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I still hear people talking about how they could never tolerate eating “all that wheat” they are going eat when they are forced to “finally” eat their food storage. Although there are some decent dried food storage items, and some really nasty tasting dried food storage items (and some people seem to think that wheat is part of that), the question that I have to ask is: Do you really want to rely only on reconstituted food and wheat for your back up food supply? I’m not.
People still think that food storage is to be stored – for a very long time and that it is requisite that it has to taste bad. Are you trying to hurt yourself and make a bad situation even worse? I mean, sitting in front of a bowl of steamed wheat with a glass of warm powdered milk is just not going to do it for me – especially for more than one meal. After all, without chocolate and spices is life really worth living?
Yes, you do need to get your wheat stored. And yes, there are so many items that we eat that involve wheat in some form or another: bread, biscuits, pie shells, cookies, BROWNIES, pancakes, waffles, and the list goes on, and on. Store your wheat, but don’t stop there.
Store a year’s worth of whatever you and your family like to eat and then go one step further and DON’T store it too long – EAT IT. Remember that rotation is the key. I like to do “R&R.” No, not rest and relaxation, but rather ROTATE and REPLENISH! You don’t need to buy meat and vegetables in #10 cans that need to be reconstituted, unless you really like eating that kind of expensive stuff.
Don’t get me wrong. Dried items can be helpful, and I love my freeze dryer, but you really don’t want to rely on living off of them. The better thing to do would be to freeze, can, bottle, or buy prepared items that you like in amounts that would take care of your family for a year.
I’m begging you to please stop making your food storage a drudgery! The pioneers stored enough food for a year and no, it wasn’t all dried food. Yes, they did dry a lot of their fruits and vegetables, but they also preserved their foods to taste good and they did it all without refrigeration or freezers. Let us try to be as creative and use what we have. Our opportunities to store food are so much more varied and tastier than in the past.
Do not go out and buy your food storage all at once, unless of course you have the money for it. Do not go into debt to get your food storage built up. If you give up a $20 pizza once a month, and your daily soda pop for a year, you would be shocked at how much food storage you could purchase and store in such a small amount of time. With gas prices going up, we are probably already tightening our belts, but buying edible food storage, a bit at time, will help us to save money and eat better.
By watching sales and picking up a case or two of your favorite meats, soups, or fruits you can make a lot of headway into building your food storage while making it enjoyable. After all, I don’t want to be sitting around eating nothing but reconstituted vegetables, meat and wheat, and washing it down with powdered milk – and I don’t intend to.
No, I intend to eat pork chops, grilled asparagus, both of which I have thawed out (because I sealed them up and froze them in their own sealed pouches) with a side of rice (see you don’t have to eat wheat for every meal). For desert, I think a chocolate pie (homemade of course) with Dream Whip topping, which can be whipped up at a moment’s notice, or maybe a nice cake from one of the many cake mixes that are stored. Of course, you could always reconstitute some vegetables or mystery meat and see how that turns out.
If you make the cake, you might want to have a really good and easy frosting that you can make from scratch from your food storage items.
Easy Chocolate Frosting 3 tablespoons of butter or margarine ¼ cup cocoa 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar 2 –3 tablespoons milk ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and about a tablespoon of Crisco (optional)
Mix everything together and beat until it reaches a smooth, light texture (I added the Crisco because it gives it a little bit nicer texture – you can leave it out if you want.)
Or you could just chew on a semi-dried cake bar that came out of a packet – at least it is easy to clean up. Just throw the package away — or keep it to chew on — it would be just as tasty as the cake bar thingy. I know that the dried food companies do their best, but doesn’t the “regular stuff” just taste better? I know that it is cheaper.
And, to figure out how much you need, just go to our food A Prepared Home food storage calculator and get it figured out!
And don’t forget your water!
Dawn