid on. Cover the lid with several inches of straw, then cover that with a tarp. Weigh the tarp edges down with stones or bricks to prevent it from blowing away. Make sure you keep an eye on the contents of your root cellar can. While it is possible to store your root vegetables inside, you want to use them up before they grow mold or rot. I know this method won’t work for everyone, but it might work for you. One way to preserve them a little longer is to leave some of the dirt on them when you harvest. By this I mean don’t wash them. If you brush most of the dirt off but don’t clean them to grocery-store standards, they’ll last a little longer.
So now you know the basics of how to build up a prepper’s pantry. I encourage you to apply some creativity to my suggestions and adapt them to your circumstances.
Shout out in the comments section if you have any questions or ideas I’ve not mentioned here.
Next time, we’ll talk about what kind of food to store!
