How much food storage do you have?
 

Just curious. We're trying to build ours up this year.

We had over 3 months in Colorado before we had to move. We used up about a month's worth before we moved and then gave away almost all of the rest to a couple of needy families in the ward. We haven't done a very good job building it back up. We're probably at 4 to 6 weeks worth now.

We could probably keep ourselves alive for 1 year (we have close to 1,200 pounds of rice); however, it wouldn't be a varied diet. We need to work on our spices and stuff like oil and salt and such.

Another concern beyond food is potable water. We have 165 gallons of water in barrels but if you don't have access to a long-term potable water supply then you are dead meat. My next biggest concern is fuel. Even if we made it through the summer on our year supply, we would freeze in the Utah winter without some type of fuel/heat mechanism (such as a wood-burning stove and tons of wood -which we don't have).

I've never built it up past 3 months and have a tough time staying at 3 months. I don't know that I could store a year's worth in my current home. It would take some real creativity.

I could live on beans and rice everyday with some tomato paste for taste. I'm having trouble finding bulk rice currently. Costco never has any and if they do apparrently you can only buy 1 bag at a time right now.

On a related note, a co-worker told me that it was selfish of me to want to "hoard" rice at this time of shortage. Don't think I've ever heard food storage described as selfish before.

If I was accused of hoarding rice, I would give the accuser confirmation that I was indeed hoarding rice. If that is what he wanted to believe, why not give him the satisfaction?

I'd then tell him that I would shoot him if he set foot on my property and tried to steal rice from me. May as well play the stereotype.

We have none.

I am betting that the millennium doesn't happen in my lifetime.

Instead of massive bags of wheat and large barrels of water, I am using the space in the garage for something that happens often in my lifetime: longboarding.

In the event I am wrong, we will all die quickly, so it wont matter anyway.

Your storage is similar to mine but instead of a longboard I am storing a quarterpipe and a fun box.

I have friends who have years and years if you count wine. Wine cellars are a big deal here. Could someone live off of only wine for a year? I bet they could if they had to.

Try it.

I think I will be quite busy helping church members before I start helping people dedicated to the destruction of the church.

My mother in law essentially has a mini grocery store in her basement. Her whole family is the same way. When two of her brothers lost their jobs, both families pooled their resources and lived off of food storage for several months. It's really quite amazing to get to that point.

One of the things my wife and I have discussed recently in regards to food storage is that its purpose might not necessarily be for the millennium, but more for times of economic peril. If gas goes up to $6 a gallon, many families might have to dip into their food storage so that they don't have to go to the grocery store as much...and so they don't have to buy food that will rise with the rising gas prices.

We try to build up our food storage when we can get good deals, and unlike Utah for example, there are no case-lot sales. The other week, grocery stores slashed prices on cereal to 10 boxes for $10. I think we walked away with 35-40 boxes of cereal. If you watch the deals, you can really build up a food storage quickly...that and you have to be willing to commit your resources to it.

You want to store things that keep, and if they don't keep, then things that you cycle through quickly. I would never buy cereal boxes for food storage, just because I don't think they keep for that long.

The church website has good suggestions, and a calculator, for what to store.

My point was that it is better to have an active food storage...one you could live off of if need be in the immediate future...not just bags of wheat and canned fruit that get thrown away when you move or die (as is the case sometimes, especially with parents or grand parents).

What about the food you throw away (when you really need it) because it is no longer edible?

That's why I worry about more than outdated wheat.

I have been beating on the food storage drum for a long time. Unfortunately for you late-comers it will now cost more than 3x as much to get it now.

Well, it isn't my first time at the food storage rodeo, but I'll let that dig slide.

I think that food storage has evolved over the last 10-15 years and more specifically the last 2-3, which is why we're seeing a shift in food storage being a more realistic proposition for many "newcomers" as you say.

the idea that food storage could be used in economic hard times is not a revelation.

Neither is the idea that you need to store things that keep.

Nope. That's one reason why it's a good idea to follow the dictum.

Better poll would be this:

"Assuming you are active LDS, do you have a HDTV, but don't have a year's supply?"

Are you suggesting that I have somehow said that is not what we should do?

link?

Regardless of how the question is worded, I have no food storage.

I do have HDTVs.

I get way more use out of those than I would out of food storage.

Less than three months. I have a 72-hour emergency kit, and enough food in the pantry to last about a month.

I'm considering starting on it, but I just don't have a lot of drive right now to spend the money on it.


On a related issue, we've paid off 75% of our debt in the last two years, and should be down to just the mortgage by the end of this year.

Spaz, although prices have gone up, it really isn't all that costly to get things going.

My parents ward/stake put together a big group order of wheat, beans, and other grains and stuff. I think you can also buy such stores from the church itself, depending on your area.

If you wanted, you could propably organize a group order yourself.

If food shipments stopped, in most cities, all food would be gone in a week. That's how tenuous the supply chain is.

I'm pretty prepared I think. Besides anti-Mormons, also on the bottom of my list of people to help would be Mormons who bragged that they do not have any food storage, while at the same time have lots fo money. I think I might offer to take in their kids, but I would put the parents on the bottom of the list. The kids didn't choose their parents.

The fact is that the prophets have spoken, but very few Saints have listened on this topic. The time is now.

The prophet said to plant a garden.

I haven't done that yet, either.

My dream calling is Emergency Preparedness Coordinator.

In all honesty, you sound like you would do a good job at it.

In my experience, that is a calling that most people do nothing with.

We had one good Emergency Coordinator. He broke the ward up into Zones, once a month we would practice our Phone Tree and make actual calls to everyone in our Zones, and he also helped a bunch of people get their HAM radio certifications. It was pretty impressive.

Mike Waters or Dwight Schrute

It's been heavy on my mind lately, so I think I'll get a move on it. We're not wealthy enough to just go out and get a year's supply right now (nor do I think the church wants those in our position to compromise our finances by doing so), but I think we can work on building up the supply a little bit at a time. My older brother moved a few years ago, and when he got to his new house he simply spent a few thousand dollars and had an immediate one-year supply.

My parents have enough to feed all the family in the area (Utah) for some time, so I'm not completely unprepared.

I have a very good-sized crawlspace in my house. It's perfectly designed for food storage, so I've got some room for it.


The hardest part, IMO, will be the water. I really don't want millions of soda bottles stashed in my basement, but I also HATE spending money on something that's free....

Food: I don't know how big your family is, but you could get decent food storage going for $700. I spent something like $500 for a years supply (but prices have gone up).

Water: you don't need a year's supply of water.

I have 4 55gal plastic drums that were previously used to hold vinegar. That's enough for a little while. In the meantime, I also have a water purifier. I also know how to boil water. Water is the least of your concerns. Focus on the food.

Fair enough. I also know how to boil water. I've got myself, my wife, and my 9-month-old.

The church website suggests 1gal water per person per day...one 55gal drum would last two weeks for us. My brother has those large blue plastic barrels, but I'm not sure where he got them.

I take it you'd suggest getting most of the food from the church cannery (there's one not far from my office).


My other main concern is actually being able to use the grain in storage when needed. Rice is easy enough, but I'm assuming you have to have something to mill the wheat with. Any pointers would be appreciated:D

I've also heard that having foods you don't normally eat can cause problems if/when you start eating food storage. Anything I should be concerned with there?

About wheat: in America we mostly eat our wheat in the form of flour.

I have a wheat grinder that runs on electricity. I asked my dad about getting a hand-powered grinder (they are VERY pricy) in case there was no electicity for a long time.

He said, "If you are the point that you are eating wheat from your food storage, and there is no power on the horizon, you won't need to worry about making flour. You can eat the wheat whole-grain."

Soak the wheat in water. Cook it.

I think if you're starving, you'll find a way.

But the best situation is when you are actually using your food storage. Use some, buy some more. use some, buy some more.

My wife makes homemade bread with our wheat storage.

Maybe my parent's poorly-planned food storage when I was little has skewed my perceptions a bit, but they had about 30 plastic buckets filled with whole wheat.

Are there issues with storing flour instead of wheat? I'd imagine a whole-grain or wheat flour would be better for food storage than white flour simply because of the difference in nutrition...

Sorry if I'm being annoying with all the questions - I just don't want to screw up & spend a bunch of money on something that will only go to waste.

you do not want to store flour. It goes bad quickly. Wheat can be good for 20 years.

Grind your wheat as you go.

Any suggestions on where to pick up a grinder and/or what grinder to buy?

I got this one off ebay:
http://www.blendtec.com/productDetails.aspx?id=49

It uses these metal things to crush the wheat, i.e. make the wheat explode. It's what pharma uses to make powder of its medicines.

This one is pretty loud . If you want a quieter one, you can go with a Whisper Mill.

Also, you can use a Vita-mix blender. That's why my parents do.

We just had a mock disaster in our ward. We had block captains assigned and they wanted everyone to live off of their 72 hour kits for the weekend. After the alleged disaster the block captains called around, we have 768 members of our ward but we only had 235, 72 hour kits. That next tuesday for relief society they made 72 hour kits and showed the woman how to properly use them.

We now have 580 out of the 768 members have 72 hour kits in the ward. I think thats pretty good.

Whoa, amazing to have that many members in a ward. We avg. attendance of 170. I bet we have 400 people on the rolls though.