Food Storage Enrichment

When I say food storage, automatically some of you are intrigued and some of you find another blog to read. I have to tell you though, this will be pretty interesting. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of storing food in case of emergency, let me just say this--

My mother-in-law and I were talking the other day about grocery stores. I'm not sure if it's like this everywhere (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not like this in Sitka), but in California most grocery stores do not keep food in their back warehouses/storage. So when you visit the grocery store and they are out of a product on the shelves, if you were to ask if there is any more in the back, they would tell you it's all gone until the next shipment. This could be a gargantuan problem, my mother-in-law informed me, if there happened to be a truck strike, which I guess has been threatened before. I'm not as up to date on current events as I should be. In any case, stores in our area would be bare in a matter of hours and you would need to rely on the food you had at home to keep your family happy and healthy.

That isn't exactly the "emergency" that LDS women plan for when they store a three-month and years supply of food in their homes, but I would call any time tasty food is not readily available at my beck and call a Code Red Emergency. I kind of love food!

So on Wednesday our Relief Society sisters of the Vineyard Ward in Elk Grove/Sacramento got together to talk about food storage. One of the sisters in our ward was presenting. About a year ago she had completed accumulating her food storage (granted you have to rotate it as the food expires or is used) which had become a 10 year feat! She felt a great sense of accomplishment until she realized she had NO idea how to cook with any of the items she had stored (whole wheat, corn, powdered milk, dried beans, dried everything for that matter). So this women in our ward decided to do something crazy... she had her whole family of EIGHT eat food storage ONLY at home for six months. Don't worry, she blogged about it and even shares her favorite recipes!

Here are some of the interesting tidbits she shared and I wrote down:

- She sarcastically said (my interpretation) that she would trade her husband for a cow in a food emergency. She REALLY missed dairy during her six month trial of food storage. So I wrote down, buy cow and chickens!
- Dried white beans ground up in a wheat grinder make a great thickener
-Sage honey is the only honey that doesn't crystallize when you put it in long term storage
-Your family should have it's own Food Storage Cook Book, because each family has different likes and a different long term storage. So taste and cook with all the things you store.

Things to store that aren't on the recommended list
-white beans
-applesauce
-spices
-brown sugar
-stewed tomatoes
-hand meat grinder (did you know you can make something that looks/tastes like meat out of wheat?)
-cheese making tools
-spreadable butter (she has a favorite brand for storage on her blog)
-lemon juice
-sprouts
-vitamins (because living off food storage isn't very balanced)

I thought the activity night on food storage was really fun and eye opening. Honestly though, I have a very small "food storage" supply and haven't tried any of it. Lately my idea of food storage has been attempting to keep Martie's house supplied with coupons to generate a three month stockpile like this one.

Do you have food storage?
Do you use it?