While making my list for food items to have tucked away, I start with breakfast items. This may seem totally obscure to you since, at some point, all food matters. Let me tell you my thoughts here.
When things get tough, and it will be tough if you are eating your emergency food source, it may help all in your group to keep life feeling about as normal as possible. Thus, let's just keep our list in the order of our usual daily consumption. Breakfast first. Plus, we gotta start someplace and keep our list simple, so this is an easy way to accomplish this..
Breakfast - for myself and about 10 others - for about 30 days.
Box of Quaker Quick Oats - some may like regular oats for oatmeal
but when you want to use minimal fuel, this may be better.
60 - 80 Packages of flavored oatmeal - again, this is quick and simple,
using minimal fuel.
Powdered eggs - ideally, for a group of 10, you would want about 200
eggs. This will allow for quite a few meals and a few left over for
use in other meals.
Powdered milk - depending on the number of children in your group,
this amount will be different in each group. I would want to make
about 3 gallons a week. Even a bit more. With the dried type, you
can make small amounts that will not be needing refrigerated.
Instant coffee
Regular coffee - nice to have; great if the weather is cold; and if this
were to turn into a longer issue, coffee is a great barter item.
Tea bags
Hot cocoa - instant type. This is especially great if you have kids
involved. A little soothing drink will be helpful.
Sugar substitute - those little packages take very little space when
you use a food saver before storage.
Sugar - another great barter item.
Creamer - powder type - don't be shy about this one. Even if you
don't use it for coffee, it could turn a soup into a nice, creamy
treat.
Pancake mix - the complete type - this simple mix has milk and egg in
the mix. All you add is water. Great assortment all in one mix.
When push comes to shove, you could be creative with this item
and make it into small snacks, a substitute for bread to hold
sandwich items. And - add a little sugar topping for a pick me up.
One more possibility - pack away a bit of flavored mix for a nice
surprise.
Syrup - this is not an essential but it would be nice to have, plus
you could use it as a sweetener in your coffee, tea and even
oatmeal and cereal. This is one of those items that I just keep
the extra on the shelf so I rotate it on a regular basis.
Tang - powder drink mix - this drink will store easily and contains
a bit of extra vitamins. Tang is now available in sugar free.
Oils - for cooking - A diet lacking in essential fats is very bad; oil
is necessary for health and cooking convenience.
Coconut oil has a great shelf life ( 5-7 years) and contains
fantastic anti-oxidants. I would also consider good ole'
fashion Crisco if you can find it in a metal canister. This product
has a shelf life of over ten years. One more to think about would
be olive oil. Another item that has great health benefits but
since the shelf life is much shorter, you would want to rotate this
one a regular basis.
Meat - this is an item that many will miss if not included on a regular
basis. I have seen jars of thin sliced meats that could be easily
incorporated into your morning meal. There are also small and
large cans of ham or hash. Consider these but keep track of the
expiration dates.
I think that is a fairly complete list for the day's beginning. I am sure everyone will come up with other items they desire. I just hope this will give you some ideas that you may not have thought of.
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