How prepared is YOUR pantry?

One of the many beautiful and comforting values of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is that we have counsel from a living prophet. For years and years and YEARS one of the most urgent messages from our church leaders has been to be prepared. In every way - spiritually and temporally.


Emergency Preparedness encompasses many things, from monetary to medical to pantry. Recent world events and weather events have really nailed the lid on the truth of an urgency of having a good home food storage supply and system of use. Mom and I have discussed this for years; two years ago we put together a 72-hour kit containing food, clothing, sanitary needs, and water, ready to go at a moment's notice.

With repeated counsel from our local Church leadership, mom has been concerned that we still aren't doing enough. There are some very helpful brochures and guides available through the Church for getting a preparedness program going in your home. But I also turned to some online resources that I've found very useful.

A year-long list of weekly purchases can be daunting. I am really excited about a program I found last week, on getting a 3-month supply of food and necessities put together in 12 weeks. Lo and behold, the Safeway and Fred Meyer ads this week had many of the items ON SALE (magic words!). So after a look at what was already on hand in the pantry, we tackled the first few weeks on the list, buying a modest amount and supplementing with what we had.

I'm going to put in the link for this program. If it doesn't work for you, I can email it.

http://www.theideadoor.com/Preparedness/3%20month%20supply%20on%20one%202%20sided%20page.pdf

The idea is to have 7 dinners, that your family likes, to rotate through the week, for 12 weeks (in our case we are going to work with 6 weeks to start with). You can use the list provided, or substitute any meals that your family likes. Mom doesn't care for refried beans, so we ditched the Bean Burrito Enchiladas and put in Chicken noodle soup, using our own canned broth with veggies and chicken already in it. Just add noodles!

What you see in the photo below is one of the meals, organized as a unit. TUNA CASSEROLE. Can't get much more simple than that, right? So on the program page, it lists the meal, the recipe, the list of what to get. We had home-canned tuna, which helped a bunch. Safeway had a great sale on soups and noodles. I dated the purchases, attached the "recipe" (who needs a recipe for Tuna Casserole?!), and put the items together on the pantry shelf for easy grabbing.


We also did Spaghetti and Sauce, home-canned Chicken Noodle Soup, and store-bought cans of Chili/Stew with crackers. So there we have four of the seven meals already on the shelf! How cool is that?!

The bonus of all this organizing fervor was that the pantry was totally cleaned and reshuffled to make best use of the shelving available. We cleared one shelf to await an order we are getting from the Church cannery in a few weeks. Staples such as flour, sugar, oatmeal, etc., in #10 cans.

We were raised, as mom and dad were, with growing gardens and canning a good supply of fruits, vegetables and meats. We also have a freezer full of meats, fruits and vegetables. Add some dry-goods like pasta, rice, gravy mixes, etc., and we have a very good supply of food items that we use daily and rotate through, to keep everything in good storage shape.

I got REALLY ambitious and labeled some categories on each shelf, for quick and easy reference to meal-making. I rarely have to ponder what to have for dinner!




From left to right: tuna, jam, chicken soup base, salmon, clams.

Left to Right: venison, peaches, pears, applesauce, green beans (from our garden !).

So my point of telling and showing all this, is that we ALL really DO need to have a healthy, carefully considered supply of foods on hand. For at least three months. If you can stretch to a year and have the storage space, go for it!

You are some of my most precious people in the world. I want you to feel the peace and comfort of being prepared as best you can. If you want/need more info on Emergency Preparedness, I would be delighted to send more information and links to help you out. We don't need to wait for something like an earthquake or war to make use of a comprehensive preparedness program.

Something as common as a job lay-off can demonstrate the value of such prepareness.

And don't forget - spiritual preparedness doesn't require shelf space.