It's at this moment that I need to calm myself and remind myself that something is better than nothing and that I can win this race tortoise-style, I don't really need to go shell out $300 for a Nutrimill, $80 for a pressure canner, $100 for a vacuum sealer, $300 for a Bosch, $500 on a Vitamix, $200 on a pressure cooker, plus a whole bunch of other wants. I don't know how well I win this argument with myself, because the want and desire to get all these things and finish my food storage TODAY is still there, however the reality is that it's just not going to happen.
So here's essentially where I'm at today.
gah, I hate how small pictures are on blogspot, so get your face really close to the monitor and squint. The can rack is about half full. I have some oil and water underneath the shelf to the left. We have some soy milk in boxes, though that's mostly for my 4 year old who seems to have problems with cow's milk. We have a lot of pasta and sauce. Although, since this picture was taken a few weeks ago, I price matched Barilla pasta and Ragu sauce at Walmart for ridiculous prices and added about 20 pounds of pasta and about 18 cans of sauce. You know, just in case. And our only meat that's not stored in the freezer is all that tuna. So we can die of mercury poisoning, just in case it comes to that. And there's a lot of marinade. Marinade that I used to freeze in a Ziploc bag with chicken when that went on a ridiculous sale but since I was pregnant (a year and a half ago) haven't really been able to stomach the thought of it since. Not in the picture, but to the left of the oil and water are my three buckets of hard white winter wheat.
And here, we have the flour, the brown rice, some jelly which is now out of date and I'll probably be getting rid of since I can now make my own jam. (BTW, I did some blackberry jam. Excellent stuff that, next up on the menu is kiwi jam!) And there's peanut butter and oatmeal.
So I'm thinking to myself, "Wow self, there's enough food here to last I don't know how long, but it's food and it's stored so it must be food storage."
Enter reality check/I'm not as good as everyone else out there.
First of all, I somehow (it happens a lot) ran across Wendy Dewitt's Food Storage Seminar on YouTube. You can start here, then click on the links on the right side to go through the whole thing. This is an amazing seminar, if you can get past the scratchy sound quality. The first thing I loved was her Top 10 reasons why people don't have their food storage (the video starts at #9, but the full list can be found at her website.) In fact, I'm just gonna copy and paste what her website says about it:
Top 10 Reasons Why I Don't Have My Food Storage.
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!!
Ok, back to me. What really frosts my cookies is the people not wanting to take responsibility and do it themselves. She even says it in the video: people think that everyone will be sharing and that it'll all work out, but there are any number of instances that could prevent this. And I am just selfish and thinking to myself, "Hello? Have you not heard of the Parable of the Ten Virgins?!?! Maybe not exactly the kind of preparation Christ was talking about, but it's still preparation that should be done by everyone for their own families!!!!" And because I am such a terrible person I thought to myself, "Pshaw, yeah right, I'm not gonna share with anyone. It's their own fault and stupidity if they didn't get it done."
And then I ran across this quote from this talk by Vaugh J. Featherstone, "I should like to address a few remarks to those who ask, “Do I share with my neighbors who have not followed the counsel? And what about the nonmembers who do not have a year’s supply? Do we have to share with them?” No, we don’t have to share—we get to share! Let us not be concerned about silly thoughts of whether we would share or not. Of course we would share! What would Jesus do? I could not possibly eat food and see my neighbors starving. And if you starve to death after sharing, “greater love hath no man than this …” (John 15:13.)
Ok, it's true. If ever a disaster were to happen, I probably would share. Especially if it involved suffering children. I just can't stand to see or hear about children suffering. But I would like to point out that if everyone had their year supply, it'd be a year before the suffering and starving began....so think about that.
There are some amazing ideas in this seminar. It's where my desire for the vacuum sealer came from. Did you know you could attach a special hose and suction cup to a mason jar to a vacuum sealer and suck out most of the air? It's how she stores some things like chocolate chips and nuts and things that usually go bad pretty quickly.
Then I ran across these videos on YouTube. It's all about dehydrating food, which is wonderful, because we've already got a dehydrator. This lady (I don't think she ever says her name, oh wait no, I just checked her website, it's Tammy). So Tammy dehydrates her food and either stores it with an oxygen absorber packet either in a can or in a vacuum sealed bag. WOW!! The stuff she can do is amazing. Her website is even MORE amazing. I highly recommend checking it out. This will probably be my tortoise's starting off point. I would LOVE to get a pressure canner and start canning chicken and beef when they go on their ridiculous sales, but that's a lot of time and money and one more thing on my to do list. But I can start dehydrating food, since we already have the dehydrator and were thinking about getting the vacuum sealer anyway. And when things like carrots and onions and apples go on their crazy sales, I will be able to utilize them in a way that makes me feel like I'm making some progress.
Eventually pressure canning and maybe even that solar oven will make its way on to the list of things I do. I look forward to that day. Also, in that same talk by Brother Featherstone I ran across this quote, "Now regarding home production: Raise animals where means and local laws permit. Plant fruit trees, grapevines, berry bushes, and vegetables. You will provide food for your family, much of which can be eaten fresh. Other food you grow can be preserved and included as part of your home storage. Wherever possible, produce your nonfood necessities of life. Sew and mend your own clothing. Make or build needed items. I might also add, beautify, repair, and maintain all of your property.
Home production of food and nonfood items is a way to stretch your income and to increase your skills and talents. It is a way to teach your family to be self-sufficient. Our children are provided with much needed opportunities to learn the fundamentals of work, industry, and thrift. President Romney has said, “We will see the day when we will live on what we produce.” (Conference Reports, April 1975, p. 165.)
That's right, don't you think I haven't thought about raising my own goats and cows and chickens and planting an orchard and a garden. Unfortunately, for now it is impossible. We rent and have no yard or any land to do such a thing. We have a step. A step I'm thinking I might be able to put a pot with a zucchini plant, but I'm not sure yet. I don't know how to garden. Yet.
And then I ran across this quote by President Benson from this talk, "Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot happen here. Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them. Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that they somehow will be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion.
The Lord has warned and forewarned us against a day of great tribulation and given us counsel, through His servants, on how we can be prepared for these difficult times. Have we heeded His counsel?"
Not to scare you or anything, but to motivate you. Do your best. Don't try to do your best, just do your best. There is a difference. Thinking of food storage always makes me think of the story of Joseph in Egypt. Not just about Joseph and how awesome he was (he was pretty awesome). But of the Pharaoh and even though he was the most important person in the land (and probably would have been the last one to suffer the ill effects of the drought) he had the humility to accept Joseph's interpretation as truth and the faith to see it through the seven years of plenty. Can we say the same thing for ourselves? Our prophets have been preaching for decades to get a year supply and according to Wendy Dewitt, only 15% of the church member have any. I wonder if more people do food storage in a recession and then taper off in times of plenty. Just food for thought. I don't mean to be preachy or to put anyone through a guilt trip or anything. I've just had some thoughts regarding my own state of food storage and thought I'd share.
I might steal that list for my blog. It's rockin'. Also...zucchini plants can get HUGE. Just sayin'.
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