Tag: Food Storage

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Humor: Mormon Hoarder Friends

Ok, Here in Utah we like to poke fun at our own dominant religion (of which I am a member).  One blogger had a great post today that I had to share with the Prepper community.  For those who are LDS, it’s great to laugh at ourselves a little.  For those not LDS but preppers too, well you’ll realize that your ‘oddities’ fit in pretty well with us.  Head on over and read ‘The Jet Set’ take on Why You Should Have a Mormon Friend: Hoarder Edition

For anybody who does have questions, come on back and read more.  And yes, the LDS Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) does actually teach to have at least a 3 month storage of regular use items, and has consistently taught that you should have 1-2 years of more long-term storage.

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Do We Learn from Others’ Mistakes?

History and hindsight allow us the opportunity of learning and improving. But we must decide whether or not we will learn from the past — from our mistakes and those of others — to plan for a better future.

We saw disaster strike in Katrina, and saw the hordes of people suffering, starving, and sleeping in the stadium. Looters went after such unsustainable items as beer and potato chips, rushing in a frenzy to find whatever they could to “survive” until things blew over.

As one example of many, consider the following news report of the massive looting that took place after the hurricane had hit:

Continue reading “Do We Learn from Others’ Mistakes?”

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Losing your storage to disaster

Haitians Retrieve Deceased from Collapsed Building by United Nations Photo.
Photo Via Flickr User un_photo

Recently we had a reader ‘Lonnie’ write in with the following excellent question, that I’ve heard asked in other forms too;

Was thinking about the earthquake in Haiti, and if that happened along the wasatch front. I live in Utah county in a 2 story home with a basement. My food storage is in my basement. What if the earthquake totally destroys my house and my food storage is buried under the rubble of what was my house? It won’t do me any good when I can’t GET TO IT! Any suggestions on mitigating that problem?

Well Lonnie, it looks like I’m finally going to get around to addressing your question, and hopefully in a helpful manner. Continue reading “Losing your storage to disaster”

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Got Old Oil in Your Food Storage in Utah or Southern Idaho?

Want to donate some to a study on food storage oils at BYU?  I love food storage experiments, so you know I’m letting them have some of my old stuff.  If you’d like to help out the oil study, see the details here.  They are looking for vegetable oils that have been in food storage 6 months to 5 years.  Right now my oldest oil in storage is only 2 1/2 years old.  Bummer.  I’ve had older stuff before I would have loved to donate.  Anyway, contact Ann Saunders at BYU if you’ve got some old oil they can experiment on. :)

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Making Canned Milk Products from Powdered Milk

sweetened condensed milkWhen I started storing food, I thought it would be a good idea to store forms of canned milk like evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.  I bought quite a few cans and have used most of them over the years.  However, I only have two recipes I regularly make that call for evaporated milk, and one that calls for sweetened condensed milk, so I did not use every can I purchased before they expired.  Continue reading “Making Canned Milk Products from Powdered Milk”

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LDS Home Storage Center prices changing in January

The LDS Home Storage Centers will be changing their prices 16 January 2010. They will also be closed from noon on 19 December through 4 January. Prices will be going both up and down, depending on the product; so, depending on what you need, you might want to buy now, or wait until just after the new year.  Click through to see the summary, and to get a copy of the new pricing. Continue reading “LDS Home Storage Center prices changing in January”

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Country Living Mill Group Buy

country living millYou all know why you need a wheat grinder.  There’s only so much you can do with all the wheat in your long term storage if you can’t grind it into flour.  So just in time for the holidays we’ve got a special buy on the Country Living Grain Mill.  This is a hand crank grain mill that is built in the USA of industrial grade components and has a lifetime warranty.  It is relatively easy to crank as far as hand grain mills go.  My small kids can grind flour with it.  You can check out my full review, and see videos of the mill in action on my blog post here. Continue reading “Country Living Mill Group Buy”

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Procrastinating the Day of Preparedness

(Cross-posted from my blog; for anybody wondering who Alma is that I reference at the bottom, it’s from a book of scripture from my religion—FYI)


photo credit: Michelle Cordes

Fancy televisions. 4-wheelers. Boats. Video game systems. Fancy clothing and jewelry. These and a slew of other material objects are some of the distractions by which people refuse to prepare themselves and their families for the storms on the horizon. In our culture of consumerism, instant gratification is a given; rarely do people acquire an adequate supply of goods to see them through troubled times.

This perpetual mode of procrastination has ill effects felt not only by those making such choices, but by those around them as well. Of course, those in this narrow state of mind do not even consider the consequences of their choices, let alone how they might affect others. Their focus on the here and now blinds them of any need to reflect on the future. A constant stream of entertainment pacifies them into a brain-numbing trance where, like the drug addict looking for the next fix, their cares take no thought of distant events.

Continue reading “Procrastinating the Day of Preparedness”

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Canned butter and cheese group buy

I am organizing a group buy on Red Feather Brand canned butter and cheese. The price is $3.00 per can for the cheese and $4.50 per can for the butter and can be ordered by the can or the case of 36. These prices are a dollar less than anywhere I have found. Orders of twenty cases or more will be shipped to your home free of charge. All other orders will be available for pick-up in South Jordan or Lehi. Orders will be accepted until midnight Monday, 26 October and should be submitted by email. Payment must be submitted by midnight Wednesday, 28 October at by cash or check.

Continue reading “Canned butter and cheese group buy”

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Food storage short-life supply

food-storage-photo
Jud Burkett, The Spectrum

I believe that there are two types of food storage: short-life and long-life. The difference is shelf-life. Note that it’s not short-term; the factor is how long the food can be stored, not the length of emergency it’s for. I believe that you should complete your short-life storage first because these are things that you are used to eating, used to cooking, are more interesting, and are generally more nutritious. Where the ratio between short-life and long-life falls depends on the length of time you plan to store against, the types of food you eat, and the methods you use for preservation.

The first step to improving (or starting) your food storage is to dispel the misconception that food storage is an emergency tool to be stowed away safely until the unforeseen day it is needed. A “2 person gourmet package” tucked away in the crawl space is better than nothing, but listening to your children cry because you can’t figure out how to rehydrate ingredients to make a meal or suffering from appetite fatigue isn’t what I called being prepared. Why store powdered eggs before real eggs? Potato flakes before real potatoes? MREs before peanut butter and jelly? Pinto beans before pasta sauce? You can’t just pour milk on a bowl full of wheat. Continue reading “Food storage short-life supply”

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72 Hour Kit Rotation

Many products and services bill themselves as a “set it and forget it” way of getting things done. Adequate preparedness, however, clashes with this approach. Knowledge fades, food spoils, and medicine expires. One of the most important aspects of preparedness, then, is a refresh or rotation of your supplies or knowledge.

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (like many people in Utah). Why do I mention that on this blog? Well, every six months our Church has a huge conference over two days. Since it’s such a frequent and expected event, I (like many others of whom I’m aware) have used the weekend as an easy reminder for me to rotate my supplies. Specifically, I rotate the food in my 72 hour kit (I refer to it as a “bugout bag” since it’s got more goodies than your average kit) and one of my water tanks.

This may be fairly basic for many, but here’s what I did for our bugout bags:

Continue reading “72 Hour Kit Rotation”