In which I request that all my Christmas gifts be food items
Posted by Isabel on November 2nd, 2009. Filed under: Addictions, Churchy Stuff.Let’s just get this out of the way right now:
I don’t think the End Of The World is happening any time soon. I don’t believe in “The Rapture” or something similar to that.
For Christmas this year I’ve requested only food storage items as gifts. I talking about 25lbs bags of flour and wheat and cases of soup and Mac & Cheese. I’m talking about enough toilet paper to keep our butts clean for months and powder milk.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints have long been advised to have some food and money stored. The official word from the Church says; “We encourage members world-wide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings.” I’ve been a member of this church my entire life. I’ve watched my mom and aunts and grandma keep a supply of food storage in their basements, garages or pantries. The first thing my dad did upon moving into a new house was to build shelves for our food storage in the basement.
My dad was hurt on the job when I was a kid and thus unable to work for about a year. No income means no money for food. During that time we were all thankful for the food storage supply my mom had built up for us in our basement. My uncle was also hurt on the job and decided to totally change careers. He went to college and during that time his family enjoyed the fruits of my aunt’s food storage labors.
The King and I have been married almost ten years now and we have absolutely no food storage. We made a recent run to Costco, so we’re set for the next week as far as fruit and tortillas go. But try as you might, you can not survive on strawberry burritos for long. We have this lovely (and empty) garage just screaming to have shelves built and filled with cans of beans and potato flakes.
So I asked The King to build me shelves and I asked our families to buy me cases of food for Christmas.
(This is what I hope my garage looks like soon!)
I’d like to start my food storage small and work towards something a little more “long term”. The church suggests you start with a three-month supply; “Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.”
I guess that means I need to keep track of food items we typically use and then just buy more of them. Slowly. We’re also going to have to find a way to store drinking water so we won’t have to drink the water in our toilets.
Come Christmas morning I hope to be happily opening cases of canned goods and placing them on my new garage shelves. And then next time* The King is laid off, we can continue to eat like kings from our food storage.
So tell me, do any of you have food storage? Any suggestions for someone like me who is just starting out?
*God forbid this happens again
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
That’s a cool idea. I think it would be hard to keep track of which items are coming up on expirations, though I bet starting around the holidays is a great time, and if you haven’t used it before the next holiday season (canned goods seem to last a couple of years, right?) then you could always donate them to food pantries and such – BEFORE their expiration of course.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I got a few of those month long kits from the cannery so that we started out with three months of food for each of us. Then I started adding things that were more interesting as I could. Frankly, I haven’t done much to add to it since we were in school (and thus mega poor) and now that we’re in a tiny apartment, I haven’t added much either. I’m hoping to do some more work on it in a year or so.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I keep big ol’ bags of rice in the freezer, and I always buy an extra bag of dried pinto beans. Beans and rice are the foods that we eat the most of, and it’s always nice to know there’s extra when we need it. I’d like to develop a more long-term storage system, though.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 am
We put the date purchased on all can/jar products so that way I know which is oldest. When putting away groceries I put the newer stuff at the back and that way I constantly use the older stuff up first.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:09 am
I started with spaghetti sauce. Kinda dumb, but I would buy 2 or 3 instead of 1 each time I grocery shopped until I had 12. Then I went on to peanut butter. I’ve added noodles and some canned food items, mac & cheese, hamburger helper. Once you start it’s hard to not buy extra and stuff it away. Now that I’ve got some stuff built up, I’ve moved to buying the big cans (like cannery cans, but ones I get at Walmart) of stuff like powedered chocolate & reg milk, biscuits powder, potato soup. It feels awesome to have a supply. I don’t know if I have a 3 month supply or not, but I rarely am totally out of basic items anymore. I also hit the case lot sales. I don’t go crazy, but I get some extra. I figure you have to start small and work up.
Good job for getting started! good luck.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Does this mean the King is back to work? I have been out of town for awhile, but I hope so!!!
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I’m not LDS, but I like keeping a fully stocked pantry in case of emergencies and not just the basics for that week. We purchase a lot of our non-perishables at Sam’s Club or Walmart so that we can afford 4 cans of tuna vs only 1 at Whole Foods. Coupons and rainchecks are awesome too. They take a little more time but the savings make it worth it.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I’m with Melissa. The King has a new job???!! Yae! Really? How did I miss this? I’m not LDS but I think that Mormons have some very good ideas and practices and I have about 2 months worth of food in the house. Hardest part is the rotation thing. And finding space in my tiny abode for all that water. Yeesh. But I love that picture of the food storage. What a comfort to just know you can feed your family regardless of whatever else happens.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Weird, how did you get a picture of my Mother In Law’s food storage room for your blog? Huh.
I’m going to ask for a running skirt for Christmas and an Amazon gift certificate to buy MP3s & books. Hopefully next year I’ll have my own garage or basement to fill with food. Yay!
November 4th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Stocking up foord is smart.
Watch out for the sodium ans sugars on canned foods though. Maybe you can find someone local who cans their own jams and jellies – I am trolling Craigslist right now for that one! Homemade blueberry jam is the one thing I always try and fined!
November 4th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I have been collecting pasta and pasta sauce, rice, flour, and cans of tuna or veggies. I buy a little bit at a time, an extra can or two here, an extra three of four when they’re on sale. It’s comforting to know that I can feed myself for a while if things get really bad.
Also–may I suggest investing in an extra can opener or two, no sense in having cans and cans of food with no way to open it, ya know, when the Hard Times come and the grocery stores and left as piles of rubble. ;o)
xox
November 5th, 2009 at 5:11 am
This falls firmly into the “Isabel is the awesome ambassador of the LDS church” category. I had no idea that your church advocated food storage.
When I was living in DC not too long after 9/11, during the anthrax scare, I started trying to store food and water, but I didn’t have a system or a plan or adequate storage.
Now I just have crap that I overbought at randome points in time.
But having lived in a place like DC through those things, I believe in having both an emergency plan and emergency supplies. The plan includes maps etc in the car, meetup locations if you have to evacuate and aren’t together, and easy-to-pack evacuation luggage/supplies.
Does your church have any guides? Or should I just come back here and read all the advice you get?
November 5th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Have you checked out Costco lately? We just got a new one close to us and now I don’t know how I survived without it, even though we are just a family of three. It’s like the Target of wholesale stores. What I like is that they have a lot of organics, the store brand Kirkland is good, a lot of times they package together several regular sized items instead of just having one gigantic portion, and they have great coupons.
I have built up my pantry without even meaning to.
Plus, your family can just get you a membership and some gift cards to save on shipping and wrapping.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:32 am
I love this. It’s like an emergency fund for your belly! And what an innovative idea, to marry it with Christmas. You’ll have to take photos of you get!