Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

You know what I really love about older houses and apartments? They have pantries. For the purpose of discussion, a pantry is a space designed for the storage of kitchen/food items. Most of the pantries I have seen are basically large closets lined with shelves. I have also seen some pantries that were as big as some peoples kitchens. Unfortunately my house doesn’t have a dedicated pantry. Oh sure theres the usual amount of cabinetry above the kitchen counters and stove but that’s not what a pantry is.

So where do I store food? I store the usual amount of food in the kitchen cabinets but it required some serious dedication to rearranging where I store pots and pans, blenders, etc. The short- and mid-term food storage, which is things like cases of pasta, canned goods, etc. Are stored in another part of the house on steel wire shelving. Its not my first choice for storage because since I like to cook, I want to keep my food near the kitchen. But, I don’t really have that option so I store food where I have to.

I store food for several reasons, the biggest is for the sake of saving money. Here’s an example…I was at Albertson’s yesterday and, as usual, I check the sales circular at the door. The canned chicken broth that I use a goodly amount of is on sale. Normally about $1.39 but for a few days it’s $0.50. That’s a savings of…uhm…about 64%. Put another way, what normally would have cost $33.36/case winds up costing me $12. So what? Well, that means that any meal I prepare with those components now costs less. Or, to put it in another light, I can eat twice as long for the same money. Because I found space to store food, I can take advantage of these situations and buy food by the case, by the drum, by the bucket. When I cook, almost every ingredient is something that was bought in bulk or on sale and I’d be very surprised if any meal I cook for the girlfriend and I costs more than a five bucks. Of course, one of the best things about this is that when I buy stuff on sale like this is that I buy enough to lay back in storage for those times when food or cash isn’t available for whatever reason.

Thus, the second reason I store food – security. I’ve had times where I didn’t have enough money for food and I pretty much ate one meal a day and often skipped eating completely. When I started getting my act together I started being real particular about food. It wasn’t a conscious decision..I just started refusing to throw out leftovers and I never turned down a free meal. Being hungry and despairing over an empty refrigerator makes an impression, believe me. In fact, whenever someone invites me to lunch or offers me a slice of pizza I usually accept and tell them “Never turn down free food.” If you cant feed yourself, or worse, cant feed your family, you’re in a pretty vulnerable situation. You’ll do things you’ll regret (like sell your beloved grandfathers pocket watch so you won’t have to watch your kids eat ketchup soup) and you’ll be more likely to hurry into a bad work situation just to get food on the table.

Theres a third reason to store food, although it’s not a reason for me since the first two are all the reason I need. However, it is a nice bonus – convenience. Years ago I made the mistake of trying to go out and buy the ingredients for a nice Christmas dinner on, well, Christmas. Good luck. Only thing open was the local Stop-n-Rob and they don’t exactly have a huge grocery selection. Nowadays if we don’t have the time (or inclination) to run out for groceries it usually doesn’t matter since we have plenty of food we like to eat on hand at home. That means I can shop when I want and if I don’t see anything on sale I can simply just not buy stuff and wait for a sale.

So can you think of any reason not to build up a decent supply of food?

Too expensive? No, it isn’t. Buy it on sale, buy the store brand, buy in bulk.
No storage space? You can find or make storage space if its really important to you. Boxes under the bed, on the top shelf of the closets, a large bookshelf in the living room. You always have space for at least a few weeks worth of food.
I can’t cook. Learn to cook. If you can boil water, know how to turn your oven on, and can read then you can cook.
I don’t think theres a need for it. Then you’re being, in my opinion, short-sighted and need to be more aware of the fragility of you and everyone elses lifestyle. Seriously,man…it can change like that.

There is one other, distant, philosophical reason for food storage and its sort of an existentialist touchy-feely reason – Personal growth (or perhaps politics). When you start taking the steps to take care of yourself and to prepare yourself against life’s uncertainties you start becoming what we euphemistically call ‘a rugged individualist’. You start thinking less about others taking care of you and more about taking care of yourself. You start developing confidence in your own abilities and a desire to develop those abilities further. You start questioning where individual responsibilities and society’s responsibilities lay. You basically start ‘unsheeping’ and become, in my opinion, a more thoughtful and careful and prudent person.

The drawback, naturally, is that then you’ll never be able to watch the news again without yelling at the television set.