Food Storage Commandment question

[itsmerich]

Hi all,

What is the official commandment for how much food storage someone should have (i.e. 3 months, 6, a year??) not sure.

If you could - please also include a reference link to where it officially states the food storage duration.

thanks

[Guest]

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage?lang=eng

[itsmerich]

thank u

[Sharky]

itsmerich,

I always shy away from the term "food storage", while food is important/necessary & has been what the church has emphasized, there are other needs you &/or your family might have that you also need to examine & look at.

I always figure that I can go out in the fields & even in the worst of droughts find enough edible weeds growing naturally that I can feed my family .... however, there are some "luxeries" that we have chosen to include in our 3-months & 1 year supplies that are not food, like feminime supplies & TP & lye & butter fingers/chocolate, nails, screws, batteries, sewing needles, thread, etc.

The term "food storage" tends to lead one's mind to think primariliy of food often forgetting the non-food items you might need or desire to include.

One of the best ways we have found to accumilate the storage is when we go shopping we keep track of the cost of everything in our cart, then just before hitting the check out we take 10% of the estimated total in our cart & add storage items totalling that 10% amount. It works at the grocery & the hardware store & & fabirc store & 10% added to the monthly grocery budget isn't likely to break the bank!

[mirkwood]

Some info here that may be of help as you do your food storage and emergency preparedness: Easy Preparedness: Why Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness?

[lds2]

I always figure that I can go out in the fields & even in the worst of droughts find enough edible weeds growing naturally that I can feed my family ....

There are just a couple of things wrong with this statement...

Perhaps in an area that is tropical or subtropical with plenty of water you could gather enough for a family's survival if you were an herbalist...but even then that is NOT going to be possible during a drought! The wild and/or domestic animals will have already stripped most everything edible. If "gathering" be careful, some plants that are edible have close cousins that look the same almost that are extremely toxic where even experts have a difficut time telling between them. Of course eating alfalfa or crops from farmers fields would be stealing which might keep you physically alive but not as much spiritually.

Seriously, right now there is not a drought in Utah and I live "in the field's" and there is not enough nutritious grasses/leaves out there to keep a small goat healthy let alone people who's stomachs aren't made to get nutrition out of dry grasses/bushes. if we weren't supplementing with hay the domestic animals in my area would starve and it isn't even fall/winter/early spring yet when this type of vegetation is not available.

In most areas in Utah the only major crop is alfalfa which is not a very good food for human consumption...

As far as eating grasses for survival you could, theoretically, find or grow your own grasses and eat them like a leafy green however Grasses/leaves are not particularly easy to eat and most don't taste good (good luck getting your kids to eat grass), and you would need to eat very large quantities to get good levels of nutrients. These are basically salad foods but with more fiber and so don't have the calories people need to be healthy. During a drought or summer months the grasses are not likely to even be live salad foods. These dry weeds may go in and come out in basically the same dry state taking any actual nutritious foods you may have eaten through your system quickly not providing time for digestion.

Alfalfa is an appetite stimulator which is not what you want to do to your family if they are already hungry. Also alfalfa seeds are toxic in large quantities (contain the toxic amino acid canavanine.) Sprouting these seeds (if you have the spare water) helps break some of this down but I still wouldn't eat it as a staple and you have to be very careful sprouting because bad bacteria is not uncommon without the right seeds/supplies, etc.

Truthfully, this is a very bad plan.

That said, I do agree that TP is important!...but get your 3 month supply, water and basic foods first (as found in the pamphlet the first presidency gave us) you can always use cotton square diaper wipes or sticks/rocks/sand if you have to.

Edited September 24, 2012 by lds2

[lds2]

There are no weeds for the cattle to eat in the drought in the Mid-West...farmers are turning to gummy worms and fruit loops as there just isn't enough affordable hay or even corn silage (ground up corn stocks)...

US farmers turn to gummy worms, fruit loops to feed cows after corn shortage

[mrmarklin]

Sharky, you are also assuming most of us can get near "fields". 98% of the US population lives in cities, and "fields" are not readily accessible.

Then, lds2 has good advice for those 2% that live near fields.:) I would add that if your fields are on private land, that also presents other problems.

[Sharky]

I think most of you missed the point ... Paragraph One .... First Sentance ....

I always shy away from the term "food storage", while food is important/necessary & has been what the church has emphasized, there are other needs you &/or your family might have that you also need to examine & look at.

I did not say to put food at the bottom of the list .... I said it is important/necessary & that it is what the church has always emphasized. However, there are other needs to not forget to examine other things you or your family might need as well!

Does any one of you have prescription medications that are REQUIRED for survival day to day? Should it be knocked down on the list because it's not a "food"?

As far as weeds to eat ... I grew up being taught to use EVERYTHING that the good Lord provided us with.

Bad Plan ?????

I did not say my only plan was the weeds in the fields, but having a knowledge of those things they are a very real possibility ... oh wait, many of them such as purslane & amaranth already are a part of our regular diet.

A weekly FHE activity as a kid, my dad sending us out to fetch weeds while he prepared a critter (porcuipine, squirrel, what have you, even beaver once) for the dutch oven. He'd then teach us about the different weeds we brought back & most of them were edible & went into the dutch oven.... & we did not bring back grasses!

My dad taught us what he was taught growing up in the depression & dust bowl, how to survive!

I can think of many weeds that are comon place in Utah gardens & in my garden & fields here that are not only edible but actually kind of tasty. Weeds that even produce grains ... & there isn't one grass or clover/alfalfa on that list!

However, wild rye & wild oats do produce some of the highest nutritional based flours you can grind, but it doesn't do well for cooking modern recepies & requires some experimentation.

We are in our 4th consequtive year of hot dry weather with each year getting worse. We lost 1 shallow irrigation/stock well last year & anothern this year. Owning shares of irrigation water made no difference this year as there was no water to send down the canals .... so yes, I know & understand drought, I live it & have begun liquidating stock at a major loss as a result of it.

There are still many of dutch ovens full of weeds in those fields though ... and the flower beds around the house.

Whether your food storage is On-The-Shelf or In-The-Field or On-The-Hoof, it should NEVER be something that is left until a time of need to learn to use.

Growing a garden should never be left until time of need to learn the required skills.

That is actually the same counsel the church provides.

Hmmm - If someone has not been eating wheat, yes the wheat you likely have in your food storage, as part of their regular diet they will become very sick if wheat is suddenly introduced to the diet in quantities. They might recover in a day or take more then a week while the body adjusts to it. In a time of great stress & need that type of avoidable illness & loss of energy/ability is the last thing one needs to add to the equation.

Many items in the pantry/food storage would receive turned-up noses from the kids if it were suddenly thrust in front of them for the first time ... boiled wheat berries or the use of wheat berries in soups & stews is one of those very things that even many adults would struggle with, let a lone kids that have never had it before.

Chili made with wheat rather then beans is actually pretty good, but I wouldn't suggest it if you don't like or have never had cooked wheat. It just looks weird for starters.

When we landscaped our yard we did so with plants, trees, shrubs, forbes, flowers that are all edible. Not just berries but leaves & bark & stems & roots ... even included a few old-fashioned roses that are covered with orange rose hips each fall plus the rose petals are even edible.

We use those plants as a food source every year just as if it were a part of the garden.

That landscaping probly wouldn't be acceptable by most Home-Owners-Associations, but that's one of the reason we chose to leave the city.

Even HOA dwellers & apartment dwellers can manage to grow some garden & plants, even if they have to be potted, lettuce & spinach does well in plnter boxes.

Jack rabbit in the winter ... NOT! Don't like the texture of the meat. But cotton tails frequent the stew pot in our home all winter long -- they attract larger coyote populations so we minimize their numbers & we don;t let the carcasses go to waste. Fox I didn't really like & I haven't worked up the courage to try coyote. We'll leave the badger alone as long as he stays out of the hen-house cuz he keeps the prarie dog population under control. The coon carcass after rotting for a week was devoured by the livestock gaurd dogs just as we expected it would be when it got "ripe" enough. Bobcat wasn't too bad of a meat & the bear the local game warden dropped of some months back has been FANTASTIC! Still interested in trying cougar!

No, not a survivalist, just taught to use & benefit from everything the Lord provided us.

I know not everyone has access to the fields, but it doesn't take much more then a flower pot or a flower bed to grow a bit of food!

Even game wardens exists in the big city (SL, Denver, LA) & they frequently have game that they must either locate someone to use it or let it go to waste ... & most will put a lot of effort to seek out & find someone who will use it!

[lds2]

Sharky, it sounds like you would be a great neighbor to have! I'd love to go on a nature walk in the spring with you. Being able to add healthy vegetation to the food pot is a great skill to have.

We obviously live in different "zones" though and so that possibility isn't very likely. This time of year here there seriously aren't any weeds out there except a little goatshead and morning glory where I water the trees, the ground is mostly bare. Perhaps I live too close to town also as we don't have much wildlife here so that really isn't an option either. We do have a lot of hunters that believe that their year supply is running up in the mountains just waiting for them and 1,000s of others with the same plan to hunt. Unfortunately, we don't have irrigation water or we might have some vegetation along the canals.. Each of us have such different situations!

With wheat and beans as a complete protein as well as herbs and grains to harvest and/or sprout you will be far better off than 99 percent of the rest of us...and you'll have TP. :)

Edited September 25, 2012 by lds2

[Sharky]

We obviously live in different "zones" though and so that possibility isn't very likely. This time of year here there seriously aren't any weeds out there except a little goatshead and morning glory where I water the trees, the ground is mostly bare. :)

Thanx lds2. Yeah. The fields here look pretty bare too, but a walk thru them finds quite a few little plants/weeds that just didn't grow much due to the lack of moisture. The fields that didn't get worked in a year are better then the ones we tried to plant last spring, also the wheat stubble seems to conceal quiet a few things too.

We won't go into what goatheads are good for .... parts of the plants are edible but not reccomended in quantity & definately not for persons of the female persuasion. They & yuccas are a curse in these parts but even the yuccas have food value.

I was thinking about the comment someone posted about no weeds to feed cattle. This year we took a page from one of my dad's journals he wrote of recollections of the dust bowl days....

No corn or silage/haylage forgage & very little hay we had to do something or we would have been out-of-business before now.

We harvested the kochia & russian thistle (most people refer to them both as tumble weeds). Even without rain they thrived though they didn't get as tall as normal!

We chopped them green & filled the silage pits with them. A few weeks of sitting & the prusic acid (arsenic) changes & disipates. We have been gradually adding it to the cattle feed so as not to overload the cows with nitrates .... they'll build a nitrate tolerance over a couple of weeks & can then be feed larger quantities.

Not sure I'd think of my years supply running around the mountains & only a gunshot away from the freezer though ....

I remember many of deer & elk hunts & endless hours freezing while we watched for geese or ducks in Utah that did nothing to fill the freezer.

Of course in theses part, the mountains are just little bumps on the horizon.

The kid did hit an antelope on his way back to the house last night (they are bunching up for the rutt) ... the local game warden let him bring it home, might be able use about 1/2 of it & the dogs will enjoy the rest.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Sharky