Storing Food

During my recent lenten blogging fast, I spent a few minutes each morning reading news updates online. This one, linked to by Drudge, frightened me, mostly because of my son Luke living in New York City. Luke probably never has more than a week's worth of groceries stored in his apartment. Shortly after reading that story, other reports of impending or possible crises caught my attention nearly every day. Economic meltdown, climate change, natural disasters, political unrest from many sides. I didn't panic (well, there was one sleepless night) but I began to pray and take note of warnings to prepare. Prepare for what? I still don't know and I pray that the preparations are in vain. Still, just as so many Americans quit saving money over the past thirty years (did that not certainly contribute to our overall economic crisis?), most Americans are not prepared to weather any storm. Most Americans don't have enough cash to last more than three months' income interruption.

Here are the practical steps we've taken over the past month:

1) Once a week or so, I buy storage-worthy food and place it in a room in our basement. I've stored pinto beans, white rice (brown rice has too short a shelf-life, but white rice stores for years), peanut butter, white and wheat flour, corn meal, oatmeal, shortening (again, not my preferred oil but a longer shelf-life than oil), oil (a few 48 ounce jars), canned tuna, canned tomatoes, canned soup, canned and powdered milk, sugar, honey, molasses, jams, salt and other spices, pasta, coffee and Tang drink mix (one 8 ounce serving has 100% of the RDA for Vitamin C).

2) I bought 5 gallon food-grade plastic storage buckets and lids at a local farm supply store. The beans, rice, grains and sugar are all stored in these buckets. We have had mice problems in the past, so anything a mouse might chew through goes into heavy plastic containers of some sort.

3) This calculator provided my list of items and the quantity needed for a year. I have almost a year's supply of a few things and at least a three-month supply of most things. I calculated our needs based on two adults. If resources and time permit, I will add more. (We feed our two college-age and adult-sized kids during the summer and other breaks from college.)

One trick to keeping food storage like this is to rotate the food into the everyday menu so the storage food is used on a regular basis and replaced. That way the food doesn't spoil and go to waste.

Serious food storers buy whole wheat because it stores longer and takes less room than ground flour. They grind the wheat into flour in small quantities and bake with it as needed. I'm not quite ready to take the step of grinding my own flour, but I'm considering investing in a starter-mill to see if we like it.

Last week marked the 22nd anniversary of our leaving Los Angeles to return to our native midwest. We had several rational reasons to leave: traffic, crowding and the cost of housing being the biggest. One more intuitive reason for me was the prospect of life in L.A. following a disaster such as a major earthquake. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment with very little room to store food. We tried growing tomatoes on the balcony with little success. I needed to return to the open air, big yards and backyard gardens of my suburban St. Louis youth.

Almost thirteen years ago, we moved to Maple Grove, our ten acre homestead six miles from the nearest grocery store. Living beyond pizza delivery for the first time in my life changed my grocery buying habits. We NEVER make a trip to town for just one thing. We plan ahead, substitute or do without. We keep a freezer full of beef and/or pork most of the time. We buy canned goods by the case. During the Y2K hoopla, we bought a few extra cases and some powdered milk, just in case. In a way, this current food storage plan is simply the next step to being prepared.

Most of the best food-storage information on the internet is from the Latter Day Saints, who have practiced food-storage for many years. Many thanks to Mormon cyber-friends for sharing this information.

Blessings,

Sandy