Why we need some kind of grain and seeds in your food storage

Grains, beans, and seeds are the stuff meals are made of. If you can cook rice, you can cook these food storage necessities. Can you even imagine meals without it? Around my house, we eat quite a bit of bread, corn bread, pancakes and biscuits. All of these require a mixture of grains and seeds to be successful.

Most grains are inexpensive and easy to find in any grocery store. You may even be lucky enough to have a Whole Foods Market or Bob’s Red Mill close to where you live. That puts a world of selection at your fingertips.

Get your own food storage estimate at the food storage calculator

Luckily nowadays, access to this vast selection lets us mix and match our grains so that you will most likely not store 600 pounds of just wheat. My family has a few hundred pounds of wheat, a few hundred pounds of quinoa and a mix and match of several other grains we like – this all equals about 600 pounds.

These are some of the grain options your family might include in their food storage plan:

-Amaranth
-Barley
-Bulgur
-Couscous
-Cracked Wheat
-Kamut
-Masha
-Millet
-Quinoa
-Rye
-Spelt
-Teff
-Wheat Berries and flakes

Oats are rich and hearty and can be used in sweet or savory dishes. Oat groats are the most natural, and then in order of nutritional value – steel cut, rolled oats, quick oats and instant oats.

Rice is simply the most consumed food in the world! Your choices are just about endless – long grain, short grain, and medium grain – basmati, brown, wild, and white. That only scratches the surface! Learn about the kinds of rice you should have in your food storage.

Beans are nearly perfect in every way. With a little preplanning and soak you can create healthy meals for your family. You can even disguise beans and use them as a thickener. Planning at least one rice and beans meal a week will significantly cut down your food budget. They are inexpensive to purchase and easy to spice up for variety.

You may choose to store some of your grains in flour form. This makes sense if you are baking your own breads and homemade foods. It will also save you a bunch of money. When a grain is converted to flour it has a shorter storage time – sometimes even just weeks. If you regularly cook with flour consider purchasing a grain mill and just grind as much as you will need for short term use. This is what I do with cornmeal. I purchase it in coarse grind and then do my own medium and fine grind as I need it.

Check back regularly as I continue to add information about how we are using grains in our food storage plan. These posts covering grains and seeds in food storage can be found at PreparednessMama.