Karen MorrisA Year Without the Grocery Store: A Step by Step Guide to Acquiring, Organizing, and Cooking Food Storage (Are You Prepared, Mama?)

Great book whether you are new to food storage or well versed. If new to this concept, the book is written in a straightforward way that won't overwhelm you. If you are experienced at food storage, as I am, you will find helpful bits and pieces to boost your skills. I especially liked the recipes using milk powder, tomato powder and the extracts. I've heard of Azure Standard from many homesteading YouTubers but had never tried them. After reading this book I placed my first order, including tomato powder I'd like to see the author publish an entire book dedicated to the exact meals and recipes that she uses to feed her family. I have a binder of such a thing but it's always nice to see what someone else is doing, even if it adds only a couple of recipes that your family will like. Quick, easy read, and a nice little book to keep accessible for frequent use.

Almost no spelling or grammar mistakes! Which is a big deal to me for published works.I liked the content, it was given in a comprehensive and clear way. She made many accommodation suggestions to help it work for all families.

A good book for a newbie. Plenty of logic for having a solid food pantryNothing new for anyone with experience. Would like to have seen more actual how to on preserving fres food over stashing freeze dried which I'm not fond of.

Being prepared is important to me so I was happy to be able to review this book. Karen starts out talking about why its important to have a food storage system explaining about her household story of food storage. The information weaved into her personal stories have been helpful and fascinating. Going through what supplies/equipment are needed, where to purchase the food, how to prepare and cook foods (including allergies and special situations), how you can save money, time and your sanity being prepared, and more. I have read up on preparing and even had bulk food storage but the information in the book had information even a seasoned preparer may not have thought of. At the end of each chapter she gives you assignments that help you prepare your household and they are pretty easy to implement. One thing I wish she went into more depth was food allergies and storage. There is info there but as allergies grow, more people will need to know how to prepare and store special foods. But it still has so much info and resources to learn how to prep. Recipes are included for foods her family loves eating from their food storage include seasoning mixes, dressings, meals, desserts, and extracts. This is an emergency prep book that everyone needs before they need it.

Spoiler Alert (I do talk about contents of the book)!!I bought this book in hopes of getting some ideas for storing up 1 year of food or longer, to make it stretch & spend less long term. It def helped with planting ideas, very fast read (not a lot to it), here I’ve written a list of pros & cons:The pro’s about this book: it really helps plant ideas in your head and where to start.The cons: the Author doesn’t explain things very well, doesn’t go into detail, nor shows examples/pictures. I kinda hate that. The author starts to tell you something but then doesn’t really explain it well into detail, which is kind of the point of a book IMO. For example: Mylar bags. I’ve never heard of them before reading this book. She doesn’t really explain what they are, nor how to store food in them (as far as measurements & how much she typically uses them with oxygen absorbers), she kind of leaves you hanging & you need to do a lot of research for yourself. But she did plant the seed of thought in my head about it, I did lots of research, here’s what I found out: 1 year of storage really isn’t considered long term, usually anything from 20-40 years is long term & 1 year & under is really short term. So, with that said, Mylar bags are really for things long term that you know you’ll have over 1 year, up to 20-40 years (I ordered Mylar bags & plan on storing things for up to 5 years in them). If you’re just storing for 1 year, don’t waste the extra money on Mylar bags, when freezer bags in food grade storage buckets is great for 1 year. Actually, just using food grade storage buckets is great (with or without ziplock bags), I just like to have mine broken up into sections (like 5 cups per ziplock bag, so if anything goes wrong with 1 or I continuously open the lid of the bucket it doesn’t cause the rest to spoil sooner - & I can have it ready for cake or pies, so I don’t have to go digging for 5 cups, I just grab my bag & go). Can you still use Mylar bags, yes.... but is it really needed for 1 year? Not really & Mylar bags can get pricey. But if going over 1 year, it’s recommended. You can reuse Mylar bags too.She also talks about storing sugar in Mylar bags, what she fails to mention: don’t ever use oxygen absorbers for sugar!! This will cause your sugar to turn into a brick. Sugar is better off in ziplock bags into the food grade bucket for storage, stores just as well, I’ve heard this can last up to 20-30 years just stored in the food grade bucket.She also talks about “allergies”, but not really, goes over “special” diets, but then not really at the same time. She kind of cherry picks these issues & really only scratches the surface.Another con: a huge no-no, don’t ever EVER suggest for any human consumption of essential oils, ever!! I hope this will be taken out, actually (will that ever happen, prob not). This doesn’t mean that I personally agree or disagree, but it’s not made for human consumption & to recommend this, if someone gets hurt or injured consuming this bc they read her book, she then could face lability issues. Please, do not consume EO, this is not what it’s made for & can cause internal damage. (This was actually my main issue with this entire book, why I mainly gave it 3 out of 5 stars, it doesn’t pay to play on the dangerous side.)I did end up buying a pressure canner & water bath canner bc of her book, I took in a lot of knowledgeable information (but like I said, she planted the seed, I had to do all the research elsewhere. I really wish she would have went into canning more too, I feel like it’s a whole section missing without it).I hope this helps other’s, it’s a good book to get the ball rolling.

At first glance I found myself diving into ideas that I thought were too much 'Prepper' for us two 68 year old. Then as I dove deeper thought there were many smart ideas for us to use on our tight social security budget. Plus....the recipes where I could make my own sauces and milk saved me shelf space and buying all those items separately because these simple ingredients made most items.I learned a lot and am thankful for her book opening my eyes.