This is the time of year where our readers, our families, and our friends all ask us for advice because they want to “get some food storage” for Christmas. We love the idea of spending Christmas budgets on something useful that is a great long-term investment. However, that’s sort of a hard question to answer with a one-size-fits all solution.
A common theme we tend to see is that a lot of people who want to “get prepared” don’t want to learn a whole new system of cooking, worry about rotating, changing their family’s eating habits, etc. Their strategy is more of a “get it and forget about it” mentality. If this is your style, or you are buying gifts for someone who tends to think like that, the best route to go is just-add-water meals.
Even if you enjoy following a more traditional food storage plan or like to “eat what you store, store what you eat”, we recommend keeping about a 3 month supply of easy meals on hand for a shorter term emergency or to grab-and-go in an evacuation situation.
We are so excited to share TWO fabulous deals we have worked out exclusively for Food Storage Made Easy readers specifically for these Christmas-time purchases people are looking to make. These are the best prices you can get for this many servings.
SHORT TERM – GRAB ‘N’ GO90 Serving Meal Bucket + Goal Zero Kit COMBO |
LONG TERM – YEAR SUPPLYLindon Farms 1 Year Supply Package |
COOKING TOOLS
Don’t forget that if you store these types of just-add-water meals you will need to store extra water and also have a source to easily boil water to cook the meals. Here are a few items that can help with that!
- WaterBricks – Easy to store a lot of water but small enough to be able to easily access and use.
- Butane Stove – Use indoors, just like a regular stove-top. Must store lots of butane.
- Firebox – Can be used with a wide variety of fuels. Light and small for portable use.
- InstaFire – Versatile fuel that can quickly boil water using any small stove, firepit, etc.
- All-American Sun Oven – While useful for many things, it also will cook your just-add-water meals without using any fuel.
- HERC Tea Light Candle Oven – Safe to use indoors for when bad weather or privacy is a concern. Cooks with tea light candles.
OTHER GIFT IDEAS
- Inflatable Solar Lanterns – These make great stocking stuffers or inexpensive gifts to add to 72 hour kits. Never worry about having batteries on hand or candles that run out. These lanterns take up very little space and charge from the sun!
- Snackies – Instead of filling up on unhealthy treats, get your kids (or kids-at-heart) some healthy snackies. Our kids eat these like candy and we fell totally fine letting them do it! Order these or any other Thrive goodies before Dec. 11th to guarantee arrival before Christmas.
- InstaFire Packets – A 24-pack of instafire can be split up for multiple gift recipients. It is a handy fuel/fire starter for backpacking, 72 hour kits, or stove-in-a-can type gifts. It’s so easy to boil water and is very safe to store and use. We love InstaFire.
- Food Storage Books – Any number of these books would make a great gift for someone just getting started or for a veteran food storage pro in your life. You can never have too many books on being prepared and there are always new ideas in every one.
-Jodi Weiss Schroeder
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net