We like to call the following “beginners mistakes” and they are nothing to be embarrassed about. We all have to start somewhere and for those of us who have been at it a while – it’s a great refresher!

#12 Mistake: Not rotating your food. An unorganized food pantry, cans crowded onto shelves, and foods crammed haphazardly into every nook and cranny of your home will lead to loss as stuff goes out of date and eventually needs to be thrown out.

#11 Mistake: Not using good labeling methods.  When you’re packaging your own food in jars, cans, and buckets, it can be easy to lose track of what you’ve put up unless you use good labeling practices. When I first started packing my own buckets, I had sticky labels on each bucket to tell me whether they were wheat, pasta, rice, or whatever. Over time though, those labels began to come off. Suddenly I found myself with stacks of buckets full of mystery foods.

#10 Mistake: Not Storing food in proper containers. It can be tempting when you buy boxes or bags of food from the grocery store to just stick them in the pantry as they are. However, for long term storage this practice can be a very bad idea for several reasons. Rodents can chew through boxes and bags; moisture can get into them as well. Any grain products (wheat, flour, crackers, cereals, pasta, baking mixes), instant milk, beans, even dog and cat food all have tiny bug eggs in them which can hatch out moths or weevils and infest your pantry.

#9 Mistake: Focusing on calories instead of nutrition. For many preppers, the number one food storage priority has been to store foods that are high in calories. Although caloric intake is definitely important, it shouldn’t be your main focus.

#8 Mistake: Stacking buckets of food on top of each other. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson the hard way. Unless what you are putting on top is extremely light (like maybe potato flakes), the lids on the bottom layer of buckets will eventually crack or buckle in under the weight of heavy buckets on top.

#7 Mistake: Lack of rodent control. This can be a real problem in a food pantry, especially if you live in a rural location. Unless we really stay on top of it, every now and then we get a little field mouse in the house, which inevitably ends up in the food storage closet. Although everything I have in there is in rodent proof containers, they will still crawl over the tops of everything and poop and pee on them as they go. I can’t tell you how many cans of vegetables I’ve thrown away because rodent urine has rusted the top of the aluminum cans. Not cool.

#6 Mistake: Stocking up on canned tomato products for long term storage. The high acidity level in tomatoes reacts with the container and can lead to corrosion. I’ve thrown away dozens and dozens of tomato sauce cans that were bulging, an indication that they were no longer safe to consume.

#5 Mistake: Storing more baking mixes than you will eat in the next two years. I’m talking about dessert mixes, cornbread, pancake mix, etc. Most people don’t realize that baking mixes lose their leavening over time, and won’t rise properly. They can also go rancid and end up tasting very bitter. It would be a shame to waste good eggs and oil to bake a cake that ends up being flat and nasty.

#4 Mistake: Storing all of your food in one general location. This is a bad idea for several reasons. That old saying, “Never put all your eggs in one basket” definitely applies to your preps. If all of your food is in the basement and the basement floods, all of your food might be damaged. If all of your food is inside your home and it’s hit by a tornado, all of your food might be lost. If all of your food is in one closet and you’re raided and your food is confiscated, you just made it easier for the invaders to find it all at once.

#3 Mistake: Not having a few convenience foods. Whole foodies like myself tend to store up individual whole foods ingredients to make meals from scratch. However, it’s important to realize that in a survival situation or major emergency, time may not be a luxury we can afford.

#2 Mistake: Not having the equipment to use what you store. This goes well with the previous example. I’ve personally known people who have tons of wheat stored up but have no wheat grinder. You limit yourself significantly when you don’t have the proper equipment to process the foods you store. Again, that’s why it’s so important to learn to use what you store before you depend on it. You may not realize you’re missing a key component until it’s too late.

#1 Mistake: Using trash bags for food storage.  Many trash bags are treated with pesticides and other dangerous chemicals you don’t want in your food. Please don’t line your food buckets with trash bags.

If you go on over to The Prepper Project you will find the solutions to the above mistakes plus even more possible mistakes and solutions! While you are there take a look at some of their videos as well!

At one time or another we have all made the mistakes above. That is what learning and being trained is all about. Once we attain the knowledge of this and other forms of survival or prepping, we will find ourselves well on the road to being self-sufficient!