1. Grain. Wheat is the best, widely available grain. It is high in protein, carbs and fiber. The drawback to wheat is that you need a grinder to turn the grains of wheat into flour. Oats are also nutritious and inexpensive. You can make oat flour in your blender, but oats have very little gluten and will not make good bread.
Corn has no protein and malnutrition results from a corn-based diet. High in carbs.
Rice is high in carbs but contains almost no protein. If you’re alergic to wheat or gluten, you can mix the gluten free grains and add some xanthum gum to provide texture for breads, pancakes etc.
2 Milk. Obviously, unless you have a cow, you’ll store powdered milk. Milk supplies animal protein and calcium and carbs.
3. Salt. It’s cheap, so stock up.
4. Oil. You need a souce of fat in your diet. Canola is the best for storage because it’s best nutritiously, other than olive oil and it’s much less expensive. Oil will become rancid if not rotated, so be sure to rotate your new purchases with old.
5. Sugar. Plain white sugar stores easily and adds flavor and carbs.
You can live fairly well on just those few things. But you’ll also want to store yeast or baking soda to leaven your bread. If you really have to live on your storage, you’ll be glad if you store a good supply of split green peas, and or lentils, (great types of protein) dry beans, potato flakes, (store the unflavored kind. They have a much longer shelf life and never go rancid. They’re a good source of vitamin C, too) dry pasta, (best to store the garden (tricolor) type. That type of pasta is surprisingly high in vegetable content.) I also keep a big supply of tomato paste on hand. Not only does it add flavor and vitamins, it’s a lot easier to face beans or pasta if they’re flavored in a tomato sauce. When you’ve got those secondary basics, you can add parmesean cheese, spices and flavorings like vanilla, cinnamon, garlic powder, chili powder etc.
If you’re clueless on how much to store per person, see the food storage calculator online. I think it’s still posted on LDS.org, too.
It’s easy to find space for storage under furniture. It’s all better stored in a cool, dry place that is not going to be much warmer than about 75 degrees. (so attics are out except for sugar which doesn’t care). Feel free to click the word “comments” below, (sometimes there’s a number in front of that word) if you have questions.
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