What's in your Pantry?

This is a parade of food pantry's to make you think about your food storage methods. I strongly urge you to keep records of your foods in the pantry and rotate your food. I believe that the way the economy is that a well stocked pantry may keep your family fed while you get back to basics and learn how to not only grow your own foods but be able to put the food up(canning, preserving, drying).

Pantry #1 organized
This pantry is quite organized-which is critical to managing your foods and rotating. There is a good number of dried goods(long shelf life) with canned beans, fruit, veggies, and honey. The bottom shelf has a luxury item of sorts- instant potatoes.(which is a quick food to cook) even over a campfire. Notice the canned salmon on the left lower shelf. You need to have some meats canned, or freeze dried, or dehydrated. In the local grocery, you can buy a variety of fish, turkey, chicken, ham, roast beef, spam, and Vienna sausages. One can also buy summer sausage that does not need to be refrigerated until opened, and beef jerky which never needs to be refrigerated.

Pantry #2 Fantastic space used totally incorrectly


How long can this pantry feed anyone? Well not for very long that is for sure. Soda with its empty nutritional value is a waste of space. Mind you, I have enjoyed many an iced filled soda, but to fill a pantry with soda and almost nothing else will lead to the last diet EVER. This pantry also has many prepackaged box meals-whether cereal or the dinner mixes above them. I am always one to look for bargains and time savers, but the older I get the more I realize that these are exactly like the soda. They are filled with excess calories with the least amount of beneficial nutrition.

Pantry #3 This is a photo of a church distribution, but I like the way I can use this in my post, so I am! This pantry looks both organized and full compared to Pantry #2. It has a variety and food to last longer, but it is lacking flour, sugars, legumes, rice, to name a few.

Pantry #4 Obsessive compulsive pantry
Now this is a show home pantry! Water is included in this storage which is a plus, but only for a week or so. This pantry is balanced yet will provide NO nutritional balance. I won't say anything else.


Pantry #5 Holy Toledo...
If you store food like this, you may as well flush a $20.00 bill down the toilet every day. Nothing is organized, it would be impossible to quickly assemble a meal, and it looks like some food is stored on the floor. Kudos to the really cool shelving unit, but that is not what makes a good pantry. I am betting that this pantry has several items opened because they did not realize that one was already open.(notice the two Pam spray cans- one on an upper shelf and one below).

Pantry #6 Finally

This pantry is from an LDS family. Notice the five gallon buckets on the floor...they can be stored on the floor(although it is not recommended to store them on cement floor). In these buckets are grains, oats, sugar, flour, and the likes. Notice the water on the right. There is also a variety of canned goods, box goods, and other items. This pantry continues on either side and holds a years worth of food. Some sits in its case until the old food is used first.

I have a list of suggested items for a pantry to buy in the month of April.
A- apples(applesauce, dried apples, apple butter) apricots, asparagus,
P- peas, peaches, pears, pineapples, peanuts, peanut butter
R-rice, rotini,
I- Italian dressing, Italian seasoning,
L- legumes, lard,

This is something simple to make you build up a variety in the pantry because if you only have 200 lbs of rice life will be tedious. In any situation your emotional health is as important to your health as anything. So begin a simple plan but be diligent.

Now here is my shaking reality- don't begin simple, but ... spend and fill up the pantry. Every time I go to the store the prices are increasing. If something you use is on sale, load up. For example my local store is having a case lot sale and I definitely shopped accordingly.

Many prep sites give sound advice of buying foods that last 20 or so years, etc. If you are starting today, the time to find the deals on those items is going fast. I also suggest being stingy on price as the more you have the better off you will be. Stretch your dollar long and far, as an empty pantry vs. a well stocked one is what will get you through to your garden harvest.
@Double Nickel Farm