FOOD STORAGE 101
BABY STEPS
YES! I do have a year’s supply of food! YES! I do know how to cook with it. Yes! My family eats it and claims to likes it. No it is not all canned freeze dried or dehydrated food. I consider everything I prepare my families daily meals with as part of my food storage.
Our food storage includes but is not limited to everything listed above and much – much more. I was lucky to have been raised in an LDS Home where my parents were raised to believe they needed a four (4) year supply. Trust me my mother had a four year supply of everything from cleaning supplies, food and everything she needed to store and prepare meals on a regular basis for 4 years, for a family of seven (7).
She canned it and/or dehydrated it and stored it. Mother did not own a freezer until I was in high school. We were taught to use the oldest on the shelf first. I know some of you are thinking what a waste. It wasn’t, Not at all. After we have all left home to start our own lives, mother sold the farm we were raised on and moved to Logan, Utah to be closer to her relatives and friends and to be within walking distance of the LDS temple. When we went to help her move; we told her she had no need or storage room for all that food. She agreed and all of her extra food was given to neighbors and friends. These wonderful people used it and enjoyed it.
In Logan she lived in a small two bedroom home with a big back yard. Here she once again began raising a garden and canning her food. Now, she owned a freezer and was able to freeze part of her food. Now she had a smaller garden; but, still more than she needed and every time one of her children visited we were sent home with food.
The following information came from: http://www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net/
The above site will email you a “baby steps checklist”
You may go to their site and request it and Baby Steps will email you a checklist on a regular basis. These checklists are a guideline not a strict rule of law. Add to your home storage the quantity of food and are supplies you can afford extra in addition to what you would purchase on a regular basis. For example “BabySteps checklist #22 gives the following advice.
“Welcome to BabySteps Checklist #22. We are buying the last of our wheat in this checklist and learning some fun new ways to use it including making homemade tortillas, YUM! We’re going to also be picking up another Baking Ingredient, some Non-Food Items, and of course our regular Three Month supply items.
”Wheat is not only used for baking bread! Hopefully by now you have found many uses for wheat flour in your everyday cooking. Remember to keep experimenting in your recipes. Most things are great with ½ whole wheat and ½ white flour and a lot of times they are just fine with 100% whole wheat. If you don’t have a wheat grinder don’t fret. Wheat kernels can be grown in wheat grass, wheat sprouts, cracked wheat and you can even cook them into wheat berries for yummy breakfast food.” (I feel sorry for anyone who stores large quantities of whole wheat and never learns how to use it. Our systems tend to reject large quantities of and new food that your body is not a good thing. It can play nasty tricks on your digestive system. Additionally; you may tell yourself and your family that you can eat anything if you are hungry enough. People have died of starvation while trying to prove this theory. Mix small quantities of food your body is not accustomed to along with the food that your family consumes on a daily basis and then increase the quantity of these things on a regular basis into your diet.)
TO DO LIST:
TO PURCHASE:
75 LBS OF WHEAT
PURCHASE ¼ LB OF YEAST
PURCHASE SOME PAPER PLATES AND KLEENEX TO HELP REDUCE WATER CONSUPTION IN AN EMERGENCY
PURCHASE THAT WHEAT GRINDER YOU HAVE BEEN SAVING UP FOR!
PURCHASE SOMETHING TO REPLENISH YOUR 3 MONTHS FOOD SUPPLY LIST.
TO DO:
Review Alternatives to Wheat post if you have allergies or don’t care for wheat very mch
Remember the 7 Great Ways to Use Wheat without a Wheat Grinder:
Lear how to make Wheat Tortillas from scratch. It’s so easy.
Use your homemade tortillas to make Julie’s favorite Enchilada Pie.
This delicious recipe also uses dry black beans and cream of chicken soup made from lima bean flour.
If you haven’t perfected your bread yet, here is another bread recipe to try out*
Update your 3 month supply inventory sheet to keep track of what you have used/replenished
If you have received this checklist from a friend and would like to be sent the entire BabyStep Checklist series for free, please visit http://www.foodtoragemadeeasy-NET/babystep-checklist
and sign up today! “
(The following is taken from
http://www.lds.org
http://www.providentliving.org
* “Family Home Storage – Provident Living Home
http://www.providentliving.org/channel/1,11677,1706-1,00.html
THREE-MONTH SUPPLY
Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.
DRINKING WATER
Store drinking water for circumstances in which the water supply may be polluted or disrupted. If water comes directly from a good, pretreated source then no additional purification is needed; otherwise, pretreat water before use. Store water in sturdy, leak-proof, breakage-resistant containers. Consider using plastic bottles commonly used for juices and soda. Keep water containers away from heat sources and direct sunlight.
FINANCIAL RESERVE
Establish a financial reserve by saving a little money each week and gradually increasing it to a reasonable amount (see All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Finances guide).
LONGER-TERM SUPPLY
For longer-term needs, and where permitted, gradually build a supply of food that will last a long time and that you can use to stay alive, such as wheat, white rice, and beans. These items can last 30 years or more when properly packaged and stored in a cool, dry place. A portion of these items may be rotated in your three-month supply.”
http://www.providentliving.org/fhs/pdf/WE_FamilyResourcesGuide_International_04008_000.pdf“
ALL IS SAFELY GATHERED IN FAMILY HOME STORAGE
Come, ye thankful people, come; Raise the song of harvest home.
All is safely gathered in Ere the winter storms begin.
God, our Maker, doth provide For our wants to be supplied.
Come to God’s own temple, come; Raise the song of harvest home.
Hymns, no. 94
© 2007 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the USA
Longer-Term Supply
For longer-term needs, and where permitted, gradually build a supply of food that will last a long time and that you can use to stay alive, such as wheat, white rice, and beans.
These items can last 30 years or more when properly packaged and stored in a cool, dry place. A portion of these items may be rotated in your three-month supply.
Our Brothers and Sisters: Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to “prepare every needful thing” (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors and support bishops as they care for others. We encourage Church members worldwide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings. We ask that you be wise as you store food and water and build your savings. Do not go to extremes; it is not prudent, for example, to go into debt to establish your food storage all at once. With careful planning, you can, over time, establish a home storage supply and a financial reserve. We realize that some of you may not have financial resources or space for such storage. Some of you may be prohibited by law from storing large amounts of food. We encourage you to store as much as circumstances allow. May the Lord bless you in your home storage efforts.
The First Presidency” *
* information between * is taken from
http://www.providentliving.org/fhs/pdf/WE_FamilyResourcesGuide_International_04008_000.pdf
Remember: store what you eat and eat what you store.
Some personal advice from Emma:
Read http://www.southernutahfoodstorage.com
1: Do not store food that you have not learned to cook and your family has not learned to eat and enjoy.
2. Use your food storage.
3. Learn to scratch cook. (Your family will love it.)
4. Do not store and use a lot of high sodium ready mix foods.
5. Store what you and your family enjoy eating and cook what you and your family likes.
6. If you have a recipe you are trying to make and you don’t have an ingredient in the form that it is called for, substitute and use interchangeable freeze dried, fresh from the garden, frozen, etc. for the form that the recipe calls for.
7. Soup is an easy dish to substitute with. Take the recipe, if you do not have fresh vegetable substitute a handful of freeze dried or home dehydrated for fresh. Go down the entire list and put different forms of that product in the dish. Season as you would normally. These products will rehydrate themselves as they cook. Try it you will be surprised how well you like it. You will learn from experience that one product will
8. Have fun. You will surprise yourself at what a truly great cook you are.
[...] FOOD STORAGE 101 « SouthernUtahFoodStorage [...]