Food Storage Introduction

Have you ever met someone with a food storage hobby? You know the Molly Mormon I’m talking about. Some people catch the Spirit of Elijah and do Family History like there is no tomorrow. But other people catch what I call the Spirit of Joseph (Gen 41) and do Food Storage like there is a tomorrow and they want to be eating then! Well if you haven’t figured it out by now, I am one of those people. I LOVE preparing for emergencies. Whether it be by ‘doing’ food storage or otherwise, it is honestly like one of the most interesting things I know of to pass the time.

BUT, if that’s so not you, never fear! This post is for you! Because long term food storage is for everyone or the prophets wouldn’t have told us to do it. It is true that you will have to devote some time and energy into storing food for your family, but it will be well worth the effort. It doesn’t have to take over your life (though I dare you to not get sucked in!), you just have to have a precise plan and follow it to the letter.  

Food storage falls into three categories: Long Term Supply, Year Supply and Three Month Supply.

Long Term Supply is staff-of-life, dry-packed food like grains, legumes, sugar, salt, heck even macaroni (honey is the miraculous exception). This food storage is the easiest and the cheapest to do because: A) It is basic life sustaining food and thus is widely available and does not have to be too varied. B) The less a food is processed the less it costs to get on the shelves, so buying whole/raw food is inexpensive. If you know where to get it! C) You don’t have to rotate it. HEAR THAT? Yes I said you don’t have to rotate it. Or at least I don’t think you have to and here is why: the Second Coming is coming. I know, I know. Call me crazy; but think about it. The food items I am talking about here have a 30 year shelf life (in optimal conditions) and if Jesus hasn’t come by then or my house hasn’t sunk into the ocean or been covered by a mountain in an earthquake with my food storage in it then I guess I will deserve to crack open my super-pails and eat my less then fully nutritious wheat. But by then my kids will have grown and moved out and so I won’t care about the quality of my food as much. Another reason is that I honestly believe that we have not been asked to store a year supply of food so our families can eat for a year without going to the market. I believe we are meant to share it. So when there is an emergency and I give all my rice away I will just start from square one and the 30 year timer on my supply will start ticking all over again. We need to learn to use this stuff in our daily diet, but we do not have to rotate it.

Year Supply foods are things like flour, powdered milk, cooking oils, baking essentials (yeast!) and spices, canned foods, daily vitamins and garden seeds. These food items are still basics for home cooked meals that are stored in the ‘pantry’, but they need to be used and replaced regularly. There is a wider spectrum of foods involved here so the cost depends on each family’s preferences.

The Three Month Supply is the most volatile of the three because this is basically just your weekly needs multiplied into 12 weeks. And this section includes water. (I know that with God all things are possible, and that is pretty much the only way most of us would be able to store more than three months worth of water for our families! See my Water Kit post.) Your freezer and refrigerator finally enter the picture here too. So in this plan you should include everything from breakfast cereal to cheese to frozen vegetables to… literally whatever your family loves to eat!  

I hope you are not feeling overwhelmed.  If you are feeling some trepidation just take a deep breath and keep reading. I promise this isn’t as hard as it may seem!

Over the next couple weeks we will be learning how to acquire and properly store your food storage. I hope to supply you with the tools you need to accomplish this task or at least point you in the direction of helpful resources. Here we go!

Let’s review the section I posted in physical preparation on food:

Eat Right- I say "right" instead of just "healthy" because physical preparation for an emergency is different from a good diet. It takes time for our bodies to learn to digest whole grains if we're not already used to them. Oatmeal and beans and rice every day is a bleak prospect for pop-tart and pizza type people. You don't need to cut those things out entirely, just add the right things in! In most cases (including in our family) sweets are a part of our daily lives; we need to learn self restraint in that area too. Try going without any sugar for a week, and you'll be surprised how your body reacts (I was!). And if you are a caffeine junkie (or addicted to any substance), you might consider kicking the habit now. It's not just that soda is bad for you, but that the last thing you want in an emergency is to have to deal with a crisis while also feeling the physical effects of needing an addiction fix! The current recommendations for caloric intake and food sources specific to your body type and stage in life can be calculated at http://www.mypyramid.gov/ .

Now with that in mind, take a look at these stats.

It is estimated that the following could sustain the average adult for a year on 2,300 calories a day:

300lbs of grains

60lbs of dried legumes

75lbs of powdered milk

20lbs of fats

60lbs of sugar and/or honey

5lbs of salt

Young men and nursing mothers need more than that, while children and the elderly would be fine with a little less. Learning to cook with just those things (and to digest them) can be difficult in today's world and with our typical eating habits and schedules. Only store what you would actually eat and know how to use.

All of the categories listed above are Long Term Storage items except the ‘fats’ section. Powdered milk can be stored for 30 years, but the conditions have to be constantly optimal or it will be considered inedible within 3 years, so it is safer just to plan on rotating it.

An excellent resource to purchase these items is www.providentliving.org which is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Under the ‘Home Storage’ link, click on the “Home Storage Center Order Form” on the right hand side and check out the nationwide price sheet of food storage products available at the food distribution center nearest you (look under the “Locations” tab at the top of the page for addresses and phone numbers). These really are great products and prices because they are literally selling them at cost straight from church welfare farms. Other than the white rice we found slightly cheaper at Costco (which might just be locally grown) these are far less expensive than anywhere else. But, if you follow sales and use coupons you might be able to save some money on certain items. The Lord doesn't give commandments without preparing a way for them to be followed, so this is possible! The Church printed a pamphlet called All is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage to help members get started (which again can be found on that same page). I think they made it almost overly simple to encourage people to at least do something instead of feeling overwhelmed when they see those few Molly Mormon food storage-rs and thus do nothing.

Now let’s talk containers for Long Term Food Storage. I think that we can all agree that 30 years of peace of mind is worth an investment in quality. Use only food grade containers so the integrity of your food is not compromised. Proper packing will ward off pests and prevent premature food deterioration. Storing conditions determine the shelf life of your food no matter the container.

·         Commercially packed super pails

·         Super pails with Mylar bags and an oxygen absorber you fill and seal yourself

·         Commercially packed #10 cans

(though this will not last 30 years, you get what i am refering to. we try to only buy pre-packaged things we can't do ourselves- like freeze dried food!)

·         #10 cans with an oxygen absorber you fill and seal yourself

(again, same story. we are only using super pails for long term storage, but i wanted you to see an example.)

·         Honey is the only non-dry long term storage item. And unless you are a beekeeper, just keep it in the jar you bought it in and it will keep indefinitely.

·         Keep your food storage in a cool, dry, dark place. 

·         High and fluctuating temperatures are detrimental to shelf life. Keeping your food storage below 75 degrees but never freezing it will lengthen the shelf life to the 30 year mark I mentioned.

I just realized that I may need to define “shelf life” for long term storage. We all know when a carton of milk goes bad because it smells sour and sickening. It is also easy to tell when a vegetable or piece of fruit has gone rotten and shouldn’t be eaten. These foods have passed their expiration dates or their shelf life. Long term food storage items don’t rot or sour like that, but they do expire. They begin to loose nutritional value (vitamins, minerals, and proteins) and then rapidly decrease in appeal via taste and texture. It is hard to tell just looking at it (unless you are an expert), it is when you go to cook and eat it that you realize there is a problem. That is why it is so dangerous- your stomach may be full of bread, but the nutrients your body needs aren’t there! The caloric content would only drop slightly so it would still sustain life, but eating expired foods like that for an extended period of time would compromise your health.

Now let’s talk menu. The stark reality is that long term food storage is survival based. So if you literally only store the things in that list above, your typical day would look like this:

Oatmeal with milk and sugar for breakfast. Some sort of unleavened bread for lunch (usually wheat, sometimes corn), possibly with honey on it if you don’t use sugar at breakfast. Rice and beans for dinner.

Yum, right?

BUT, if you buy a food storage cook book, or even look up recipes online, you can literally spice up your life! You just need to plan in advance! For example, you could sprout your wheat kernels and have a salad. You could make tortillas, bran flakes, pancakes, even pasta! But you have to get the recipes and instructions and try it out now! And you have to get your Year Supply functioning. After I finish with the information, acquisition, and storage portions of each type of food storage, I’m going to go back and document my adventures with trying recipes from each type of food storage, including alternative ways of baking and cooking! Such fun! Can’t you just feel the excitement? I sure as heck can. But then again I’ve caught the Spirit of Joseph. ;0]

This post is far too long so I will end now, although I could go on for pages more. If you made it all the way, high five! Until next week then--