Friday, October 24, 2008

Food Storage Friday 10/24/08

I made the ultimate sacrifice of my dignity this morning, and decided to share my food storage areas with you. Yes, it looks a bit disorganized. We moved into this house a couple of months ago, and I'm still getting everything where it belongs.

The first two pictures are of some of my storage in a closet in the extra bedroom. I have several buckets of wheat, barley and oats. I also have cases of chicken chunks and the tomato soup I mentioned in a previous post. I also have #10 cans of dehydrated foods such as apple slices, pudding, potato pearls and other items. You'll notice that the boxes have been labeled several times. I need to go into the boxes and re-label them with the correct contents. I always reuse the boxes.

The next two pictures are of the items I purchased this week. I got the rice at Costco, and the other items at the LDS dry pack cannery. I have an appointment to get a dry pack canner in a week, and will be packing the food into the #10 cans then. You'll notice the can lids and oxypacks on top of the box. The oxypacks keep the food fresher for much longer. When packed properly, studies have shown that grains and powdered milk will keep up to 30 years. There will be some loss of nutrition, but the food will still sustain life.

On the picture below, you'll notice that I have a case of pinto beans and a case of hard red wheat. I decided to go ahead and get them already packed in the #10 cans. The cost was only 50 cents more than if I would have done them myself. A bargain! At the LDS dry pack cannery, there are certain items that you can pick up that have already been packed in the #10 cans. You do not have to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to purchase at the cannery.

Below are pictures of my pantry. I have organized and reorganized this pantry, so don't be too critical! I tend to purchase bulk amounts when items are on sale and when I have a coupon for the item. I got all of the electrosol dish washer detergent for free this way. I got the liquid dish detergent for $0.25 cents per bottle on sale with a coupon for each bottle. If my pantry looks kind of wacky that way, this is the reason for it.

The Malt-o-Meal cereal on the top shelf was all free after coupon, too. Sometimes I get items I wouldn't normally purchase, but since they are such a good deal (like FREE) after coupons, I get them. If I really won't use them, they go to a family in need, or to the food bank.


The buckets in the pictures below have orange lids. This are gamma lids, and allow you to easily access the food in the bucket buy twisting the lid off. I'll show this in another post.

Well, there you have it! I have a three month supply of food we would normally eat (some not pictured and some in the freezer) and will have my 1 year supply (again) after Honeyville Grain delivers the last of what I ordered. It really wasn't difficult. Feel free to ask questions in the comment section or email me at thelittleredhenfoodsite@live.com For more information on storing food, go to http://www.providentliving.org/

2 comments:

Heidi said...

We were told that we couldn't bring food into the cannery to put it into #10 cans? Is that no longer true?

Glenda said...

heidi, I saw someone bringing in a bag of rice to the St. George Cannery without a problem. I heard that they are no longer allowing it at the Lehi dry pack cannery, but I don't know if it is true.

You can check out a dry pack canner, purchase the cans and oxypacks, and drypack your items at home. That is what I am doing.