A Guide To Building Your Family Emergency Food Kit

It seems that any time a friend asks me a question about something specific to home, family or health I always think ‘I need to write a blog post about that!’ Sadly most of the time those posts don’t get written. This question, though; How To Build Your Families Emergency Food Kit, has come up multiple times in conversations with friends. So I wrote this post; A Guide To Building Your Family Emergency Food Kit, and then it sat for 6 months, unpublished.

However, given recent events, I thought I’d better get it out into the world in hopes of helping you get as prepared as possible.

Do I put my trust in my preparations for the future? Absolutely not! I put my trust in God and from that trust and assurance I do what I think might be best for our family. While we do not know what the future holds, we do know that God is in control. If I never have to use my emergency food kit that would be lovely, however, I’d rather have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. So sit down with your husband and determine what you might like to do to build your families emergency food kit.

With that said, these are all foods I suggest having on hand, whether the news is telling you to prepare for a food shortage or not. 

*Affiliate Disclosure: I do have affiliate links in this blog post. If you purchase something from my link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.  This comes at no cost to you, but is paid by the company.  I do not take becoming an affiliate with any company lightly.  If I am, it’s because I believe in the company and their product. I can not thank you enough for your support.

First; I think it’s a great idea to have a good long term emergency food kit.

We found Valley Food Storage to be the best, clean option available. These are prepackaged meals that can be easily consumed if all other food options are unavailable.

You can get other basic kits at places like Costco but I’ve found that the ingredients in them are not ones I would want to put in my body or my families body, especially if we find ourselves in a situation where this is the only food we’re able to consume. I want the best possible foods and ingredients to keep us as healthy and alert during such a time. So we spent more money and grabbed Valley Food Storage kits for everyone. I suggest having a one month supply for everyone in your family in addition to the other items I will list below.

Second; I like to keep a few key ingredients on had that can be easily made into meals if needed and last a decent amount of time.

These are also items that we use on a regular basis. If they’re getting close to their expiration date we just add them to our weekly rotation and restock the emergency kit.

A Guide To Building Your Family Emergency Food Kit

Azure Standard is a my go to for quality bulk items. They have such a cool program where you order your food and then pick up at a drop site near you. The truck pulls up with everyone’s order and you load it up into your car. They’re also an Oregon based company which I love!

• Bone Broth– This can be used for so many things and is full of so many vitamins and minerals.

• Almond Butter– It lasts a long time and is full of protein and healthy fat (just make sure you pick one that is only nuts and salt. If you buy one with inflammatory oils and/or sugars then it will do more damage to your health than good).

• Rice – We like to prepare it with bone broth instead of water for added nutrients. We like that this one is sprouted. Sprouting actually makes it easier to be digested and is more nutrient dense.

• Any other canned foods that you use regularly.

• Boxed Milk (usually almond or macadamia) – Boxed milks can usually last a decent amount of time. Canned coconut milk would be another great option.

• Canned Tuna – Make sure it’s wild caught and it will last a good long time.

• Frozen Meats – We were able to find a local farm that raises grass fed, grass finished cattle on their family farm. We stocked our freezer with lots of ground beef, steaks and roasts that will last us at least 6 months, if not more, depending on how much we consume.

• Frozen Fruits and Veggies – We love to get these big boxes of frozen fruits and veggies, that way our freezer is always stocked with meats, veggies and berries.

• Dried Nuts – These are a great energy source. Many nuts are sprayed with chemicals to dry them out faster so choose organic whenever possible.

• Dried Oats – Another grain that tests very high in chemicals, especially glyphosate. We really enjoy One Degree Oats. They are glyphosate free and the cleanest out we’ve been able to find. We’ve been able to find them at Costco from time to time.

• Dried Beans (black and garbonzo are the ones we use most often- pick what your family uses most)

• Dried Fruit – If we’re in a survival situation, I want to have something happy for my kiddos. They don’t get treats like this normally so it will be something extra special for them to enjoy in a potentially stressful or hard time. Pick a fun treat that your kiddos would see as a joy to receive.

• Pantry Staples like flour, salt, pepper, sugar, coffee, tea

• Animal Food- Sometimes when thinking about the family emergency food kit it can be easy to over look the animals in our lives. We try to have an extra months worth of food for our animals on hand at any given moment.

• Vitamins- While this isn’t technically food, we like to make sure we have everyones vitamins stocked in our emergency kit as well. You can read more about the vitamins we give our kiddos here.

Third; don’t forget water in you families emergency food kit

All the food in the world won’t keep you alive if you don’t have water which is why we invested in a few Water Bricks to have on hand. We’ll fill these up even if we see that a storm is forecasted. If we end up without power, we want to be prepared! We will also fill our bathtub with water. We can use that as drinking water also, if the power goes out.

Another great option is to invest in a Berkey water filter. They are supposed to filter out anything and everything which means that if you have to filter water from a stream or a lake, you can. And it uses gravity to filter so you don’t need any electricity which is another benefit!

How much to store

Try to determine what amount of food you’d need for a month or two for each member of your family and stock up on that. This can be a gradual process so don’t feel like you have to get everything right away. You may decide you’d like to get fully stocked ASAP but don’t feel like it’s necessary. Add an item or two every time you are at the grocery store. In no time you will have a fully stocked family emergency food kit.

Was this blog post; A Guide To Building Your Family Emergency Food Kit, helpful? Can you think of anything that I’ve missed? Or anything that you’d put on the list?