In 2007, The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the pamphlet All is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage. In it, members of the Church were asked to “Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet…until it is sufficient for three months.” There are many ways that request may be accomplished.
This method will help determine what and how much to store when planning a nutritionally balanced menu for three months, or for three weeks, or for a year. Before starting, remember these considerations:
• Eating habits
• Likes and dislikes
• The number of people to be fed
• The ages of those to be fed
• Food varieties available
• Any allergies or food sensitivities
• Shelf life of the food to be stored
• Balanced nutrition
Store the kinds of foods that are currently eaten or slowly change eating habits so that what is stored will be eaten. Always apply the motto, “Store what you eat and eat what you store.” In this way, supplies can be rotated regularly.
To begin a personalized food storage program, go to this PDF to get more details.
This method does take time to set up, but it has definite advantages. 1) You will know what a three-month supply of a particular item is. There is no guess work, so there is no underbuying. 2) The variety of stored food is nutritionally balanced and, most importantly, 3) the family will eat what is stored. In most cases, 4) this is also a very economical way to feed a family.
To summarize:
- Collect recipes your family likes that use ingredients, or substitute ingredients, that can be stored.
- Create menus.
- Decide how many times recipes will be used during the three months.
- Break the recipes and menus down by ingredients.
- Multiply the ingredient amounts by the number of times to be used and convert to equivalent package amounts.
- Add together the same ingredients from all recipes used for a grand total of each ingredient.
- Develop plans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and don’t forget desserts, snacks, bread, drinks, etc.
- Obtain a week’s supplies at a time so that you always have a nutritionally balanced food storage.