We may no longer be living in the northeast where winters are long and cold but it is still important to be prepared for any winter emergency. Here are a few winter emergency food safety tips.
As you stock food for a winter emergency it is important to take into account your family size and their unique needs and tastes. You want to include food your family will enjoy and that are also high in calories and nutrition. Foods to store are foods that require no refrigeration, water, special preparation, or cooking are the best.
In the northeast we could have ice storms, power outages or even a big nor’easter, causing us to loose basic services like gas, water and electricity for several days. If you are prepared for such emergencies can make them less difficult and more like and adventure.
Planning for short-term, about three days, emergency food needs may be as simple as increasing quantities of some staple foods and non-perishable foods you normally would use. Keeping a well-stocked pantry also makes meal planning easier and quicker as an everyday strategy.
Use the following checklist to stock your winter pantry.
Food: Non-perishable packaged and or canned food. Such foods that require no refrigeration, preparation, or cooking are the best.
- Boxed or bagged cereals
- Canned or aseptically packaged juices, soup, fruits and vegetables
- Staples such as sugar, salt and pepper.
- Ready to eat canned meats such as tuna fish or salmon.
- High energy foods such as nut butters, nuts, jelly, crackers, granola bars and trail mix.
- Special foods needed for infants, the elderly or people on a special diet.
- Comfort foods such as cookies, candies, sweetened cereals, instant coffee, tea bags and hot cocoa.
- Water – figure on one gallon per person per day! Keep a three-day supply for each person in your household and replace every six months.
- Disposable plates, cups, paper towels, napkins and utensils and a hand powered can opener.
If your electricity does go off use perishable food and foods from the refrigerator first. Without power the refrigerator will keep food cool for 4-6 hours.
Next use the food from the freezer. A full-freestanding freezer will stay at freezing temperature about two days; a half full freezer will only stay cold for about one day.
Next use up the non-perishable foods and staples.
Creating a winter pantry with a three day supply of food is not hard and you will be thankful you took the steps in case you do experience a winter emergency.
This month I am taking part in a Self Reliance Challenge. Being prepared for a winter emergency is just one of the way we can be more self reliant.
Follow our Pinterest Board for Self Reliance Challenge posts.
Stop By & Visit The Self Reliance Challenge Bloggers…
Kathi – Oak Hill Homestead
Nancy – Nancy On The Homefront
AnnMarie – 15 Acre Homestead
Farmgal – Just another Day on the Farm
Candy – Candy’s Farm House Pantry
Kristi – Stone Family Farmstead
Marla – Organic 4 Greenlivings
Heidi – Healing Harvest Homestead
Victoria – Modern Homestead Mama
Shawna – Homegrown Self Reliance
Stephanie – Happily Homegrown
Bethany – Family Growing Pains
Dianne – Hidden Springs Homestead
Julie – The Farm Wife
Lacey – Home & Harrow
Robin – A Life in the Wild
Sheri Ann – Experimental Homesteader
Lisa Lynn – The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
Nancy on the Home Front 
Great tips. We fill the bathtub before a major storm so that we have water to flush with. Having our own water and septic, when the power is out there isn’t any other way to flush.
It’s snowing heavily right now. We started the day with a freezing mist, went to rain, now it’s a heavy snow that’s beautiful. Beautiful, but the kind that weighs down branches that take down power lines!
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Robin,
I miss the snow!
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Food storage is something we are really into around our place. Can never be to prepared and don’t forget the water storage.
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Hi Nancy,
I love your winter pictures and how well organized your pantry and freezer is. We should all be as organized as you and as well prepared. Great job.
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Great post and good information, if you are in winter and its cold out, don’t forget you can freeze jugs to move in and out to keep your fridge nice and cold and for your freezers, just move your freezer good out into a safe (bears?) area to store them and allow winter to keep any loss’s to a min.
I keep a couple extra bottles frozen in my freezer at all times or if the freezer is starting to get empty, I will fill small buckets with room for growth during freezer and will fill the freezer with them.. they give water if needed to melt, they give ice if you need to keep something cool and they help keep your freezer full so it runs less and costs less 🙂
Its a great idea to keep a nice pantry!
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Great ideas Nancy and Farm Gal! As I use food from the freezer, I replace them with milk jugs of water (not quite full to allow for expansion of ice) By summer we have a lot of ice in the freezer! It helps keep our electric bill lower too because the freezer doesn’t have to work as hard. I also keep 2 or 3 milk jugs of water in each bathroom for flushing if the power is out. We have a filter pitcher so we could filter some of that water if necessary.
Thanks for the tips!
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Lisa,
I used to do exactly the same thing, my the end of the winter my freezer would be filled with jugs of frozen water!
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Wow, you have a LOVELY pantry, Nancy! I live in Southern California, so we don’t have winters to stock for, but this is great advice for those who do! Love your ideas!
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Kristi,
I loved my pantry and it’s probably what I will miss most about out home!
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Nancy, this is great! I would have no idea what to do in that kind of weather. In Tennessee our winters are pretty mild, we get maybe 2 inches total of snow a year. But lots of rain.
Love the idea of the pantry being stocked and prepared. We have lots of storms and deal with power outages to the effect. Thanks for the ideas. I will be implementing some of these.
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Diane,
Having recently moved from Vermont to the state of Washington we are now experiencing a whole different weather pattern! Looking forward to a longer gardening season!
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We do Year around food storage. Can’t ever be too prepared.
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We don’t get “winter” per se as I live in Florida, but we do store food for things like hurricanes and tornadoes and drought. Bottled water is a big demand item here. Love your pantry pics! So organized!
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All wonderful ideas to think about for our own needs. We do most of what you share. Great post! Thank you!
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Great information and tips! I’m definitely looking into a way to redo a pantry area!!! Love yours!
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Pamela,
I loved my pantry!! so hard to leave it.
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We don’t have the snow, but around here, if a bird sneezes on the electric lines, we lose power. These are some great tips. I am working on building up my home canned supplies and try to keep at least a month’s worth of the basics, like flour, sugar, coffee, etc. I need to work on the prepackaged foods a bit more, but other than that, I think we could make it!
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Julie,
I can so relate, we used to loose our power on a perfectly nice day for no reason!
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Depending on your location, some people keep deep freezers outside because the temps are low enough to keep things frozen out there! Great tips. We always have to be ready for winter weather, and our power tends to go out so our generator has to be on stand-by!
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Great post! We lost our power for most of last weekend, and were really starting to panic when we thought of losing all our frozen food! We ended up getting a generator, but I also really love the idea of replacing food with milk jugs of water! I will definitely be doing that this year!
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