Cost of Wasted Food and Water Storage

Why is it so important to "use what you store" and "store what you use?" When was the last time you threw away food you have stored? Has it been a week? A month? A year? If I asked you to take out a $20 bill and rip it up and throw it away, would you? Of course not! Yet, every time we throw away food from our food storage for any reason, it is essentially throwing money away. Not only that, it is a waste of food resources, time, energy, etc.

A. Loss of money—may cost more to replace today than it cost yesterday.

B. Security loss—if it is spoiled it cannot be eaten; what cannot get past the nose will not be eaten unless extreme starvation circumstances exist—thus no security.

C. Quality of food loss—food will never be fresher than it is the day it is stored.

D. Loss of self sufficiency—more dependent upon others.

The following attitudes and actions result in wasted foods. Food stored properly will be a source of security, preparedness, and aid in the management of available resources to the family.

• Saving food and water for use only in time of emergency.
• Storing what someone else outlines (not personalizing).
• Storing foods family does not like and or will not eat.
• Not rotating foods in storage.
• Not developing habits or using skills necessary to utilize storage.
• Placing storage in unaccessible locations.
• Placing storage in adverse storage conditions.

A "Food Storage" should be an extension of your pantry. Use it or lose it.

Preserving (Canning) Brown Sugar

Brown sugar doesn't last nearly as long as regular sugar in your food storage. If kept in its original bag, it will turn hard in a relatively short amount of time. You can buy brown sugar (C&H Brand- the good stuff) at Costco or Sam's for about $13 for a 25 pound bag. That makes it about 1/2 the cost of buying it at the grocery store. Here is a way to store brown sugar that will keep it as fresh as the day you bought it. What you will need, however, is a FoodSaver, and a mason jar attachment.




I purchase a 25 pound bag at a time of Brown Sugar from either Costco or Sam's.










My kids like to help put the brown sugar into jars. I pack it in tightly using a wooden tart press (you could use anything that fits down into the jar). Each quart jar holds about 2 pounds of brown sugar.









When the jar is full, wipe off the rim, so no sugar is on it. If there is sugar on the rim, the jar will not seal.










Put the lid on the jar (you do not need to do anything to the lid), and then put the jar attachment (seen here- can purchase on amazon.com, or get a a kitchen specialty store) over the whole top of the jar.










Plug into the FoodSaver and seal! The food saver extracts all of the oxygen out of the jar and seals the lid. When you open the jar when you are ready to use it, the brown sugar is as soft as the day you sealed it.





The finished product ready to go into my food storage room.

Powdered Milk Price Comparisons (per gallon)

As of 7-16-09, here are the different prices per gallon of powdered milk (reconstituted), when purchased at Macey's grocery store:

Country Fresh Farms: $4.88/gallon (ouch!)
Western Family Nonfat: $2.99/gallon
Morning Moo Chocolate: $2.40/gallon
Morning Moo Regular: $2.18/gallon
Country Cream: $2.20/gallon
LDS Cannery: $1.06/gallon (obviously purchased at LDS Cannery)

In a previous taste test, I actually preferred the Country Cream and LDS Church Cannery milk.

Powdered Milk Taste Test

At a class I attended on powdered milk, they had 6 different brands reconstituted (unmarked, so we could not tell what was what). They also had a pitcher (unmarked, of course) of real milk. We each sampled each milk, deciding if we thought:

• Was it instant?
• Was it real milk?
• Would you purchase it for drinking?
• What was the best tasting?
• What was the worst tasting?

We found out later that the brands used were: Carnation Instant (sold in boxes); Morning Moo Milk Alternative; Country Cream; LDS Church Cannery; Morning Moo Chocolate; and real, non powdered milk.

Everyone in the class was surveyed to see which they thought was best, and if they could tell the real milk. It was interesting to see that some people preferred one thing, others preferred something else. This is how I rated them:

1. Country Cream (Best Tasting)
2. The real milk (Funny that I thought Country Cream tasted better... I thought IT must be the real milk)
3. LDS Church Cannery
4. Morning Moo Chocolate Flavor
5. Morning Moo Regular Milk Flavor
6. Carnation Instant (Worst Tasting)

So, before spending a lot of money on your powdered milk, it might be a great idea to purchase several cans, make up a quart of each and have your family do a taste test. Whatever your family likes best should be what you store.

Just make sure you make it up the day before, and serve it refrigerated.

BYU Personal Finance

Budgeting and saving money are hobbies of mine. I am always on the look out for sound financial information to help me and my family be prepared financially. Since my husband is self employed, and income is irregular, it is especially important for me to be a wise steward over our finances. Luckily, there are so many resources to help. If you haven't checked out the BYU Personal Finance site, I highly recommend it. It is all free, and it has a wealth of information. Check it out!

Top 10 Reasons Why I Don't Have My Food Storage

I came across this and thought I would share..

Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't have Food Storage!

Top 10 Reasons Why I Don't Have My Food Storage.

by Wendy Dewitt

10. My neighbors have a TWO year supply! No, they don't. They don't have any food. Did you know that 85% of the members of the church don't have any food storage at all? If your idea of food storage is to eat someone else's food.....this is a really bad plan.

9. I've paid tithing for 20 years...the church can give me a little food. Many members believe that when the times get hard, the church is going to come through like Joseph in Egypt. Absolutely not true. All the church storehouses and welfare farms across the country would only feed 4% of the members of the church. The church has been asking YOU to store food for 75 years. They're NOT storing food for you. Thus, another bad plan.

8. I'm moving in with my children / parents! Really....that's just a bad plan all by itself. But it points out that most members don't have a year's supply because they're PLANNING on eating someone else's food! Of course, since no one HAS any food, we have yet another bad plan.

7. I have a year's supply...and the bullets to go with it! I've heard time and again, "How dumb is that to go to all the time and expense of getting food...just to have some guy with a gun come and shoot my family to take it away?" Here's a better question. Are you afraid of the guy with the gun? Or are you more afraid of BECOMING the guy with the gun? What would you do if your children were starving to death? Would you lie? Cheat? Steal? Would you shoot your neighbor for his food? I guarantee....if you were watching your child starving to death, you would do anything you had to to keep them alive. If you don't have your year's supply, you are putting yourself in danger of losing not only your temporal salvation, but your spiritual salvation as well.

So far, all the reasons we don't have our food storage involve eating someone else's food. Please, don't put your family's temporal salvation in other people's hands. No one is storing food for you. Not your neighbors, not the government...not even the church.

#6. The boat and the 4 wheelers are taking up all my storage space! (priorities!)

#5. 3 letters....Y2K. Ok, that's 2 letters and a number....but they're always making way too much out of everything! This is never going to happen!" (Every prophecy that has ever been given WILL happen.)

#4. If anything DOES happen, the government will be here within hours! (insert laughter) Did you know the government has been telling us that we need to have food storage? They're actually CALLING it food storage! We now have the government telling us to store food, water, medicines...whatever we will need to be able to stay in our homes for several months.

#3. I can't afford scrap booking AND food storage. The average food storage can cost as little as a dollar a day. We live in the richest society in the history of the world, and while there are cases where money may be a problem, most of the time it is a matter of priorities. We have chosen bigger homes, nicer cars, more tv's, computers, vacations ...everything is more important than our food storage. If I asked, "Who has a cell phone?" most of you would say yes. You pay at least $30 a month to have a cell phone....that's about a dollar a day...the cost of one year's supply of food for your child. Is your cell phone really more important than your child's temporal salvation? You have to make food storage a priority.

2. I'm waiting for the cannery to sell Papa John's dehydrated pizza! Food storage has always had a stigma attached to it. If it's not wheat, beans and powdered milk, it's not food storage. With the system I use, food storage can be sweet and sour chicken, tamale pie, chile and cornbread, beef stew, shepherd's pie, minestrone...even chocolate chip cookies! Your imagination (and your pocketbook) are the only limitations you have.

And the #1 reason why I don't have my year's supply of food? A year?? I thought it was 72 hours!!

You KNOW you should have your food storage. You WANT to have it, but it can be so overwhelming! How much do I buy? Where do I store it? How do I cook it? It seems like an impossible task.... but it's not. It doesn't matter if you use my system or just start buying extra food, the important thing is to do something. Good luck in your efforts! Wendy DeWitt

The Storage Area

Many people are blessed to have a nice, dark, cool area in their basements to store their supply of food. Not everyone is in that situation. When choosing where to store your food, several things are important to consider.

"The storage area should be located where the average temperature can be kept above 32°F and below 70°F. Remember that the cooler the storage area the longer the retention of quality and nutrients. Freezing of some items, such as canned products, should be avoided since the expansion of the food during freezing may rupture (metal) or break (glass) the container, or break the seal on lids on glass bottles, and allow the food to be contaminated. This could pose a serious safety risk when the food thaws. The storage area should be dry (less than 15 percent humidity), and adequately ventilated to prevent condensation of moisture on packaging material. The area should be large enough so that shelves can accommodate all of the stored food and adequate space is available to keep the area clean and tidy. A 9 x 12 foot room with 10 foot ceilings will provide adequate space for a family of six to store an 18 month supply of food. Food should not be stored on the floor. It is a good idea to have the lowest shelf 2-3 feet off the floor in flood prone areas. Shelves should be designed so that a simple rotation system can effectively allow the oldest food to be used first and the newest food to be held within the shelf-life period.

When designing and building a food storage area, do it to minimize areas where insects and rodents can hide. As practical, seal all cracks and crevices. Eliminate any openings which insects or rodents may use to gain entrance to the storage area. Electrical equipment such as freezers, furnaces and hot water heaters should not be housed in the storage area. These appliances produce heat, unnecessarily increasing storage temperatures. Insulation of the storage area from other areas of the house will effectively reduce the average yearly temperature of the food."

Source: Charlotte P. Brennand, PhD, and Deloy G. Hendricks, PhD, Department of Nutrition & Food Sciences, USU

If ideal circumstances do not exist in your home for your storage space, consider storing under the bed (cooler, and darker), in coat closets, or anywhere where the temperature is cooler. The temperature is the main ingredient in maintaining quality food storage.

Homemade Tortillas

My family LOVES tortillas (not the premade, packaged gross kind), but the ones from Costco that you bake yourself. Whenever I bought the packages of them at Costco (about $7 for a pack), we ate them within a week. A couple of months ago after a lunch at Cafe Rio (I visit them about every week), I remembered that I had a great recipe for tortillas that tasted much like the Cafe Rio ones. After finding the recipe, I made them. It had been a while since I had made them! They were soooo good! My family decided that they tasted better than the Costco cook yourself kind, and as good as Cafe Rio! Well, since that day, we have been making tortillas a couple times a week. Not only do they taste fantastic, they are very, very cheap to make. Even better! This is a great way to use your food storage! You can use whole wheat flour (for 1/2 the amount of the flour) if you desire. Pair these with some home-canned chicken mixed with taco seasoning (post on how to can your own meat coming), home canned black beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and sour cream, and you have a super yummy, inexpensive meal!

Tortillas
4 cups flour (can use 2 cups whole wheat if desired)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup oil

Mix in Kitchen Aid with wire beater until all of the oil is incorporated- mixture will look like crumbs. (I did mine in the food processor). Add 1 1/2 cups HOT water. Continue mixing with the dough hook until ball is formed. (If using food processor, mix until ball is formed as well). Let dough knead in mixer for 1-2 minutes. Divide dough into large golf ball sized balls. Cover blobs of dough with towel and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Roll out. Don't worry if they aren't perfect circles, they never are. Cook on dry, medium heat in pan until bubbles form on the tortilla, then turn over and continue cooking until done.


Blobs of dough, sitting for 10-15 minutes







Roll out dough into circles. Roll them as thin as you can, the dough is very elastic.








Cook on medium-hot griddle (ungreased!) for 10-20 seconds until bubbles form.








Turn over and finish cooking (another 10-20 seconds).







The finished product. You won't be able to eat just one. :)

Food Storage You Tube Video

Here is a great 3 minute video with prophetic statements to get you motivated to start, continue and use your food storage. Click here to view. Enjoy.

Dry Bean Equivalent

Most recipes call for cooked beans. If you are rotating your dry bean supply, the following equivalents may be helpful:

15-oz can beans = 1 1/2 cooked beans, drained
1 pound dry beans =5- 6 cups cooked beans, drained
1 pound dry beans = 2 cups dry beans
1 cup dry beans = 3 cups cooked beans, drained
2/3 cup of dry beans cooks up to 1 (15 oz) can of cooked beans.

Happy Cooking! Remember, changing the water that the beans were soaked in helps eliminate gas!