Yesterday I went to a ladies house in my ward to drop off my check for some items from the cannery. I have never participated yet, and if you can't go to the cannery in my ward and they have enough help, they will just go and fill your order for you. So, I thought okay, I will get a couple things that I know I will use (ie: apple slices, rice) and then see what I think and do more next month. Well I don't know this woman really well...she is in the nursery and so she knows my daughter Callie and we have her two girls babysit on a pretty regular basis. Anyway so as I was talking with her she was telling me how wonderful food storage is and how she hadn't really done any until a couple years ago. She said that she was called as second counselor in the RS pres. and she was responsible for food storage. So she started to dabble in it then and just about a year ago was called as the food storage specialist in our ward. She said she grinds her own wheat(which I have always wanted to try) and makes her own bread. Well last November her husband lost his job and here it is March and he still hasn't found another job. She kind of bore her testimony to me and told me that her family since that time has been living off their food storage and how she was so grateful for that. She even had stocked up on such items as...shampoo and conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.
I think that it is so great to know that our Heavenly Father is always 2 steps ahead of us. He knew that this would happen to her family and so prepared her years before to get her ready for this. I have always known that food storage is important, especially in recent years as you can't go through a conference without a mention of it. I want to be the family who has plenty to help my family as well as other...not the family that is in need of the help because they didn't listen to the counsel given.
As I was thinking about her and her family yesterday I realized that I need to stop making excuses and get going on my food storage. So, I was wondering what you girls thoughts were on this topic and for those of you that have already begun this...do you have any tips for the beginners?
5 comments:
Although I may not be the best example, I do feel strongly about the importance of food storage. A few months ago I gave a talk on the pamphlet "All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage." It's a really good resource about family home storage from the First Presidency. It says to get started slowly. First they say to build up a three-month supply of food that is part of our normal, daily diet. Each time you go to the store, try to get a few extra items for food storage. A great way to do this is when you go to Costco to get all your canned food, get one case for immediate use and one case for storage. For the longer-term supply, we need to gradually build a supply of food that will last a long time and we can use to stay alive, like wheat, rice, and beans. Food storage should also be rotated regularly. I have some recipes somewhere that are specifically to incorporate food storage into meals. I'll try to find some good ones to post.
Provident Living website has all this info plus more.
http://www.providentliving.org/channel/0,11677,1706-1,00.html
Mical, I am getting better at the whole food storage thing. For Christmas a few years ago we got a bunch of wheat bucks from Lehi Roller mills. For our anniversary, Collin got me a wheat grinder that attaches to my Kitchen Aid mixer. I make my own bread from wheat I have ground every week. The only downside to this is that my kids don't love it. For awhile I was making whole wheat bread, but then I was the only one eating it. I grew up eating organic, whole wheat everything, so I actually like wheat better than white in most cases. My children don't like "seed bread" as they call it. So now I am doing half and half and making a honey wheat bread that uses mostly white flour, but also some wheat. They seem to like it better. Some ingredients that seem to improve the texture and increase the shelf life are wheat gluten and dough enhancer. April bought these for me after she also bought me a bosch mixer. You can also crack wheat in a blender and then add it to ground beef or turkey and it is practically invisible to the eye an tongue. In a recipe that calls for 1 1/2 lbs. of meat, I add 1 c cracked wheat that has been soaked in hot water for a 10 minutes.
I also mix up powdered milk and once it is cold I mix it into regular milk I have bought from the store. I think a lot of LDS women do this to stretch out their store bought milk (which is like liquid gold out here, almost $4 a gallon). I tried just having the family drink the powdered, but Aidan and Collin don't like the taste, so I mix it in with regular milk.
Our old ward had a food storage enrichment group that met once a month. They would make recipes from the Lindon Cannery cookbook and other recipes that people just happened to collect and we would all get to try them. I have had ricotta cheese, yogurt (made from powdered milk), bread, tortillas, crackers, tacos made with lentils instead of meat, refried bean brownies, toffee granola and granola bars all made from food storage ingredients. The only meeting where I didn't try stuff was the one on meat. They were teaching how to make salami and since we don't eat beef and especially not fatty beef, I couldn't bring myself to eat it, but you could store the meat once cured in the basement I think. I have a whole folder on recipes we learned at those meetings and will post some of the better ones.
Something else to consider is sourdough starter. It can be used instead of yeast, but makes for a dense and occasionally tough bread. But it can also be used for pancakes and english muffins.
I think I posted a dried apple pie recipe on this blog using food storage apples.
Anyway, in the McKinney family, I think most of us buy sugar and flour from the cannery and use it and buy more instead of buying from the grocery store. It makes sense to rotate it.
How much are wheat grinders? Its something I have thought about getting, but haven't really looked into it. Are the electric ones better than the hand ones? My friend Lindsey grinds her own wheat and she said that she has a really yummy pancake recipe that her family loves. I'll see if I can get it from her and post it.
Ya, I remember the powdered milk days in my family growing up. I am not a huge fan, however mixing with store bought is a good idea. Especially since my family goes through about 4-5 gallons a week.
I remember when I was a kid3, our end tables in our living room were big huge black barrels with a peice of glass over the top and then a table cloth on top...so no one ever knew there was flour in one and sugar in the other. But it sure was funny when my mom would go get flour out and I would have a friend over and they thought we were crazy.
Thanks for your tips you two. I would be very interested in you guys posting some of your favorite recipes. I think that is just the hard part. We are told that with food storage you need to rotate and we just don't know what to do with a bunch of dried beans and wheat. If we just had to buy enough for our family and we never had to touch it until disaster struck I think we would be more willing to do it.
I like building up my food storage because it makes me feel good. I feel like I'm keeping a commandment and being a good mother and I like that feeling. And how grateful I will be if we ever need it. If we had to, I think we could live off it for a few months but we'd have spaghetti an awful lot. I read once that if money's tight, it's better to buy a few different things than one big thing. That it'd be better to have a one month supply of a full diet than a one year supply of just wheat. Buy a variety, but as always, have it be things you use.
My biggest tip is water bottles. It's an easy way to build up and use and store a supply of water. You should have a minimum supply of 2 weeks for everyone in the family. A gallon a day per person is what I read just now when I looked it up. We get the sport sized bottles from costco and use them everyday. I think one case is 5 gallons but now I don't remember. Anyway, they're not terribly expensive and are good to have around.
I'm saving up my birthday money and getting a little cash back each week at the grocery store and I'm going to use it all toward food storage and shelving.
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