Company: Shelf Reliance
Last Date to Order: December 17th

Company: Emergency Essentials
Last Date to Order: December 15th-19th (depending on location)
To see the exact date for your area click here then click the tab that says “Guarantee Delivery”

Company: Global Sun Oven
Last Date to Order: December 18th (for most locations)
They are recommending to have orders in by December 16th before 9 am Central to ensure delivery by the 24th, however they think most areas of the US can order as late as the 18th and still make it.

We will continue to add to this list as we get more information from the companies! Happy shopping

Here are some tips that I have found have made my food storage more organized, useful, and rotated. I find building and using your food storage to be an ever changing thing, and I keep adapting as I learn more. I have a food storage area in an unfinished part of my basement (I know we’re lucky to have basements). I also have a little cupboard space upstairs I use for day to day cooking.

MY FOOD STORAGE AREA: I call this my food storage area, because it’s just against a wall in my basement. In my “dream” home, I’ll have a whole dedicated room, with all sorts of super cool shelves and stuff, but for now this is like heaven compared to my condo before. I have three areas along the wall. One is for long term foods, the shelves are for three month supply, and I have an area for water. Ok- ok, I have a fourth area – it’s called a big fat pile of non-food items, and appliances that are waiting for a new shelf area I also keep some water and my 72 hour kits upstairs in case we had to evacuate, or my whole basement got smooshed in a disaster. Oh and this reminds me, I need to put up a blanket against that window to block light from getting onto my long term food. I just moved everything around and before this wasn’t an issue. Light makes food go bad faster.

TIP FOR FEELING MOTIVATED: My first tip would be to get an area with shelves that you feel excited about. If your area looks like mine did at first (see below), you won’t feel excited to get started. It’s hard to go buy a bunch of food with the constant thought of “where am I going to put this?” going on in your mind. If you don’t know what kinds of shelves to get, look at Jodi’s husbands tutorial on building rotating racks here, at some cardboard options here, and at some great shelving units from Shelf Reliance at JodiandJulie.ShelfReliance.com/Home. (If you click on our store link, you get even more discounts after you click add to cart). If you don’t have a lot of space, make sure you check out our Small Spaces Storage Solutions.

TIP FOR KEEPING MY STORAGE ORGANIZED: In my food storage room downstairs I try to keep like foods together on shelves. That way I can quickly get stuff assessed and know where everything is easily. I like to keep fats together, sugars together, condiments, and all sorts of other logical (to me) groupings.

TIP FOR MAKING USING FOOD STORAGE EASIER: I put all the ingredients I need for making bread on one shelf in one of my cupboards. That way when it’s bread making day, I just pull all the things off that one shelf and I’m ready to go. Having to dig, and push through other ingredients is something I have always hated about baking, so this way I’m ready to go right away.

TIP FOR ROTATING MY FOOD STORAGE: These are ALL the cans in my upstairs pantry. How is this Food Storage? Well you see by keeping very, very few of my three month supply types of foods upstairs, I am FORCED to go downstairs to get food out of my food storage and use it. When I go grocery shopping, I come STRAIGHT home and put my food in the basement. Then when I need food, I have to go down there (send one of my cute little kids) to get it. I know it sounds annoying, but if I don’t do it this way, I’d end up using everything I just barely bought first, and my food storage in the basement would just collect dust.

TIP FOR USING MY LONG TERM FOOD STORAGE: One way I encourage myself to use my long term food storage such as grains and legumes is I keep smaller containers of them upstairs. I know this contradicts my previous tip a little – but it’s different- trust me. I save containers from nuts I get at Costco and use them to store the smaller quantities of my long term foods. This makes making pancakes, or muffins and all that kind of stuff with whole grains a lot easier. I also use my legumes a lot more in soups and chili’s.

TIP FOR REPLACING FOODS I’VE USED: Placed conveniently on a work table right next to the food storage is a pad of paper for me to write down things I take out of my food storage so I can replace them next time I’m shopping, or next time there is a sale. My dear husband knows if he takes something off a shelf he BEST be writing it down on that paper – or else

HEY WAIT! How did this get in here. Ok fine- when I go grocery shopping I DON’T immediately put the food in the basement. I put it on the stairs DOWN to the basement and deal with it later.

What are some of your tips for staying staying organized and motivated?

We introduced this surprise yesterday. If you missed it, make sure you go back and read it because it tells you all about it. As promised, here is Lesson Plan #2. We hope you enjoy! See you tomorrow for Lesson Plan #3.

PURPOSE: To help class members learn how to Plan, Buy, and Rotate Their 3 Month Supply.

You can learn more about sprouting Basics on our Sprouting Page. Sprouting is definitely NOT the place to start when you are building a Food Storage, however as you learn more and more about Food Storage – you’ll understand it’s importance. I’m almost 3 years into my Food Storage journey – and I’ll say I probably spend a WEEEE bit more time on Food Storage than the average person so don’t worry if you’re reading this post thinking WHAT IN THE WORLD IS JULIE TALKING ABOUT?

So last week a good friend of mine, called me up and said one of our neighbors was going to be teaching her how to make sprouted wheat bread, and if she knew anyone that wanted to come along to invite them. I hurried and told my husband he needed to drop everything and watch the kids (he works from home some days). I have been wanting to learn about this for so long but have been WAY too scared. Something about being in a friends kitchen learning about it made it so much less intimidating. So if you’re asking yourself what is sprouted wheat bread I’ll tell you –

Sprouted wheat bread, is whole wheat bread made with flour ground from wheat berries that have been sprouted. After sprouting the berries by having them sit in water for a number of hours, the sprouted berries are then completely dehydrated and put through a grain mill to create flour. Here’s a picture I found online- my loaf didn’t last long enough for a photo shoot:

In another post, I’ll tell you all about the process and how it works. I need to work up the energy to MAKE it, and to film the whole process so you too can feel like your in your friends kitchen learning how to do it.

The reason for the post today is to research the benefits of sprouting, and sprouted bread specifically. After tasting the delicious bread I wanted to commit to making sprouted wheat bread, however I’m not going to lie - IT IS A PROCESS. So I wanted to figure out how much better it is for you – so I could encourage myself to do it more often.

The following information is found at ehow.com. I read a lot of information on different websites before I found this concise synopsis. The information found in this article seems to be consistent with other stuff I read.

Benefits of Sprouted Wheat Bread

Sprouted wheat bread is nutrient dense, easier to digest and has more dietary fiber than processed wheat bread. Sprouting wheat berries encourages them to make enzymes that break down starches, fats and proteins, which makes it easier to digest the grain. Sprouting tends to break down many of the substances, such as gluten, that may cause allergies in some people.

Nutrient Dense

Sprouted wheat, as well as other sprouted grains, have a significantly higher level of vitamins, proteins and enzymes. The complex starches in sprouted wheat bread are converted into natural sugars. Sprouted wheat is high in magnesium, manganese and selenium. It is low in cholesterol, fat and sodium.

Low Glycemic Index

Because sprouted wheat bread has a low glycemic index (GI) it is digested at a slower rate, enabling a person’s blood sugar level to be stable for a longer time, which helps them to be more satisfied, decreasing a desire to snack.

Health Benefits

Sprouted wheat bread has more dietary fiber than processed grain breads. This may improve bowel health and regularity. It may also help to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, assist in weight control and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Sprouting assists in making nutrients more available and can increase the absorption of calcium, iron and other minerals.

Stay tuned – I’ll be showing you the whole process of making the bread “soon”.

Ingredients:
1 can great northern beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 1/4 c. chicken or vegetable broth
1 c. favorite salsa or a can of Mexican stewed tomatoes
3 TBSP chocolate syrup
1 TBSP southwest seasoning
1 TBSP chili powder

Directions:
Rinse and drain beans. Combine all ingredients in a slow-cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Special Notes:
The great thing about this chili is it has enough flavor to skip all the refrigerated toppings like cheese and sour cream.

Are you storing a 3 month supply of food for a potential job loss? For a potential natural disaster? For meal planning purposes? Whatever it is that you are doing this for will influence how you go about planning, so first – decide – Why Am I Doing This? Check out our complete series on “Why Food Storage?”, if you haven’t figured this one out yet.

Are you the type that thinks your 3 month plan can only have shelf stable items? Do you think fridge and freezer foods count in your 3 month plan? Do you want to make a plan based on the assumption that you can still buy produce to fill in holes in your recipes? Once you have decided which types of foods you want in your 3 month plan, you’ll be able to filter your recipes to fit that criteria. ***disclaimer*** While it’s always good to have some shelf stable recipes, we think planning strictly shelf stable meals is a hard place to start for beginners-

• Some people find that buying foods they use often in bulk fit their goals for a 3 month plan.
• Some people like to plan their meals on our printable pdf forms with good old fashioned pens and pencils. (found on our BabyStep 3 page)
• If you’re really wanting to get detailed, you can use our 3 month supply excel spreadsheet and go to town including all ingredients for all your recipes and then watch it automatically calculate how many of each item you need.(found on our BabyStep 3 page)

While the end goal is to use foods daily from your pantry, and replace them with your regular grocery shopping, to get your supply kick started you may need to budget a certain amount of money to get your supply going. Figure out what you can spare until you have a supply built up and think of it as an investment.

When you have determined WHAT you need to buy, develop a plan to purchase. For some great info on this – visit our sister site The Food Storage Shopper. You may decide buying one extra each time works for you, or you might get into coupon and sale shopping and buy things only when on sale. Whatever fits your style, having a game plan in place will surely help.

Good luck, and remember there aren’t RIGHT answers to these questions. If we have learned anything in doing this for the last 2 years its that EVERYONE has a different style, and you need to figure out what works for you!