Food storage is very important to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We feel it is important to have a 3 month food supply of things we use regularly, things we would keep in the pantry, a few extra cans of soup and green beans type of thing. We should have a 72 hour kit that contains the food, clean water, clothes and medical supplies we would need in an emergency and it would be able to get us through 3 days until help arrived. We strive to have a three month supply of money in the bank, basically all of our bills and living expenses for three months in our savings account just in case my husband lost his job or something like that. Then we also try to have a one year supply of food and a three month supply of fresh water. This long term storage is really just the basics. Grains and a hand mill, rice, beans, dehydrated carrots, things like that. These are suggestions given by the church, it's not something we have to report on or anything, but it is very important to John and I. We have tired very hard over the past 7 years of our marriage to get up those supplies of food, I wanted to talk about the one year supply. We only have about 6 months, but we are trying. Well, anyway, because it's so important to us we thought we would try an experiment to see what it would be like to live off of our food storage (and we are adding in a garden just because I NEED fresh produce or I'm in a a lot of pain.) Over the next few weeks we will be living off of this food storage to see what we have, learn how to cook with it and use it, and learn if there is anything we need to or really want to add. I also hopes this gives others some tips of things to add to their own food storage. This will be fun...hopefully. I told the kids that we are pretending there was a big disaster and we are going to live as if the only food we have is our food storage and the food from our garden. Here we go.
Day #1 We have like 50 pounds of spaghetti and macaroni, but no spaghetti sauce, tomatoes or cheese/Alfredo sauce. Lets see if we can add dried tomatoes, freeze dried cheese or Alfredo sauce.
Day #2 We need more wheat. I have made a batch of bead each day for three days and used over 15 cups of flour. I'm going to spend a lot of time grinding wheat some day...
Day #3 We need more split peas. For one thing it's my favorite meal, and for another it is made with ingredients that store easily and are often in long term food storage. Split peas, onions, carrots, salt and water. Yep, that simple and so amazing!
Day #4 the food grows! TVP and dehydrated food expands...sometimes a lot. What I thought would be a small pot of soup made a HUGE pot.
I'v lost track of the days, oh well. I've discovered that I should add seasonings to my food storage, otherwise our food will be quite bland. I think whole spices store better, so I'll look into it. We also want to add quinoa, it's really good for you and high in protein. I bet one big #10 can would last us for a long time! Oh, lets talk personal hygiene. I'm going to assume the only reason we would live off our food storage in earnest is because we no longer have access to good food because of a disaster...do I still have my garden! or because John is out of work and we are using all savings just to pay the rent. In that case we should have a supply of toilet paper, soaps, and other items needed to stay clean and smelling good. ;)
The food stinks. Even Elizabeth won't eat it if she isn't seriously hungry. She said "Mom, this yuck!" and pushed it away, Benjamin would rather starve and it is so hyper processed it gives me a stomach ache. It isn't amazing, but it will keep us alive and now that I know more about how to cook with it I feel more comfortable and confident in our food storage. If possible I MUST have a garden at all times though.
I had a few pleasant surprises today. Whole wheat grinds down to almost double the amount it was when whole, I thought it would be less. I also discovered that my kids fight over who gets to grind wheat and considering the fact it takes so much to make a couple loaves of bread, this is a good fight. :) As Glen says, he is getting strong pioneer muscles.
Through all of the ups and downs of cooking with food storage I think the most valuable lesson John and I learned is to be even more grateful for food then we already are. When the time comes that we really have to use it it is going to be because this is all we have, but we will have it because we listened to and followed the counsel of the prophets and I know they speak the word of God. We will do our best to be prepared and use these lessons to help us better prepare.
