What is “The List”?

If you are completely new to food storage, you may be wondering what “list” I refer to so much.
When you begin to research and really look into food storage, you’ll find a general list of foods that are the basics. Food that you can use for a multitude of cooking and have a good shelf life, when stored properly. These usually consist of wheat, powdered milk and eggs, rice, sugar, salt. Just about anything you would need to make the basic food to get you through 3 months to a year, depending on the list. However, if your family is like mine, one or many of these are off limit foods. What to do then? Well, I’m glad you are here!

Here are a couple of links to some sites that have general lists of food that you should have in your food storage. There are more out there, but these are what I looked at when started out.

Food Storage Made Easy is a site that offers a step by step guide with list to help you with your storage. They start of with getting a 3 month amount of supplies at a time, I have a link on the side of my blog.
Another great place to start is the About.com Food Storage Calculator. Here you enter in the number of family members within a certain age range and they will calculate approximately how much food you need to store for a one year supply of food.
 Top 10 items to stock up in your pantry by Selina Dixon, manager and creator of Self-Reliant moms. Here, she has links to the FEMA and LDS list of foods to have on hand, and also outlines the top ten items that are recommended.

Depending on what your families needs are, you may be  able to use most of the items. But, if you run into things you can’t have, that’s where we come in! I have tried to break things down into categories to make finding these replacements easier.

No matter what list you choose to follow for amounts and  whatnot, just make sure that you are storing the foods properly and that you know how to use it :)

Breaking down the list.

Now, depending on how much and what you are planning on storing, you can adjust a list to fit your needs. For most who want to dive into the food storage world, there is a basic 3 month supply that is kind of a general rule of thumb. Once you have this 3 month supply you can go after another 3 months, and so on.
These magical lists are usually filled with many nutritious and filling foods...that is for most people. When you have an allergy to food, it can change everything. It took me a long time and a lot of searching to find things to replace on my list.
I’m going to try and break these lists down into the categories and share what we have chosen to use instead, obviously according to our needs.  Since we have such a wide range of foods to stay away from, there should be something here for just about everyone. If there is a favorite product that you use as opposed to what I use, please feel free to share it :)
There are approximately 7 general categories that you’ll need to look at. Aside from all of the other items you want to have on hand, I’m focusing on those most commonly found on a food storage list.

1. Water
2. Grains
3. Fats and Oils
4. Legumes
5. Sugars
6. Cooking Essentials
7. Other Proteins

Because there are so many options and so much to each of these categories, I’ve decided to break them down into their own entries. Hopefully, it will be easier to reference these too.