2 year supply of food?

[msta999]

I was talking to my back doc, when I mentioned I was doing my first raised veggie garden, she said she grewup in Utah and the way of life down there is to have a 2 yr supply of food. most of which is raised in the garden or livestock and then canned. Anyone else doing something simmilar? I never bothered to ask her, but how do you store "2 years" worth of food? Seems like you would have to have a building dedicated to just stored food. Then if you had freezers in there, you would have the added cost of electricity. Just wondering if this is only a Morman thing. She said her family wasn't Mormans, but that it was just a way of life down there.

[WileyCoyote]

LOL Msta, mormons store canned goods and grain. They can meats and vegies, fruits and even spices. They use vinegar and oil to preserve their spices too. Food Storage is a BIG thing with Mormons; they even have their own gardens, vineyards, etc where every year the Mormon women go to can the produce, get to keep a portion, and put the rest in food storage for the Church to be given out during the year to needy members.
They are really big into drying things. In the humid areas, they have garbage cans lined with trash bags; they put the wheat in, throw in a CO2 cartridge and slam the lid shut tight. This keeps the bugs and moldy air out. In drier areas they just have the trash cans - 50 to 100 lbs of wheat - stored in their garages or basements. They have their own grinders and make their own bread from this wheat, keeping it circulating so that it is never more than 3 years old.
Mormons have been predicting the SHTF for over 100 years.

[Deberosa]

Once when house hunting in Denver we went through the house of a Mormon. The basement was amazing. Half was a pantry but it also had a hidden room!!! You rotated a regular bookcase and behind it was a separate room! You would never know it was there.

[Shamrock1121]

A supply of food isn't necessarily a "Mormon thing". I'm not Mormon and I've utilized the practice for many years now because it made good sense.

You just need one emergency to make you glad you can feed yourself. All it takes is a loss of income or unexpected expenses (medical for instance) and your emergency money can go towards something besides feeding you.

I've built up the stored food in a room in our basement over a period of time. Even now I only have a $50 a week food budget for 2 adults and I purchase large quantities of grain each year. I always purchase a year's supply of Morning Moo's (a whey-based milk substitute), #10 cans of dried whole eggs, powdered butter, powdered peanut butter, etc.

This is a nice little plan that you can adapt for minimal expense: 1-Year Supply on $5/Week

http://www.themormonchannel.net/tmc/1yrfor5.html

I tend to stick with whole foods and avoid a bunch of commercial "junk food" that's on most Food Lists. For instance.... I have large amounts of grains/seeds/beans in storage. Because I mill my own flour and know how to make things from scratch, I don't have a lot of dried pasta in storage because I can easily make it from scratch. I don't store commercial "mixes" - I don't use them because I make my own.

I make my own dried mixes for "instant" soup mixes. I can mill pinto beans (or black beans) and make "instant" refried bean by mixing the bean flour with water and cooking it for 7-8 minutes.

A great book on the subject is "The NEW Passport to Survival" 12 Steps to Self-Sufficient Living - by Rita Bingham. She has a Storage Foods Target. The most important things are in the middle:

Grains/Legumes/Seeds (for sprouting)

Then the next important:
Dry Milk, Oil (I choose coconut oil because it has the longest shelf life and is one of the best fats for you), Salt, Honey (I use Agave Nectar which is a low-glycemic honey-like natural sweetner - it also has a better shelf-life than honey.

Then once you have those basics in storage, you fill it with everything else:

baking supplies, fruits, veggies, meats, eggs, nuts and nut butters, pasta, juices, seasonings/Flavorings, Supplements.

It's better to have a smaller supply of a large variety of foods, rather than to be sitting on 500 pounds of wheat and very little else.

I also keep a supply of seeds for gardening.

-Karen

[Penny_Plinker]

Karen, I looked at the Morning Moo ite. Do you get the dried milk in cans or in the 50# bag and if so how do you re-package it?


Penny

[msta999]

Thanks Shamrock, very cool plan.

[Shamrock1121]

Karen, *I looked at the Morning Moo ite. *Do you get the dried milk in cans or in the 50# bag and if so how do you re-package it?


Penny

Penny -

When I can find someone to share it with, I'll get a 50# bag because that's the bargain. I just store it in 1/2-gallon canning jars that I vacuum-seal with the jar attachment on my FoodSaver. It would also keep in any airtight plastic containers with a lid. I keep a layer of of white papertowels in the top of any I keep in a bucket or plastic food container to help absorb any moisture that gets in. I fill a container (an old #10 can) and only open the large container as needed to refill the can. Just be sure to store it in a cool, dry area of the house.

Normally I get the 24# bucket. I also keep 6 (or more) of the #10 cans in storage because they have a very long shelf-life since they are hermetically sealed, and I consider them "emergency" stock. I rotate them by giving them to my daughter to use for "milk" for my granddaughter, who is lactose intolerant.

If you can get it in the 50# bags, it's sooooooo cheap.

I've used a whey-based milk substitute of one brand or another for 27 years.

-Karen

[Penny_Plinker]

I'm trying to use more powdered milk, partly because fresh milk keeps raising. Probably have a hard time using 50 lbs or even 24 lbs. I bought the large box of Walmart Great Value that makes 20 quarts. Plan was to mix it half and half with whole milk but hubby says he's not drinking it in his coffee. But, i made some of the swiss mocho mix like is on the Hillbilly Housewife site and he can't get enough of that! I like your idea of using the paper towels on top of the jars of powder for storing.

On the site that tells how to store a year's food supply on $5/week...It's a starting point, but i'd have to make several changes. For one thing, 240 lbs of sugar in a year seems excessive. We probably don't use 20 lbs of pure sugar a year, and much of that goes to hummingbird food. I'd also want WAY more tuna and peanutbutter, of course, that'd run over the $5/week. Maybe the sugar is to make the cooked wheat more palatable?

Penny

[Shamrock1121]

I'm trying to use more powdered milk, partly because fresh milk keeps raising. *Probably have a hard time using 50 lbs or even 24 lbs. *I bought the large box of Walmart Great Value that makes 20 quarts. *Plan was to mix it half and half with whole milk but hubby says he's not drinking it in his coffee. *But, i made some of the swiss mocho mix like is on the Hillbilly Housewife site and he can't get enough of that! *I like your idea of using the paper towels on top of the jars of powder for storing.

On the site that tells how to store a year's food supply on $5/week...It's a starting point, but i'd have to make several changes. * For one thing, 240 lbs of sugar in a year seems excessive. *We probably don't use 20 lbs of pure sugar a year, and much of that goes to hummingbird food. *I'd also want WAY more tuna and peanutbutter, of course, that'd run over the $5/week. *Maybe the sugar is to make the cooked wheat more palatable?

Penny


You may actually like the taste of Morning Moo's a lot more than non-fat dry powdered milk. Morning Moo's tastes nearly like commercial store milk and I'm betting your husband won't even know it's there if you mix it with regular milk. The stories I could tell about people who didn't know the difference.... ;)

I use a 24# bucket with only two adults in the house. I have a bunch of recipes I've posted over at The Gulch in the Chuck-Wagon section using a whey-based milk substitute or powdered milk. Not sure if this link will work or not...
http://thegulch.proboards102.com/index.cgi?board=emergencyfoodstocks&action=display &thread=4599

The $5/Week Storage is just a guideline and shows people how little money they can commit to food storage in order to build one over the space of a year. You'll never get wheat at the prices they are talking about - those days are gone.... :( at least for awhile. The plan also lacks any fruits/veggies and all important fat (coconut oil for me, as well as powderred butter). You need to store all 4 food groups to stay healthy.

I'm like you, we don't use sugar so that much would be a waste. I get a 4# bag around Christmas to make a batch of fudge and that's about it. I keep small amounts of natural sugar - turbanido, maple sugar, and sucanat on hand but don't use it very often. Otherwise I use agave nectar, which I have at least 1-years worth in storage.

I never buy macaroni and cheese because we never eat it. I can also make the macaroni and I have powdered cheese in storage should I get the urge.

I make my own "Cream of Mushroom" soup mix, so I'd store the ingredients, rather than cans of it. But I use it in so few things that I'd need very little of it.

I usually only keep 6-months of peanut butter in stock. I know we generally use one 16-oz. jar a month. When it's on sale, I always check the use-by date. More often than not, the use-by date is much closer than 6 months away (which is probably why it's a loss leader), so I purchase and store by use-by dates. For emergency storage, I keep peanut butter powder because it has a longer shelf-life than jars of peanut butter.

Here are some things I make with wheat, and I don't need sugar to make any of them palatable :D.

1. Whole wheat flour - for all cooking and baking
2. Bulgur (from cooked and dried wheat)
3. Cream of Wheat (cooked cereal - I mill my own)
4. Homemade noodles/pasta from freshly-milled durum wheat.
5. Wheat sprouts
6. Wheat grass
7. Rolled Wheat Flakes (I mill my own flakes.)
8. Cracked Wheat (make my own)
9. Cooked whole wheat berries (which can be added to breads, salads, and made into wheat nuts for snacking on.
10. Gluten - you can extract the gluten by washing whole wheat flour in water and can use the gluten to make "fake" meat. It can also be used as a meat extender (use 1/4 ground meat and the rest ground gluten), as a cold cereal, as a crunchy topping, and it can even be made into candies.

Check your local library for:

- "The Amazing Wheat Book" by LeArta Moulton.
- "Cookin' with Home Storage" by Peggy Layton
- "Natural Meals in Minutes" by Rita Bingham (good ideas on how to use powdered milk)
- "Wheat Cookin' Made Easy" by Pam Crockett

-Karen

[Penny_Plinker]

Thanks, Karen. Your recipes look good, i saved them in favorites.

Penny

[RNMOM]

This was a great thread. No laying in a good supply of food isn't just a Mormon thing, however, we do seem to do pretty well with it. You can go to a dry pack cannery that are located all over the country and dry pack can foods there for the cost of the cans. It's a great deal. Just go to www.providentliving.org to find a cannery near where you all might live.

I don't buy storage that I don't use, but in my earlier years I did and it makes me sick to think of the stuff I threw away.

A book I found that has hundreds of recipes using basic food storage is "Marlene's Magic with Food Storage". She's got recipes in there of how to make butter with your powdered milk. This is the only way she has ever cooked is with a basic supply of food. My copy was 1996, I'm sure it's still available out there.

What I did do for getting my food storage that has been helpful for me was to buy my basic supply first and then start buying the extras to make things taste a bit better and give variety. Now that I've got a good supply I just keep up with everything, buying items on sale and stocking up then.

[RNMOM]

Sorry after I posted I realized I didn't give the name of the author.
It's Marlene Petersen and I found several copies on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Marlenes-Magic-Storage-Marlene-Peterson/dp/B0012FJCQ0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209502551&sr=1-2