Thursday, August 6, 2009

The Monster in Your Closet, Under Your Bed, and Serving as a Nightstand.

Is it just me, or does food storage seem to be an ever present "boogey man" literally lurking in your closet? Because my mind has a talent of imagining worst case scenarios, food storage has always been an important goal for me. My ultimate goal being the underground "grocery store" in the 1999 movie Blast From the Past. But, the whole thing is a daunting task to figure out, organize, and make happen.
For the first few years of our marriage, our food storage/disaster preparation inventory consisted of canned peaches, canned corn, and a Yankee Candle. Over the last few years, I've gotten more serious and added various long term storage foods available at your friendly cannery. Gifts from our parents like a wind-up radio, wheat grinder, and 72 hour kit backpacks have helped round out our disaster preparation gear. But we still have a long way to go. I feel like my efforts are still a bit willy-nilly. And moving homes has proved that I usually have a false sense of confidence concerning what we have.
Since I assume everybody feels the same way I do (and judging from my recent poll, both of you do), I thought I'd share some helpful resources that have made building my food storage more practical, easier and attainable.

  • "Provident Living" is a resource available from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that focuses on finding self reliance in different areas our life. As you can imagine, this includes Food Storage. Here is an article explaining the basic concept of food storage and how to start it.
  • "Everything Under the Sun" by Wendy DeWitt. Wendy De Witt is a food storage genius. She is a celebrity in my mind. She has not only figured out a very common sense and systematic approach to food storage, but is sharing that approach with everybody! This pamphlet includes her system, instructions on how to bottle meat (No joke. It looks like a pathology lab specimen, but you would have REAL, cooked meat during an emergency. And it lasts up to 3 years on the shelf.), food storage tips, and a ton of recipes using food storage items. (My favorite tip is substituting unflavored gelatin for eggs. No chicken necessary). She also has a very informative fireside that you can find on YouTube.
  • "Food Storage Made Easy" is a website that a friend just recently told me about. It is awesome! It breaks down the whole process into 10 "baby steps" and even has excel sheets to help you work out what you need. You can even sign up to have newsletters emailed to you. Very cool.
Do you know of any other resources or tips to help climb Mt. Food Storage?

2 comments:

  1. The beauty of the Yankee candle in the food storage is that even if you have no food it will still smell like it. The neighbor will say,"I'm starving and it smells like they're enjoying Cinnamon Applesause and Almond Cookies." You'll be the envy of your starving neighborhood. It's kind of like the food storage version of credit card debt.

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  2. Hey. Whatever it takes to create a false appearance of possession and envy from my neighbors. It actually sounds like a scheme that the sad "Glade" woman might think up.

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