Minnesota's suggestions for food storage and emergency preparedness...

Building an emergency kit today will help you and your family gather the food, water and supplies that you'll need for future emergency situations. After you answer just a few questions about your household, you can print customized shopping lists for three days, one week and/or one month supplies of food and water. You can also print a plan for determining quantities of food and water for one year.

* The customized shopping lists are intended only as general guidelines for food and water storage in your codeReady Kit.
* Food amounts are based on servings from five basic food groups.
* If there are foods that you or your family don't like or can't eat, substitute other foods in the same food group that are more appropriate.
http://www.codeready.org/

In my series, Simple Peace of Mind, I set a goal of working over the next 12 months to build up an emergency fund of three months worth of expenses. Part of that is saving up cash, part is making sure we have three months worth of food and household goods on hand at all times.

When I started really couponing in earnest, I discovered the idea of stockpiling when items are on sale and drawing from that stockpile as needed when prices are higher at the store. That way, you are always buying at the lowest prices. Because sales tend to be in 12 week cycles, the best strategy is to buy enough on sale to last you 12 weeks, or about 3 months. The longer I couponed, the more comprehensive our 3 month supply became.

By now, I was really curious to learn What is food storage? From poking around on Food Storage Made Easy and a few other places, the best I can determine is that Food Storage is a system of preparedness in case of an emergency, such as a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina. In the event that you lose power, you would have nonperishable foods, an emergency kit and safe drinking water stored that you could use to be self sufficient for a certain length of time. The basis for food storage appears to be religious (Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Mormon - please feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and many folks reference the entries in the bible that refer to safely gathering in your family and being prepared for what is to come. The religious guideline seems to be three months full food supply and twelve months worth of grains, rice, beans and similar items. Again, if anyone has more info on this, please feel free to comment.
http://www.leavingexcess.com/2009/01/food-storage-basics-getting-started.html

Reference material and online suppliers...

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/ff1-toc.htm

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn579-1.htm

http://everydayfoodstorage.net/

http://beprepared.com/

http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/

I personally like wheat the best for long term storage. Best bang for the buck in terms of calories and nutrient profile. You get a 600% boost if you sprout it...see my post on sprouting...

http://yophat.blogspot.com/2009/02/sprouts.html