“Food Storage for Smaller Families”: We wanted to find some ideas for those who have limited space or money and who may feel overwhelmed with the notion of food storage. This article from LDS Living magazine has some helpful tips on starting small and getting creative with limited space. A little food storage is better than none at all! If you are single, newly married, living in a small space, or on a limited budget, this article is worth a read. (p.s. Even though this is in an LDS magazine, the advice is useful regardless of your religious beliefs.)

The Damsel in Dis Dress (you know already she’s clever by that title) shares her “New Old School” tips. A great site full of helpful information, lots of lovely pictures, and a fun writing style. We also love the fact that she’s connecting us with what she has learned from women before her, including her mother and grandmother. Now a grandmother herself, she’s keeping the lessons alive.

Safely Gathered In: This site was created by a woman who had the simple desire to be helpful to the women in her ward congregation. (Her current calling is to help the sisters with home preparedness.) Be sure to browse through the recipes — complete with lots of great pictures! (For anyone with a garden overflowing with zucchini, she’s got some ideas for how to use it.)

Food Storage Made Easy: Follow along with Jodi and Julie as they teach you what they’re learning about emergency preparedness and food storage, one BabyStep at a time.  They have even created numerous videos.

Everyday Food Storage: Get great ideas about how to include food storage foods in your everyday cooking. Includes a broad variety of recipes that use both shorter-term and longer-term food storage items.

Find other preparedness links (including videos) in this previous article on our site.

The post Links We Like: Food Storage and Preparedness appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

If you’ve spent a lot of time around Mormons, you’ve likely heard them talk about food storage. Maybe you’ve wondered, “Why do Mormons store food?”  Is it because we are doomsdayers who believe that the end of the world is right around the corner and we’re all going to have to hunker down in our basements and survive on cans of tuna and Tang?

It’s true, food storage could be used in the event of a major global catastrophe, but that is not the only reason why prophets all through the ages have counseled us in this way.  In a General Conference address given in October 2002, President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

I do not predict any impending disaster. I hope that there will not be one. But prudence should govern our lives. Everyone who owns a home recognizes the need for fire insurance. We hope and pray that there will never be a fire. Nevertheless, we pay for insurance to cover such a catastrophe, should it occur.  We ought to do the same with reference to family welfare.

Church leaders have always counseled members to become self-sufficient—to be prepared to meet the challenges of life.  We’ve been counseled to get out of debt and live within our means, to prepare families and neighborhoods for natural disasters (which really do occur frequently all over the world) and yes, to build a long-term supply of food storage.

Even if you’re not a Mormon, having a long-term supply of food you can eat is a good idea.  Though most people haven’t experienced a natural disaster big enough for the movies, there are plenty of situations that occur every day in which food storage would be a huge asset, such as unemployment, injury, or illness.  Surely no one needs to be reminded of the thousands of people today who are losing their jobs and their homes in a tumultuous economy.  Families facing tough times can have an extra sense of stability and confidence if they are able to keep food on the table without appealing to others for help.  President Thomas S. Monson said, “Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had their… supply of food… and were debt free.  Today we find that many have followed this counsel in reverse: they have at least a year’s supply of debt and are food-free.” (“That Noble Gift — Love at Home,” Church News, May 12, 2001, 7, quoted in “Family Home Storage: A New Message,” Ensign, Mar 2009, 56–60.)

Though this is not a primary motivation for most people to store food, my husband and I like to look at our food storage as something of a financial investment.  When food prices are rising rapidly (as they have in recent years) the money we’ve used to buy food storage seems to generate higher returns than money we have in a high-interest savings account.

Perhaps the most important reason for storing food is that doing so will bring a sense of peace to us and our families.  Members of the Church can take comfort in the fact that they have followed the counsel of those whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators and that their best efforts will be magnified in times of crisis.  And anyone—Mormon or not—can take comfort in knowing that no matter what challenges they face in life, they’ll never have to send their children to bed with empty stomachs.

What exactly does the term “food storage” describe?

In February of 2007, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the pamphlet All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage [available in numerous languages] which outlines a few basic guidelines for building a home storage supply and a financial reserve:

–Three-Month Supply: Build a small supply of foods that your family regularly eats.  This food should be rotated often to ensure freshness.

–Drinking Water: Store enough drinking water for your entire family for several days to be used if your water supply should become tainted or disrupted.

–Financial Reserve: Establish a financial reserve by saving a little money each week and gradually increasing it to a reasonable amount.

–Longer-Term Supply: Where permitted by law, gradually build a supply of food with an extended shelf life that could be used to sustain life, such as wheat, white rice, and beans.  This food should also be used in your regular cooking.

How do I get started:

Interested in building a home storage supply?  Here are some tips for getting the cans rolling:

-Start off by taking an inventory of the food you already have.  Don’t count things that you know your family will never eat.  In fact, while you’re doing this, you might as well just toss those foods and make more room for your food storage.

-Determine what you would need to add to your supply in order to have enough to meet your family’s needs.  Don’t forget non-food items, such as toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.

-Come up with a plan for purchasing what you need.  You can budget a little money from every paycheck to be devoted to food storage.  When you buy groceries, you can buy one item to be used now and an identical one for storage.  When you receive money that is in addition to your regular paycheck (e.g. bonuses, gifts, government stimulus checks) use it to buy food storage.  It will be a lot more useful to you in an emergency than a big-screen TV and you can still feel good about stimulating the economy.

-Buy what you’ll eat and eat what you buy.  One of the most important parts of storing food is making sure that you use it and replace it often so that you don’t end up with a pantry full of wasted food.

[Editor’s Note: We’ll be sharing more food storage resources tomorrow in our Links We Like article.]

—–

**Please note: The answers in “Ask a Mormon Woman” and (other content on this site) reflect the thoughts and perspectives of the administrators at Mormon Women. Although we strive to have our content consistent with the Church’s doctrine and teachings, we do not speak officially for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For official information about or from the Church, please visit www.mormon.org or www.lds.org.

—–

For more Ask a Mormon Woman questions/answers, please click here.

The post Ask a Mormon Woman: Why Do Mormons Store Food? appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

In August of 2004 I first became acquainted with food storage. I had heard much about food storage in my life, but really had no idea what it was really about. To be honest, I still am a little vague on some of the details. However, a year in the city where I lived can really teach a person a lot. The town is right smack in the middle of good farmland. As a result, produce is cheap and plentiful, so people find ways to store it.

My parent’s must have canned when I was growing up because I have many memories of eating home-canned goods, but surprisingly ZERO memories of the canning process. I must have been very good at making myself scarce when work was threatened. In my new ward everyone was talking about getting ready to can. The peach and tomato crops were upon us and we had access to free fruit. So I had some figuring out to do.

At the time I was serving in the Relief Society Presidency (an organization for women in our church) I was also 7 months pregnant with my second son, which is a fairly irrelevant detail. The president at the time was Janell. Janell was the second of three Presidents that I was to work with in three short years. She had also recently moved to our city and was like a breath of fresh air. Janell was a mother of 7 grown children, made her own bread, had a testimony of wheat, and –most importantly–she was a Master Canner. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a Master Canner, but apparently through the local university system, you could take classes and become a Master at many things-gardening, canning, etc.

So we enlisted Janell to come over and teach a few of us rookies a thing or two. Many, many hours later she had imparted enough wisdom that we were all able to go home and finish canning our fruits and vegetables. I will never forget at the end of that late night, standing in my dining room, Janell telling us that she had a doctor’s appointment the following day since she was having trouble with her vision and remembering things. Two days later we found out that Janell had a brain tumor.

Of course this experience taught me many things. One of them was that I truly was not cut out to be a RS president in my age and pregnant state of mind. I learned that I was blessed to be surrounded by amazing women. The other members of our Presidency and I worked as a team as Janell continued to serve as President while ill. Janell was a source of inspiration and peace during this time. We visited and loved each other. We laughed and cried and got some work done. Janell eventually went into remission, a miracle to be sure. She enjoyed her family, friends and life in general until the cancer resurfaced last year. During the whole experience, Janell was a testifier. She testified of Christ, of the love of our heavenly father, of tender mercies, of miracles, of eternal families and of Wheat!

Janell passed away yesterday, confident in her knowledge of the plan of salvation, ready to be reunited with her family.

I am grateful for Janell. I often think of her and all that she taught me. Especially every summer when I pull out my mason jars and look over the canning notes about tomatoes from Janell, Master Teacher.

*Phoebe wrote this beautiful tribute on January 10th, 2009 after learning of her friend’s passing.

For more First Person essays, please click here.

The post First Person: Lessons from Janell appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.