Storing Food at Home

While we Singaporeans fuss a whole lot over food, as evidenced by the plethora of food shows on TV and food review blogs, most of us have taken the available of food for granted. This is not surprising given that most of us don't live too far away from a food outlet where we can have access to food in a relatively cheap and convenient manner. As such, when I mention food storage at home to my friends, some of them look at me like I am a doom-and-gloomer.

Yet, food storage is something prudent even when food is readily available. Consider the SARS epidemic in 2003. If you were served with a Home Quarantine Order (HQO) by the government, you would have been provided food by the relevant authorities. But however, if you had food stored away at home, you would have been able to expand your choice of food without having to rely on the government. Even if you were not served with a HQO, the stored food allows you to minimise leaving your home to eat or purchase food at crowded places, thus reducing your risks of infection.

Apart from this, storing food is also a way to beat inflation. The latest CPI figures published by the Department of Statistics show an annualised increase of 3.3% for the previous month, which suggests that inflation is perhaps trending up. On a more personal note, I bought some muffins whose price had increased from $1.60 last year to $2.00 now, a 25% increase! Food storage allows us to plan for the purchase of excess quantities of food items that have long shelf-life when they are on sale. Given my limited experience with the supermarket, it does seem to me that sooner or later, every item in the supermarket is up for price reduction at some point in time. With some planning, one should be able to buy desired items when they are sold with promotional prices, and with rotation through our food stockpile, it will mean that we are consistently consuming food that is cheaper than what they sell for at the time of consumption.

So, how does one start on food storage? One simple way to start is to follow the guidelines in the Emergency Handbook published by the Singapore Civil Defence Force. After getting up to speed with 2 weeks' of food stored, as recommended by the SCDF, we can then move forward towards storing up to 1 month's worth of food.