So, Michelle (awesome, wonderful lady that she is) is offering to share a copy of her book with one reader, scot free! I've had the book for a few months now, and have really enjoyed it. In the book, she explains how to use the bag meal system, gives great recipes (probably the best pancake recipe I have ever tasted apart from my own dear dad's), and has tons of other great ideas for self-reliant living - including how to build and maintain your own chicken coop! Just take a look at some of the tasty meals included in the book:
So, excited yet?
To enter, leave a comment answering one of the following questions:
What's the most creative place you've ever heard of, thought of, or used to store your food storage?
Do you have a great food storage tip to share? What is it?
Do you have a food-storage related story to share? Share away!
Enter as many times as you like, no limit. Winners will be chosen at random from all entrants this Friday.
So, let's get sharing!
49 comments:
Well I've heard of people storing their food under their bed!
I'm so grateful we have our small food storage. There were times, early in our marriage, when money would get tight. Especially during the Holidays. We would live off our food storage to save money for about a month. Then build it back up thru-out the year!
One tip~ When you eat up food you have canned, instead of leaving empty jars on the shelves waiting for canning season to begin, fill them with tap water. It's a great way to store water that you can use for cleaning/washing in an emergency!
When it's time to use the jars, empty the water out{I use it to water my plants and such so it's not going to waste!}
Another tip~ Did you know cement absorbs whatever is in the soil around it? And did you know plastic will absorb whatever is in the cement? So if you have your food storage in an area with a cement floor, don't store food/water in plastic containers straight on the cement! Have some cardboard or something underneath the plastic container.That way, your food/water in plastic containers won't be absorbing any chemicals or things from the cement. Make sense?
All I have is a 72 hour kit for me and jared and some milk that I got from my grandma for Christmas because she was concerned about Ryan in an emergency. :)
I love this idea! I mostly want food storage now for when things do get tight and we can eat out of it saving so much money.
One of the most creative things I've seen is a big water jug used as a table in a kitchen. It was so cute too, I wanted to get one just for decoration. :)
Hmmm ... most creative place we've stored food storage. In our first apartment, we made furniture out of it. It was a small apartment and the food storage boxes made great furniture when we didn't have any. :)
Tip: Store what your family will eat. It does you no good if you don't know how to cook the food in your food storage and your family won't eat it. When we were first starting out, we made a one month's menu with a shopping list and multiplied by 12 to get a year's supply. There are also great calculators on the internet that can help you know amounts for staple items (beans, grains, sugar, oils, etc.).
Okay, I'm not sure if this is a food storage story or not, but it made me laugh so I figured I would share it. I've always taken for granted the large pantries to be found in "Mormon" country until I moved to the deep South. While there one of my husband's professors told us how much they loved the house they owned in Phoenix, AZ. Even though they didn't follow the idea of keeping a well-stocked food storage they loved the emphasis on food storage because it meant the house they owned had a huge pantry. They haven't since been able to find one with this benefit. Apparently, food storage benefits not only those of us who follow these principles but others as well. ;)
We store our food storage under our bed, or on top of our cabinets in the kitchen (not the prettiest, but it works)!
Keep a supply of storable fats on hands. Olive oil and coconut oil have a decent shelf life
One sunday, our sunday school teacher told us how hard they work on their food storage and how much they have. Then, she made sure to tell us that we need to have our own because she is NOT going to share with anyone but her family. It's not like I was planning in my mind to just go there if an emergency occurred--it was just kinda funny that she felt that she had to make sure we knew she wouldn't be sharing!
When I lived in Prague (where everybody lives in fairly small spaces), I knew a couple who kept their food storage under tables in their entryway. They put cans and boxes under the tables, and then they covered the tables with cloths and used them like normal. I've also had roommates who kept food under their beds when they didn't have closet or cabinet space for food storage.
What's the most creative place you've ever heard of, thought of, or used to store your food storage? My neighbors store theirs in the extra space of their bathroom! I never though of that, but I guess it works!
Do you have a great food storage tip to share? What is it?
My great and oh so cleaver tip is to DO IT! When I first heard this concept (I heard about it and just haven't gotten the book so I would LOVE to win it) I felt like Food Storage as so doable and no stressful. I never did it before because I just didn't know what to do or where to start and I think this gives you a great starting point!
What's the most creative place you've ever heard of, thought of, or used to store your food storage?
My mother in law always told us to store it under our bed's when you don't have enough room.
A great way to use up the older powdered milk in your food storage is to use it as a thickening agent when you make yogurt. Don't make yogurt? This is a great excuse to try it out!
My father in law was a child of the depression. In his opinion the most important things to store are sugar and salt. And probably anything that would make the rice and beans a little more tasty and hence easier to eat.
Use #10 cans stacked as a coffee table and cover with a table cloth!
Never plant ALL of your seeds in your garden. Save some for a back-up plan if something goes wrong.
You should also store things that can be bartered. I've heard of storing cigarettes and beer, but I prefer to store lots of toilet paper!
We eat out of our food storage on a daily basis. That way I'm always rotating our food so nothing will ever expire.
We store our food storage in almost every room in our house. We are renting a small 3 bedroom (with almost no storage space in the kitchen) while my husband finishes school. Our closet at then end of our hallway is now the "pantry", we have food in all the bedroom closets and also under our bed. Once I started storing extra food, it became addicting. I'm also a coupon shopper, which helps. I now grocery shop monthly instead of weekly and it's so much more convenient. I would love to win this book because I'm always looking for new ways to save and help my family.
The most creative way to store food that I've seen is as a book shelf...boxes or cans and pieces of wood across them!
I know this has already been shared, but we store what we eat on a regular basis, that way when I run out of something I send someone downstairs to get it instead of having to go to the store all the time, and we rotate what we have.
In one ward I was in they did a challenge to use only what was in your storage for 1 week, to see if you could live on what you are storing. It was all voluntary, and looking at what we were storing at the time, I knew there was no way we could live on our 2 bags of wheat and a few cans of powdered milk and rice that we'd been given! Needless to say we didn't volunteer to do that challenge, but it made me realize that I needed to start storing food, and the food I need to store is stuff I can live on!
We once had a food storage party. We had a bunch of our neighbors get together and bring one food item from their food storage. This way we all could get some great ideas on what you can actually make and get new ideas on what we would like to store to make later. Kristen
Another tip:
I just thought of this after reading your most recent post describing meals in a bag. Give food storage as wedding/Christmas gifts. We've given food storage as gifts as well as received them and I LOVE receiving food storage items.
Another tip:
Get involved in "couponing." Since I started couponing I've been able to increase my food storage so much faster. The best way to coupon is to receive multiple newspapers and to stock up when prices are low (combining sales and coupons). This means that you are constantly adding to your food storage and your storage grows so much faster because you spend less on it. This goes for non-food items as well. My new motto is "never pay for toothpaste again." ;)
A lot of people have commented about storing food storage under your bed. I just wanted to share a post from another blog where they designed a bed frame specifically for food storage. This nice part about this is that it's pretty inexpensive and you don't need a boxspring so there's even more space for food storage. :)
http://myfoodstoragejourney.blogspot.com/2010/01/creative-food-storage-options.html
Man! These ideas just keep coming and since Charity said there's no limit to the number of posts, I'll keep posting. :)
Tip: Once ground into flour, wheat loses its' nutritional content very quickly. So, only grind your wheat as you use it and keep the excess flour you don't need in a cold place (refrigerator/freezer) to slow the nutritional loss.
Tip: Beans make a great substitute for oils/butters in many baked goods. So, try substituting white beans in cookies or cakes and black beans in darker recipes like brownies.
Tip: One of the best ways to prevent a weevil infestation in your food items is to freeze your food for four days at the lowest setting on your freezer before you store it. This will kill the eggs, larvae and weevils.
I used to worry about an egg substitute for food storage. Now I know that milled flax seed and warm water make a great substitute for eggs in baking. (not so yummy in brownies, but not even noticeable in breads)
Raising hens is also great food storage for eggs and I guess if you have a rooster you could intentionally breed for meat.
The most important thing in your store of food supplies is actually water. 1 gal per day per person is recommended, but I think 3 gal per person per day is more realistic.
I'm the worst food store-r. But I would still love to win! :) Thanks for all these tips!
One of our bishops long ago said not to worry too much about 72 hour kits. Just keep some peanut butter, crackers and water on hand. You CAN survive for three days on it (unless you have a peanut allergy...). My SIL keeps her food storage in "Harry Potter's Room" -or the cupboard under the stairs and uses it like a grocery store, as has already been mentioned.
I keep getting more ideas from Charity's previous posts. The most recent one reminded me of a lady in Las Vegas who uses her garage to store her food. The heat will quickly deteriorate the nutrients in food storage so they added an air conditioner to the garage and insulated it to create an ideal food storage space. They figured it was more important to have food storage than to park their car in the garage.
Food storage has to be something you're actually going to eat. My parents (along with teenaged boys) have done a couple food storage months when they don't buy groceries or go out to eat for a whole month. They see what they liked, whether they had enough, if anything was missing, and what they need to change. I think everybody should try that at least once just to see if their storage is working for them.
Food storage is something that we have struggled with in the past. When we were in UT what we did was put a little of our food budget towards buying food storage every month. We were able to build up our food storage... which is still in UT. We have not ventured down the food storage path now that we have moved, but are starting to.
I have not heard about the bag food storage until reading about it on your blog, something that I am certainly going to be looking more into!
You can always ask for food storage supplies for you birthday or other presents.
Here's another random story about food storage: When we were kids, my 3 brothers and I loved Family Home Evening activities where we would tear apart our 72-hour kits (which were being replaced with new ones) and eat every edible thing inside in a matter of minutes. This usually meant gum, fruit snacks, and hard candies. We never touched the dehydrated soup packets or powdered milk. :)
My food storage tip would be to get a water purifier. It's always good to have water on hand for a couple days for an emergency but you shouldn't be storing a lot of water. Especially here in Utah where we have lots of streams and lakes it's good to have a purifier for emergencies. (Not to mention it's good to have one in a 72 hour kit too)
One time we were staying at a friends house after we were married, for one of our receptions. They lent us their guest room. When we went in we noticed that the bed looked a little funny. When we looked closer, instead of having a box spring they had piled food storage as a box spring. We thought it was pretty funny that we were sleeping on someone's food storage.
The most creative we've seen/heard is people using food storage as furniture. Whether making a table out of it and just putting a table cloth over it, or using it as the box spring of a mattress.
What's the most creative place you've ever heard of, thought of, or used to store your food storage? In our son's closet! Baby clothes just don't take up that much space :)
Nothing useful to say about food storage, but let me just say that I've eaten some food prepared from her bag meals and it's actually really quite good.
Powdered Honey is great sprinkled on cereal or used like sugar. Also I love my empty #10 can and fill with different pastas, etc.
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