I was putting the final items on my last BePrepared supply order, and it occurred to me that I had totally underestimated my need for salt. For some reason, I figured 2 cardboard cans of Morton’s would be plenty (that’s about 3 pounds). I started calculating daily usage, times my family for a year and that came to 25 pounds.  Yikes…sure missed that one.  So I added enough to cover me conservatively for a year or more, it’s cheap as heck and compact. 

You simply can’t survive with no salt, so this goes to number two on the must-have list behind clean water. 

 Number three is probably sugar.  Once a crisis is underway, that will be difficult if not impossible to obtain, and it goes in just about every kind of food imaginable. Daily sugar intake is at least double salt, so I went with 60 pounds.

 Number four, probably powdered milk. No way to get dairy unless you own one.

 Number five, powdered eggs. 

 Everything else you can grow, make, or gather. Spices, oil, nuts, fish and game,  wheat, vegetables, beer, vinegar, yeast (sourdough), etc. I keep going back to the mental image of a homesteader packing the Conestoga to make the journey out west, they had far less sophisticated things but managed OK.