Fruitful Friday.... "Pantry Planning!"

At the beginning of every year we take inventory of what we have in storage in our Pantry and create our rotating shopping list. We work on a "Three Month" Food Supply Basis and we like to eat according to the ancient Chinese 5-Element theory that you find in the book entitled "Staying Healthy with the Seasons" by Elson M. Haas. Which means that a lot of our Pantry items are used up and/or rotated with in a three month period. Does that mean we only eat from and empty our pantry every three months? No... that just means that you will find many different items in our pantry during each season of the year.

So we thought that we would start the year off here by giving you all a hint at how we build and use our pantry... There are three basic guidelines that we follow, which are:

~ Know your Pantry ~
Make a list of what you need to purchase to get your Pantry started. Base your pantry around full meals and things you know your family likes to eat. Include things like extra water and juices. We have provided you with a suggested three month pantry list for the upcoming Spring Season. It is based on a family of four...

 

~ Shop Smart ~
Set a monthly budget for your long and short term food storage. Don't get overwhelmed or feel like you have to buy everything at once. Along with our monthly food budget, we set aside $25.00 dollars a month to buy and restock our long term storage items, (like flour, sugar, salt, yeast, spices, seeds,) Don't forget the extra things like soaps, toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, diapers, or medicine. Watch for sales and buy in case lots. We often go in together with other families and buy in bulk then split things up.

~ Date & Rotate ~
Keep track of what you have in your pantry so you “eat what you buy, and buy what you eat!” We write the date on everything we buy for the pantry and we rotate from the old to the new.  Also, don't store the things that your family will not eat, they will go to waste.... (the example that is often used is, don't store two years of "Hard Red Wheat" unless you know how and plan to use it occasionally, because if you wait until it is the only thing you have left to eat, it can make you very sick if you eat lots of it because your body is not use to it.)

There are many benefits to have a full pantry: 

1.Knowing that if something happened to you financially, you would have a reserve of food for your family.

2.You will have less pressure because you will be better prepared and more organized. 
   
3.You will save money because you won’t have to run to the grocery store all the time and you might not be as tempted to go out to eat as often, because you already have a meal planed and available to cook.

4.You have more control over the nutritional stability of your family by having control over your pantry.