Filling the Food Storage Shelves

It's no secret that Mormons are the champions of food storage - in closets, under beds, every nook and cranny - we even know how to make furniture with the uniformly-sized boxes from the Bishop's Storehouse!

Long a principle of our family stewardship, food storage is encouraged to provide not just for catastropic events, but for the increasingly common loss-of-job scenario, or for possible loss of income due to long-term illness, adult kids having to return to the nest for a bit, food becoming so expensive it's difficult to provide for outselves, etc. Just the ordinary events of our modern lives that can impact income and ability to feed the family.

We are counseled to build a deep storage of basic items such as wheat, rice, pasta, beans, augmented by sugar, oil, salt and then whatever we deem necessary for our family. A year's storage is ideal, but sometimes a more do-able goal is for a month, or three months. Whatever you can work on. The trick is - don't wait. Begin now, even if it's just buying two cans of cream of chicken soup instead of one, and tuck that extra one on the shelf.

I just taught a fun short class on starting a basic practical food storage built upon what your family eats daily. We're encouraged not to wait until the emergency to begin using our storage items, so we will know how to cook with stuff like whole wheat. You don't want to scare the children with strange food!

Recently mom and I were able to add to our stores by canning some of our chosen items. The church has home canning equipment in the form of #10 cans and the gadget to seal lids on them. Our local branch took bulk orders of goods, and brought the machine from the storehouse in Oregon City to the coast. This once-a-year project helped many of us increase our provisions.

We are grateful for our generous friends Carl and Cheryl Boucher who always offer their space to set up, fetch the hundreds of pounds of food and equipment from the storehouse, and help each of us with the canning.

Some of the goods can be purchased already canned, from the storehouse. We can buy large amounts of bulk items either from the storehouse, which has the best prices and great quality of products, or find our own sources for special items. We wanted to have Krusteaz Pancake mix, which only requires water - a good buy in large sacks at Costco. Transferred to cans, with a desiccant packet, it will keep for a lot longer. We found basmati rice for a good price in 25-pound sacks at the local Mexican market. It pays to shop around!

So now we have a number of cases, holding 6 cans each - easy to stack and store. We also have a good supply of our "everyday" type meal storage in the kitchen pantry. Our garden is providing fresh greens, peas, root veggies, onions, green beans, and with fingers crossed hopefully ripe tomatoes before long!

It's a good feeling, to know we have provided for ourselves, and our neighbors if necessary, come a time of need.

We have been taught a true principle, and see the value of it daily.