How to Start a Food Storage ~ Assignment #3

When you are buying wheat you will notice that you have the choice between Red Wheat and White Wheat. What’s a girl to do?? Okay, so here is the low down…Red wheat yields bread that tastes like wheat bread. White wheat bread tastes more like white bread, has a milder flavor. Many people like to buy both and mix them! So, that’s what I have done. I buy both kinds. If you want to read more about the red vs. white, here is a great site.
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What good is wheat without a wheat grinder?? Yes, you need one. Preferably two! A electric one for when the electricity still works and a manual one for emergencies. If you would like to read some reviews before you buy, check here.

Dehydrated Foods have the water dried out of them. The good things about dehydrated food are: they are cheaper than freeze dried, food can be dried at home, it is easy to reconstitute with water, and it is compact. The downside to dehydrated foods is that the food loses a little bit of flavor and texture when dried, is heavier and has a lower shelf life than freeze-dried (usually 8 to 12 years).

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Freeze Dried is a little trickier to explain. But, basically it’s flash frozen then they do this other mumbo jumbo that removes the ice and the water is gone…and stuff. The process removes about 90% of the weight. But, here’s the good about freeze-dried: the food retains its texture and full flavor, it’s extremely light weight, it reconstitutes very quickly, and stores longer than dehydrated (up to 25 years). The biggest downside to freeze dried is the price.

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Besides dehydrated and freeze dried, you’ve got just normal food you buy at the stores. The freeze dried and dehydrated you want for long term storage. But, you also need short term storage (chili, mac and cheese, cereal, ramen, soups, etc) that you stock up on when its on sale and you actually eat this stuff! You rotate it. Meaning, you buy it, store it with your food storage, but also eat it. You then replenish it with newer items. You do this because it doesn’t store as long. So for example, in my basement I have a couple long storage bins filled with cereal boxes. When I buy more cereal at the store, it goes immediately in those boxes (because they are the newest). I then bring upstairs to eat some of the boxes that were already in there. It’s called rotating, dude. I don’t feel the need to make use of my rice, dried beans, wheat, sugar, etc. because they will store for many, many years AND it’s a lot of hard labor carrying those heavy mothers downstairs. Your short term storage will be great for immediately after a disaster has happened and you are not in the mood to pull out the wheat grinder because you are too busy stepping on the glass of your broken tv, looking for your kids, and propping up the roof with boards. It will also be great for the days you just don’t want to seriously cook, we all have those. And, frankly…sometimes mac and cheese just tastes really good.

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Use your binder to keep track of what you have and don’t have. You should have made a list of items besides food that you need and printed off a chart (specific to your family) that says how many pounds of each things you need. But, the trick is to also use your brain. If your family absolutely hates cooked carrots, or kidney beans…don’t buy them. Buy something else similar in their place. If your family has allergies to milk or other things, you will have to rearrange your plan. I will do a post later on changing up food storage for those with allergies. Whenever you buy something, deduct it from your charts in your binder. Whenever you go to the store, look in your binder and remind yourself of some of the things you need. Remember to also think in terms of meals.

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There are a few things I like to do to save money on food storage. The first is to use the LDS cannery. They have good prices on things and you can use their equipment to can there. Just call them to schedule. The second is to use Costco, especially their coupons! Whenever the coupon mailers come out, I compare them to my food storage needs (found in my binder) and I will take advantage of the deals and buy the items! Lastly, I have a subscription to Deals to Meals. This is a great site that will go through your grocery store’s weekly ads and then tell you what in those ads are a better price than Costco, the LDS Cannery, Sam’s Club, or Wal-Mart. Basically, they say what in the ad is the best price available and to stock up on it. It’s not a coupon site. If you have coupons, even better. But, couponing gets old and I find this much easier! So, for example…this week, thanks to the advice of Deals to Meals, I stocked up on Hormel Chili because Albertson’s is offering it for a price that beats all of the other stores!  Ooh…and they give recipe ideas and have a great blog to with lots of ideas for your food storage.

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Another great source of information is food storage web sites. A few that I like:

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Now, fly little bird, fly. Start buying, start keeping track, start learning more, and check back. I will continue to do posts about food storage…how to cook with, how to store for those with allergies, etc.

Let me know how things are going!