Did you just wake up one day and realize that a system that you have relied on for years is no longer working for you? I did. I had a lot of food in my food storage that I have termed as “cheap, easy, survival food”. I am not talking about MREs. I am talking about the cheap foods I kept on hand for easy suppers when my kids were younger and we were in survival mode all the time.

We needed quick meals when they were younger and I didn’t have much money for groceries. So I kept boxes of mac and cheese, pasta, meal kits, ramen, and more to keep them filled up. We ate a lot of food from scratch and meals were prepped when I had time to cook. I also had busy teenagers just looking for something quick to eat. We had evening activities. I had a full-time job and a homestead to run when I got home.

Unfortunately, that took a toll on my body. I started to get more concerned about what I was eating and why. My youngest daughter was born lactose intolerant and we started paying closer attention to labels. I started not being able to tolerate certain foods and additives like monosodium glutamate, caffeine, citrus, lettuce, and watermelon. My son was diagnosed with POTS at 17 years old. Then I went down the rabbit hole and learned many things.

We are increasingly eating foods that are detrimental to our bodies. We keep filling our food storage with foods that have ingredients we can’t pronounce and are loaded with processed sugar. We wonder why we feel increasingly sick and it doesn’t take a genius to understand it is the food we are putting in our bodies.

Many Americans suffer from obesity, fatigue, stress, and more. We blame our work environments, we blame our day-to-day life, and even our friends and family. However, we barely take a look at what we are putting inside our bodies. If we keep filling our bodies with poor nutritional food that is nothing but a filler, we are going to continue to feel worse and worse. We can’t handle stress if we are not providing our bodies with nutritious foods that support our hormones which help us process stress.

We can even go to the lengths of saying that corporations and even our own food administrations are doing this deliberately. Their ideas of health are rarely the same as ours, but we continue to feed our bodies with low-fat and fake sugar foods they produce and approve that make us feel worse. Depression, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers, acid reflux, and more are on the rise. No surprise that there is always a pill for that. We know who supports that agenda: the FDA and big Pharma. Health insurance companies and doctors conspire to keep us sick and rarely give good advice on what to eat.

Many people do not know better. We are constantly given conflicting advice from doctors and internet experts. We buy the lies literally at the grocery store. And I’m not pointing fingers. My own health is suffering right now. High blood pressure, obesity, and stress have wrecked my body. In the last 6 to 9 months, I have had to take a very serious look at my health and I don’t like what I see.

I rely primarily on my food storage to feed me throughout the week. I buy foods to replace what I use in my food storage and keep them in good rotation. A good deal of my food storage is actually healthy food. I preserve a great deal of the produce from my garden. I have chickens that lay eggs that are free-range as much as I can in Iowa. However, I still find myself eating and making food that is of poor nutritional quality.

Much of this relates to what I put in my food storage. I still buy groceries every two weeks and try to cover three meals a day for 2 weeks. Many of the things I was previously purchasing and storing were cheap foods to make dinner time easier. For example, canned cream soups are loaded with cheap ingredients that are not good for you. 

8 Ways to Make Over/Rethink Your Food Storage

1. Learn how to make your own substitutions. More than likely, you already have the ingredients on hand to make items like condensed cream soups. If you can make a roux, you can make a condensed cream soup.
   
2. Meal planning and prepping. By planning ahead and taking the time to make food, you make better choices and eat healthier.
   
3. Replace junk foods with healthier options. If you are buying sweetened applesauce, buy unsweetened applesauce or make your own. The same goes for those oatmeal packets and premade cookies. You can make your own oatmeal and cookies for less money and with better ingredients that you can actually pronounce.
   
4. Preserve your own ready-made food. One of the best things I ever did was make my own jams and condiments except for catsup. I could control the sugar or eliminate sugar altogether in many foods by doing this. I also started making and canning soups and broths in order to avoid the unnecessary additives that were being put into them.
   
5. Purchase basic ingredients instead of boxed meals, cereals, etc. Basic ingredients are generally healthier for you, easier to manage portions and amounts, and can be purchased for less money.
   
6. Purchase natural, organic foods if your budget allows this. If the price is comparable or on sale, I buy as many organic foods as possible. Sometimes, it is way out of my budget, but I do what I can within my means.
   
7. Take precautions by stocking for specific dietary needs now. Not much is worse than having anaphylactic or digestive issues while dealing with a crisis. If you know your body can not handle certain foods, be prepared by having plenty of food on hand that you can eat.
   
8. Bulk shopping for healthier foods. Usually, this is cheaper than buying in smaller packages. You should still do a unit price comparison to make certain you are getting the best deal. You also need to be certain that you will be eating and storing these bulk foods in a timely fashion. If you have not consumed an item before, you should buy the smaller package to make sure you like to eat it.

I have written about healthy food storage and cheap food storage in the past. With current prices, you should do the best you can with what you have on hand and can afford. The most important thing is that you are feeding your family. Making foods from scratch is certainly cheaper in most situations than buying already-made foods. However, working long hours and taking care of yourself and your family may have you making the decision to throw a frozen pizza in the oven. No judgment here.

Many people are going to also point out that in a crisis or true survival situation, you are not going to care what you eat as long as you eat something to keep up your energy. I am not going to argue that, but I will say this: what you store now is what you will eat later. If you are storing quality, healthy foods in your food storage now, you will be eating them later. Also, if you have good food storage, you should also have several ways to cook food without using electricity.

If you can make better choices with stocking your food storage, please do so. Your future self will thank you when you are not on high blood pressure pills and trying to lose seventy pounds.

Thanks for reading,
Erica

Related posts:
100 Shelf-Stable Foods to Store in Your Pantry Stockpile
The Three-Prong Approach to Food Storage

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