I could do without milk in a blizzard or an emergency situation where I couldn’t get to the store. As a concerned mama, I wouldn’t want to, though. And with all the options available, I don’t need to.

Photo via Amazon.com

I started with Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Milk, Chocolate, 8-Ounce Aseptic Cartons (Pack of 18). This milk is a kid favorite and doesn’t need to be refrigerated. I can’t find it on sale in stores very often, so when there’s a special sale on Amazon, I grab an 18 pack and swap it for the one in my pantry, which is then opened for lunches. (Using and refreshing your stockpile is very important. There’s no sense in throwing out expired foods.)

Next, I picked up Honeyville Farm’s powdered milk substitute. You can find it other places, but the best price I’ve seen is direct from Honeyville. (I also got the powdered eggs from Honeyville, but ordered through Amazon and paid a lot more. I didn’t realize I could buy direct until after I bought the eggs.)

Finally, I grabbed a few cartons of Parmalat milk from the grocery store. I don’t quite like the taste, but they’ll come in handy if the electric goes out and I don’t have a lot of water to spare for reconstituting milk.

Now, you may be thinking there is no way you’ll need to stockpile food, but the week I was supposed to move into my house about 6 years ago, there was a mid-size hurricane that knocked out power for two weeks. The grocery stores didn’t stock many fresh things and the shelves were half empty. Then, there was another small storm a few years ago and shelves were almost empty again. Seeing how fast store shelves empty made me decide that I should have a few essentials on hand.