Basic Prepping: Smart (and Panic-Free) Planning

I am not a Doomsday prepper in any sense. But I was raised in a manner that instilled the need to always be ready for just-in-case scenarios. Basic prepping like this isn’t panic inducing; instead, knowing that you’ll be mostly okay if there’s an unexpected job loss or natural calamity eases the mind!

Originally published April 2020; this post has been updated.

fresh tomatoes at the center of jarred foods and dehydrated foods.

I tend to maintain a pretty full pantry, so when things get dicey I don’t have to do a lot of over-the-top shopping, but not everyone lives like we do. Heck, not everyone even cooks!

During the shut down of 2020, a friend asked for some recommendations to ride out the difficulties. I started formulating a list for her, then realized there were probably a lot of people wondering the same thing, so I put it here. 

During that time we saw an interruption of the system that left many of us feeling panicked. We were concerned about getting the products we’re used to using. We were concerned about income (or the loss of it). And we worried about our health and the health of our loved ones.

Basic Prepping: Steps to Take

We never know when we’ll face disaster or upheaval, whether on a global scale or a household scale, but we can always improve how our household is equipped to handle what may come, even if we’re just dealing with unexpected power outages.

Let’s Start with Food

It’s probably time to shift back to cooking with ingredients rather than depending on some of our favorite ready-made options. This is easier on a tight budget and pantry staples like dry beans and rice can be stored for years. 

Instead of buying a ready-to-eat vegan burrito bowl from the frozen food section, you’re going to make that burrito bowl from scratch. Instead of hoping that there’s a loaf of bread on the shelf, you’re going to learn to make your own.

ingredients for homemade cornbread recipe

Basic baking supplies to have on hand

  • Flour. Choose all-purpose flour or gluten free options if necessary for your health. This is the basis for inexpensive and filling breakfast pancakes or waffles, homemade bread, and the occasional chocolate chip cookie.
  • Oats. Besides making a filling old-fashioned breakfast, oats can be ground into oat flour in your blender to add a nutritional boost to recipes. It’s also the basis for homemade granola.
  • Sugar. Even savory yeast breads can require sugar to help with the fermentation process.
  • Baking powder and baking soda. These are used as leavening to make quick breads rise. Without it, baked goods would be dense and flat.
  • Yeast. This is the ingredient that makes loaves of French bread or dinner rolls rise. We’ve seen a shortage of yeast already as people go back to baking bread at home. Happily, you can capture wild yeast and make a sourdough starter to reduce your dependency on commercial yeast. Here’s how.
  • Butter. Refrigerated, butter lasts quite a long time. You can also freeze it.
  • Oil. For baking purposes, choose a light oil. My preference is avocado oil.
  • Shortening. Not something I normally cook with, but in a pinch a can of shortening can stand in for butter if you run out. It’s shelf-stable, so no need for refrigeration.
  • Salt. You’ll need this for both savory and sweet baked goods.

Expanded baking supplies

  • Cornstarch. Used as a thickener for custards and puddings, as well as savory recipes like gravy.
  • Chocolate chips. Trust me.
  • Cocoa powder. An occasional chocolate cake or chocolate muffins can make a bad day better.
  • Honey. It lasts forever on the shelf and can be used to sweeten drinks as well as homemade jams and jellies.
  • Dry milk powder. Many baked goods call for milk. Make your carton of milk last longer and instead mix up what you need from dry powder. You can also get dried buttermilk powder and coconut milk powder.
  • Dried fruit. Raisins, dried cranberries, and other dried fruit adds a sweetness to baked goods and are an excellent addition to homemade granola recipes.

dry beans in white sacks - staples for uncertain times

Pantry food items to have on hand

  • Dry beans. A great meatless and non-perishable source of protein, beans can become a main course as refried beans, a hearty addition to salad, or the basis for delicious homemade hummus. They are a great long term food storage item, and can last for years.
  • Rice. Get your favorite kind of rice, along with something different like wild rice or black rice to break up the monotony.
  • Pasta. Dry pasta can be stored for a long time. Get some for making spaghetti, some for cold pasta salads, which are great for using up leftovers.
  • Whole grains. Wheat berries can be the basis of a whole grain salad, plus if you’ve got a sturdy blender you can grind them into whole wheat flour. Barley can be stirred into soup. Whole grains tend to hold up better over time than flour or prepared grains.
  • Cornmeal. This can be used to make a delicious cornbread or a hearty polenta.
  • Tuna. Shelf stable and fairly inexpensive, tuna is a good source of protein to have to stretch the length of time between shopping trips.
  • Nuts. This is a more expensive option, but nuts are a great addition to granola and baked goods.
  • Peanut butter. It’s cheap. Kids love it. It tastes good.
  • Popcorn. It’s a cheap snack and makes movie watching fun.
  • Oil. In addition to frying and baking, a light oil is the basis for this 60-second homemade mayonnaise and egg-based salad dressings.
  • Tomatoes. We use tomatoes in a lot of recipes, so I tend to keep stewed tomatoes and even prepared marinara sauce on hand.
  • Coffee. If your day isn’t complete without coffee, make sure you have a backup container of your favorite blend on hand at all times.
  • Vinegar. You’ll use this for making salad dressings, marinating foods, and even preserving fresh veggies.
  • Spices and seasonings. Check the spices you use regularly to make sure the jars are full.

wire bail pantry storage containers - glass wire bail jars full of dry items like beans and popcorn

attainable sustainable book cover
Attainable Sustainablethe lost art of self-reliant living

Embrace handcrafting and homesteading with DIY projects, recipes, and gardening tips!

👉 Click here to get started 👈

Things to think about:

  • Moisture is the death knell of dried goods. Plan for storing bulk foods in an airtight container. This can be half-gallon Mason jars or a five-gallon bucket equipped with a Gamma lid. Adding moisture absorbers will help extend the life of these items.
  • One cup of dried beans nets roughly three cups of cooked beans. If you prepare extra beans, you can freeze them for a quick meal later.

vegetables in canning jars from above

Extending the life of your food

Non-perishable items are easy to tuck away in the pantry. But perishable food items pose the problem of having a short shelf-life. You can circumvent this to a point by opting for vegetables and fruits with a longer shelf life. Celery lasts longer than lettuce; apples last longer than berries.

But you can also use a variety of methods to preserve those vegetables. You can make simple refrigerator pickles, or delve into a variety of other food preservation methods, which you can learn more about here, along with any special equipment required and some recipes to try.

purslane weed with yellow flowers - great for foraging in uncertain times

Beyond the Supermarket

If you’ve always considered the supermarket or big box stores your sole source of food, it’s time to think outside the box.

Farmers markets are a great way to acquire fresh produce. Find out what’s available in your region to support local farmers.

Learn about foraging and gleaning

Foraging takes advantage of the abundance of wild food that’s available to us, if we know where to look. You don’t really need any special tools for this, but you will need a bit of knowledge.

You can read about wildcrafting in different parts of the country as a beginning point. But consider adding a good book on the topic to your bookshelves. One that is regional will serve you well.

There are also many backyard herbs and wild foods that can be used for health purposes.

Gleaning requires a bit of local connection. You may know a backyard farmer who has more apples in their orchard than they can use. Maybe there’s an abandoned pear orchard that you can get permission to harvest from. (That really happened to me, years ago!)

One household often can’t use all of the produce that their backyard plum tree produces. Offer to help harvest (especially useful to older folks) for a share of the fruit. Or trade one of your skills for their abundance.

Drinking water. If you rely on bottled water in plastic, this is a great time to break the habit! Invest in a good quality water filter (Berkey makes a great one) and you can use it to process municipal water, or if things get dire, rain water. Consider your water storage options and perhaps make sure you have some water purification tablets on hand. 

sunflower sprouts growing in a black container

Raise Some Food

Our continued access to food can be tenuous if the supply chain is interrupted. What this means for me is making sure that I’m harvesting as much as I can.

For people who live in urban areas, this can be trickier. While producing some of your own food may seem like a huge undertaking if you’ve never done it before, there are some easy starting points, and some can even be done if you live deep in the city.

Grow sprouts

This requires nothing more than seeds and a jar. Consider broccoli, mung bean, and lentils to get started.

Pick up a variety of sprouting seeds and you’ll be able to grow some fresh food right on your countertop, year round. If you typically buy sprouts, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to grow your own, and how much less expensive.

Grow microgreens

These are also easy to grow in a small space and will provide fresh greens without a trip to the store or farmers market. You can use an upcycled container for growing these, but you will need seeds and some potting soil. Here’s how to grow microgreens.

Tip: When you’re done harvesting, dump the roots into a 5-gallon bucket or a large trash can with a lid. Add used coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, and vegetable scraps until the bucket is full. The roots and scraps will break down, and the resulting compost can be used to improve garden soil.

Start gardening

If you’re new to gardening, the easiest way to get started with growing an outdoor garden is in containers. A single Swiss chard plant in a pot will produce all season long and it’s easy to grow.

Pick up some bags of potting soil and seeds. You can use a variety of containers for planting, many of which can be upcycled from what you have on hand. Just be sure that there are drainage holes. There are numerous posts on this site about gardening. If you feel called to start growing a larger garden for yourself or your community, peruse the entire collection here.

Consider chickens

Now, this comes with a caveat. Raising animals requires a certain level of commitment. They need care, and you need to be prepared in case something goes wrong.

Can you dispatch an injured bird if necessary? What happens when they get old and stop laying eggs? (Will you still want to pay for their feed?) All that said, keeping chickens at home can provide a welcome source of protein in uncertain times.

heads of lettuce in a galvanized vegetable garden container

Personal Hygiene

When money gets tight, who wants to spend it on expensive disposable items?

  • If you’ve got young children, consider investing in a stack of cloth diapers. They last forever, they are one-size-fits-all, and you will save a small fortune.
  • Ladies, keep a menstrual cup on hand. You might hesitate to adopt this method while you have easy access to disposable feminine hygiene products, but in a pinch you’ll be happy to have it.
  • Try these toilet paper alternatives.

 

Household Maintenance

Laundry and dirty dishes don’t stop piling up, even in a crisis. Make sure you have laundry soap, dish soap, and other cleaning supplies on hand.

I make many of my own cleaning products (some of my favorite recipes are in my new book), so this also means I need to have other items on hand. Plus, there are some basic toolbox items that I think every household should have on hand, even in the best of times. You never know when you’ll need them!

  • Lye (for soapmaking)
  • Washing soda
  • Baking soda (in larger quantities than the little box)
  • Citric acid
  • Bleach for disinfecting (not part of my usual day-to-day, but something to have on hand now)
  • Duct tape
  • Hammer and nails
  • Tarp
  • Rope or clothesline
  • A first aid kit including basic first aid supplies and a backup supply of medication.

homemade soap in a pale green pottery dish with lavender flower

A Little at a Time

These are all common supplies that should be readily available to you to get started with your basic prepping efforts. Add a few of these items to your shopping list each time you go to slowly build a stocked pantry. That stocked pantry will provide peace of mind and give you one less thing to worry about. 

More to Consider

Click to save or share!

About the author: Kris Bordessa is an award-winning National Geographic author and a certified Master Food Preserver. Read more about Kris and how she got started with this site here. If you want to send Kris a quick message, you can get in touch here.

6 comments… add one
  • Luisa Jul 28, 2022 @ 16:35

    Well you ticked all the boxes. I have always had a pantry. Many years ago my husband had an accident and we lived if our pantry for almost 2 month!
    As of late I have been a bit more thorough and added dehydration to my tools in preservation. Is good thinking to prepare now for the coming shortages. Thanks Kris!

  • Toni Jan 9, 2021 @ 17:46

    Love the list. I also have been buying eggs in bulk. I just check for freshness by making sure they sink in a glass of water. I have had success with freezing eggs as well. I also stay well stocked up on all of the pet food. I’m a little embarrassed to admit to the fact that I have also been buying wine……once in awhile it’s a nice change of pace on a Friday night.

  • Karen Apr 19, 2020 @ 19:18

    Great list! To your grocery list for our family, I would add my favourite tea, oats, coconut oil, seeds canned and frozen fruits and veggies, lemon juice, prepared veggie stock, and powdered milk for baking and making yogurt in a pinch. We had a decent pantry before but we have shifted so that at least half of our grocery budget now goes to stocking up the pantry with shelf stable items for longer term use/storage. We are eating out of the freezer more in preparation to start restocking as spring garden season hits.
    We are also stocking up on things for canning – sugar, vinegar, spices, pectin, lids and rings, some smaller jars. I suspect there will be a shortage of those.
    Early on before everything hit the fan, I doubled my seed order, and ordered some fruit bushes and trees we had been talking about. We also got some back up garden supplies (potting soil, row covers, neem oil, an extra container of organic fertilizer I like, tanglefoot, extra soil acidifier for the blueberries etc). I ordered 3 more chickens as some of our ladies are getting too old to lay now and I suspect we will see some losses this summer. We also got in supplies for the chickens early – extra bedding, extra food and scratch, oyster shells and DE. We are buying 1-2 months ahead for food for our animals so that if their diet needs to shift (ie different brands) we can do it gradually.
    We stocked up on supplies for building projects to do a few projects on our list – but also to have some extra lumber and screws to keep the kids busy. But we also took advantage of some sales and picked up a couple of power tools and garden tools that we had typically been borrowing.
    And lastly I ordered a few how to books for sustainable living – just to have on hand.

    We did this before our local shelter in place and business restrictions orders came into effect because we have a family member who has a compromised immune system. This was part of our plan, along with making sure we had a few months supply of prescriptions, remedies and OTC meds on hand. We were preparing to self isolate to protect her but started to realize that our plans would have to see us through a larger community wide shut down.

    • Kris Bordessa Apr 28, 2020 @ 7:12

      Excellent – thanks!

  • Jerri Apr 16, 2020 @ 5:35

    Love your advice. Also just received your book. Will be reading it this weekend. Thank you so much for sharing what you know. Jerri

    • Kris Bordessa Apr 18, 2020 @ 13:15

      Thanks for joining us here!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *