The Things I Love Most

Tips To Enjoying Life With Your Family

Long Term Food Storage…an Overwhelming 4 Words + A Giveaway!!

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I’m Back!! I had a great Birthday and don’t feel any older, just very blessed!!

Now, onto my last post about Provident Providers!
*GOAL-Prepare a long term supply of food and water incase of a disaster or time of adversity in our lives.  Also learn to live off of it now so that when the times comes it isn’t a big change for us. 

I really like the idea of food storage, but it can be a very overwhelming thing.  Especially when you live in a small house with not a lot of room to store.  I know that it is very important and have gained a greater understanding for it’s purposes in the last few years of our marriage.  A couple years ago when my husband lost his job we struggled financially which brought our food budget way down.  During this time we had to rely on what we stored, which wasn’t much.  If I had prepared better I think I would not have struggled daily to know what to feed my family.

I took an amazing class last month through the community, about using our food storage in our daily life.  It was just a six week class and I learned a ton.  The lady that teaches it, Tere Foster, is amazing.  She has a great site called 3DHealth.net where she shares a ton of great info and also has a wonderful cookbook!! Her main goal is to get away from grocery stores and order in bulk and have her own garden, raise bees, chickens and find somewhere where we can get milk for cheap that is good for us.   We rely on the grocery store so much and a lot of what we are buy is very unhealthy.  In the few weeks I have taken this class I have

  • Made 3 mixes that can mix in to a lot of different kinds of breakfast {and am excited to make the dinner mixes}
  • Bought some bins to store these items in
  • Reorganized my meal plan for the week
  • Am trying to implement more beans into my families meals

Rotating Meal Plan
Here is my plan, and I think it will work if I can just stick with it.  She recommends a rotating meal plan. Which I like the idea of.  So for our family this is what I have come up with for dinner, but she also has a rotating breakfast menu which I think is a great idea.

Monday – Meat Days
Tuesday – Taco or Tortilla Day
Wednesday – Pasta/Pizza Day
Thursday – Soup and Salad Day {Fresh}
Friday – Out or Easy
Saturday – Seafood
Sunday – Freezer Meal or Easy Crockpot meal

On her site she talks about her awesome mixes.   She mixes a bunch of dehydrated products together to make a meal that all you have to do is ADD WATER!!  Isn’t that awesome!?!

The thing I was concerned with about these is that you used a lot of dried stuff like egg, honey, butter, and milk powder  Make sure when buying these #10 cans that you buy the ones that don’t have added ingredients to them.  Because they are dehydrated their nutrient content isn’t exactly the same, but it is still healthier than almost anything you can get at the grocery store.

After the first 2 weeks of this class I felt a bit overwhelmed.  I wanted to just take my credit card {which I don’t even have :} and buy all my stuff in bulk and start this process.  Then I realized the I needed to start slow and ease into this whole process.  I got out a notebook and started writing down things I could do or wanted to do.

Here’s my list…

Supplies I eventually want to own

  • Wheat Grinder
  • Hand mixer
  • Tortilla press
  • Dehydrator
  • Lock n’ Lock Containers

Things I can make or buy from local people…

  • Eggs from Chickens
  • Tortillas/ corn
  • Sprouting seeds and beans
  • Bread , Pitas, Rolls, Buns
  • Granola, Cereal
  • Get Milk from farmer down the road 🙂
  • Plant a garden, but still be over Bountiful Baskets to get free produce.
  • Yogurt
  • Ice Cream

Things I need to start buying in bulk

  • beans
  • rice
  • dried veggies and fruits
  • dried milk
  • WHEAT!!
  • Nuts
  • Dried Fruit and Veggies
  • Other Dried products

Things I would still have to buy at the store because my life doesn’t have time to make them all..

  • Frozen fruit
  • Bananas
  • Meat/Fish
  • Cans of things I want to store that are from Case lot Sales
  • Cottage Cheese
  • Cheese {I think it would be cool to learn to make it, but right now I don’t have time}
  • Meat
  • Condiments {although I could make most of them}

Once writing it out I didn’t feel as overwhelmed and I started getting ready to get started by saving a little more each week.

This is my Favorite Video of hers where she explains her Whole Foods Kitchen and talks about a lot about  great stuff especially her Bean making process!!
Isn’t that awesome!

I learned so much from this class and from her site and book.  I totally recommend her book to everyone.  There are awesome recipe and great storage ideas.  I just found out that you can actually buy the food from her site.  If you do tell her that Kendra from The Things I Love sent you on your order. 

Now onto the Giveaway…

She also has offered to giveaway her Cookbook to one of my lucky readers.  This is AWESOME and well worth entering!
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Here is how to enter…

  1. Tell your Facebook or Blog friends about this post.
  2. Share with me a great Food Storage Tip!
  3. Go to her YouTube Channel and watch one of her movies 

Come back and comment for each one you did.  Giveaway will end Monday, April 4th!

Have a great week and for those that are watching Conference,  Yeah!  I love General Conference!

Comments

  4. Since we’ve started doing the goat milk I’ve learned that you can bottle it. This is great because it is such a healthy milk and would be great in times of need. You can also store eggs by dipping them in wax.

  6. I try and get a lot of goods when the case lot sales happen. It saves a lot of money, and it’s a lot easier for me to rotate out when I have huge boxes of canned foods.

  7. I watched the the food storage cooking beans. I liked what she said, since my husband can cook beans, but I can’t!!

  9. Whenever there are case lot sales I purchase items that I normally would eat and I rotate through them since case lot sales only happen a few times a year around here. My mom has also been helping me can more items so they stay better longer.

  14. Food Storage tip: If you store water, make sure not to put plastic containers directly on cement, as a weird iron taste will enter the water. So, I put card board down first, then the bottles! You could also buy glass bottles, but if an earthquake happens, you’re hosed !

  15. I try to cook with my food storage everyday. Replacing what I’ve used when it goes on sale.

    I also posted on Facebook about this giveaway.

  16. I need to get myself one of those pots w/jars things! That is so fascinating how she cooks all the beans at one time. And I like her experiment with the sleeping bags, haha!

    I need a dehydrator too. We should go shopping together 😉