3 month supply...

[Rensai]

Interesting how the church's recommendations have changed. 2002 guidelines allowed just under 2400 calories per day for an adult. The current calculator on providentliving.org recommends 25 pounds of grain and 5 pounds of beans per month. This ends up as 1479 calories a day. If you calculate 12 months and add then add the 3 months of short term food so once the 3 months of short term food is used first and the 12 months of long term food were rationed for the remaining 9 months rather than 12 months then the calculation would be 1973 calories per day. Still not a diet that you will get fat on. And anyone will definitely lose weight on 1479 calories a day.

http://providentliving.org/content/disp ... -1,00.html

Yes, a lot of people seem to miss that. I was recently trying to explain to my sister that if she just got the bare minimum recommended storage it would probably keep her alive, but that's about it. I think if anything, we're going to want more like 3000 calories per day. I expect, if society falls apart and we lose all our modern conveniences, we'll be doing a lot of hard labor. Hard work requires a lot of calories.

[durangout]

It seems to me that there is a very subtle yet important reason The Church has discontinued the use of the term 1 yr Supply. The Church is trying to teach the spriitual principle behind food storage which is more important than physically having 1 yr's worth of food. I guess what I'm tryinbg to say is obdiience is good but understanding because of obedience is better. For example, the Jews of old were obedient but they didn't gain understanding because when The Savior came at the meridian of time, they didn't recognize him. "They missed the mark."

My question then for all of us is if you have food storage, what have you learned because of obedience to that commandment? In reality, having food storage won't save you but what obedience to the principle that it teaches does.

Have you missed the mark?

[bobhenstra]

Lol, I count as some of the "oil in my lamp" the years supply I wear around my waist (But I also have six gallons of cooking oil in my freezer )

I've been purchasing a mixed grain, with fruit added, cereal mix called "DEE's Cereal" I get it in five pound bags at Macys, or Payson Market, for around $14 bucks a bag. I really like it. I purchase different flavored pouches of quick oats from Walmart and mix a half cup of Dees Cereal with one pouch of Walmart's flavored quick oats. I have a tall heavy glass I put milk in about two thirds full, nuke it for 3.5 minutes (underpowered microwave). Mix in the cereal and a tiny bit of sugar, nuke it for one minute more, let it set for a minute or two, then sit and watch the news and enjoy my cereal. Down to two meals a day! Losing weight, maybe my feet won't be so sore!

Bob

[singyourwayhome]

[quote="durangout"]It seems to me that there is a very subtle yet important reason The Church has discontinued the use of the term 1 yr Supply. The Church is trying to teach the spriitual principle behind food storage which is more important than physically having 1 yr's worth of food. I guess what I'm tryinbg to say is obdiience is good but understanding because of obedience is better. For example, the Jews of old were obedient but they didn't gain understanding because when The Savior came at the meridian of time, they didn't recognize him. "They missed the mark."

My question then for all of us is if you have food storage, what have you learned because of obedience to that commandment? In reality, having food storage won't save you but what obedience to the principle that it teaches does.[quote]

I think there are a couple more reasons the Church has changed the stated counsel. One reason is that, as a global church, the 'year's supply' is illegal in some nations. Also, as noted in my last post, the instructions were changed mid/late 2007. That is pretty close to 7 years after Pres. Hinckley gave his 7 years of plenty/7 years of famine reminder. (Well, he first brought it up in 1998, but then did repeatedly in 2001.) My Stake President, who was my next-door-neighbor, expressed his feeling (in 2007) that those who hadbn't got their year's supply yet, wouldn't be able to from then out. After reflecting on this the last couple days, my opinion is that we're in the 'lean' years now, and have been since at least 2008.

Now, as to what I've learned from storing.... I've learned self-reliance to a greater degree, become more fiercely determined to provide for myself and not accept 'freebies' (which are really other people's money!), management and inventory skills, food preservation is high on the list of 'used' skills, and I also am in the position to be of more service to the Lord, as I can help provide for those who can't. Or haven't, unfortunately. But that seems like part of the covenants I've made. And I'm willing to accept that.

What are you hoping to hear from this forum? Or are you just trolling?

[singyourwayhome]

It seems to me that there is a very subtle yet important reason The Church has discontinued the use of the term 1 yr Supply. The Church is trying to teach the spriitual principle behind food storage which is more important than physically having 1 yr's worth of food. I guess what I'm tryinbg to say is obdiience is good but understanding because of obedience is better. For example, the Jews of old were obedient but they didn't gain understanding because when The Savior came at the meridian of time, they didn't recognize him. "They missed the mark."

My question then for all of us is if you have food storage, what have you learned because of obedience to that commandment? In reality, having food storage won't save you but what obedience to the principle that it teaches does.

Have you missed the mark?

And having food storage MAY save me, temporally. Remember that the body is part of your soul!

[Jason]

I was HT to an elderly couple who have been in the church for years. They are both die hard socialists who think Ezra Taft Benson was selfish. The sister became quite angry when I mentioned his name or criticised socialised medicine. Criticism of the NHS is far worse than blasphemy in the UK. Anyway, I used to ask them how their emergency preparations were progressing and if their 1 year supply was in place. All I got back was comments like "I can't drink plain water", "I don't like canned food", "I don't have anywhere to keep wheat", "I don't like wheat"... It was clear that they had no interest in even attempting to store up enough food for 3 weeks, let alone 3 months. I meet a lot of families like that. Who's going to help them when society goes to hell? I'm going to show The Road to my family down south. Alex Jones says that people become thieves and murderers after 10 days without food, and after 15 days they begin eating each other! Presumably church members will be no different. I think it's important to urge members to get their food storage in place, without giving away too much info on what you have. We don't know how long we will need to live off our food storage. As the collapse progresses and people become more desperate, I reckon it's going to become less and less likely that even the most generous LDS will be willing to jeapardise his family's welfare and security. I think most of us will keep our heads down and leave the foolish virgins to the consequences.

Did members really have a 7 year supply?

My bet would be less than 10 days. The 3 day mark has long been heralded as the riot point! Pioneer's had to sleep on their food at times when things were extremely difficult....

[loquaciousmomma]

I have been lurking here for a couple of months. I enjoy the discussions here and especially the links to talks and other info. On a number of occasions things have been said that shed a new light on a particular topic. Thanks!

One aspect of preparation that I haven't seen discussed is what to do when you have already had to use up your supply. My husband lost his job back in 2008 and spent a year on unemployment, in addition to working various part time/temporary jobs like driving a school bus and mowing the county parks. Our family survived on our income tax refund and our short term food storage for six months. I was terrified to break open any of my long term stuff, and the branch president's wife had to shame me into doing so since I was asking for help and hadn't used up all of my own resources. (Even still all I could bring myself to use was one fifty pound bag of rice.) My problem was that we were on the verge of this economic downturn and we had already been forced to turn to our storage. I was terrified that we would go without when things really fell apart, as it was already needed in the early stages. He was able to get a job a little over a year ago, but he makes very little and even though I have a part time job to supplement, we still struggle to make ends meet. Replacing our storage has been difficult at best.

I have agonized over this situation, and have even become depressed when I look at our limited resources. I realize that the Lord knows our situation and will bless us for doing all that we can. The challenge to me is, are we? I have 7 children and home-school some of them. I wonder if I should put my son in daycare and the others in school and go to work full time to replenish our reserves. Should we be extremely frugal and use every dollar that is not tied to an absolute necessity to do add to our food supply? (I am not sure my husband would go along with that, I suggested once that we should skip our weekly breakfast date and use the money to buy a bag of wheat or rice. He said okay in an unconvinced fashion and promptly forgot about it and drove to the restaurant anyway.)

Even before we used up our short term storage, our long term supply wasn't very long term. We do not have nearly enough grains to feed our large family for more than a couple of months, and our water storage is pathetic at best.

I realize that the answers to my questions ultimately will be found only after much prayer, but counsel from others can certainly provide food for thought as we ponder the situation!

[singyourwayhome]

lo-momma,

As for daycare and a job to rebuild supplies, I think it's critical to be home when at all possible. But I get the impression you feel that way too. Wanting to go back, when you still have some additional resources to work with, sounds like your fear talking, no? I think your idea of using your breakfast date money for storage is a very good one. You'll just need to show your hubby that you can still spend time together, he's probably afraid he'll lose that 'time away'. Maybe a picnic breakfast instead? As a homeschooler, I'm sure you've developed the ability to do a lot with just a little. And I'm guessing that you typically eat long-term storage foods as part of your everyday diet. That puts you ahead, since those foods are cheaper anyway. Good suggestions on how to build your food storage are in Elder Featherstone's talk, "Food Storage", athttp://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav= ... 82620aRCRD. Is this what you're looking for? Or just reassurance that you're on the right path?

Home bottling is a good way to build food storage. A lot of times ward members are happy to get rid of their canning jars, for no cost to you. Or find them at garage sales. And people who have mature fruit trees are often overwhelmed with the quantity. Two years ago I walked the neighborhood looking for surplus fruit. The two apricot trees I harvested from gave me 200 quarts! All I had to pay for was lids and sugar, since I already had the jars. We made fruit leather out of some of it, that was the most popular thing with my 6 children.

As to your family using up what you had stored, good job! I've become more and more convinced that the government's welfare programs are part of the Gadianton's attempts to 'get power and gain' over Americans, including "the more part of the righteous until they....believe in their works and partake of their spoils". (Helaman 6:38) So your food storage has helped you resist their power and influence on you and your family. That's no small feat.

[Rensai]

I have been lurking here for a couple of months. I enjoy the discussions here and especially the links to talks and other info. On a number of occasions things have been said that shed a new light on a particular topic. Thanks!

One aspect of preparation that I haven't seen discussed is what to do when you have already had to use up your supply. My husband lost his job back in 2008 and spent a year on unemployment, in addition to working various part time/temporary jobs like driving a school bus and mowing the county parks. Our family survived on our income tax refund and our short term food storage for six months. I was terrified to break open any of my long term stuff, and the branch president's wife had to shame me into doing so since I was asking for help and hadn't used up all of my own resources. (Even still all I could bring myself to use was one fifty pound bag of rice.) My problem was that we were on the verge of this economic downturn and we had already been forced to turn to our storage. I was terrified that we would go without when things really fell apart, as it was already needed in the early stages. He was able to get a job a little over a year ago, but he makes very little and even though I have a part time job to supplement, we still struggle to make ends meet. Replacing our storage has been difficult at best.

I have agonized over this situation, and have even become depressed when I look at our limited resources. I realize that the Lord knows our situation and will bless us for doing all that we can. The challenge to me is, are we? I have 7 children and home-school some of them. I wonder if I should put my son in daycare and the others in school and go to work full time to replenish our reserves. Should we be extremely frugal and use every dollar that is not tied to an absolute necessity to do add to our food supply? (I am not sure my husband would go along with that, I suggested once that we should skip our weekly breakfast date and use the money to buy a bag of wheat or rice. He said okay in an unconvinced fashion and promptly forgot about it and drove to the restaurant anyway.)

Even before we used up our short term storage, our long term supply wasn't very long term. We do not have nearly enough grains to feed our large family for more than a couple of months, and our water storage is pathetic at best.

I realize that the answers to my questions ultimately will be found only after much prayer, but counsel from others can certainly provide food for thought as we ponder the situation!

I definitely agree that you should get your answers through prayer, rather than us on the forum. But I do have a few things you might want to consider.

First, if it were me, I would take the daycare/full time job option right off the table. That should be a last resort used only when financial obligations can be met no other way. The church has always been clear on that. We see it abused a lot today, but I have a hard time thinking
you will be blessed with more food storage, etc for endangering your primary responsibility to care for your children.

You have a large family and it's a huge task to stock up a year of food storage for that many people. You'll have to get creative. Forget about buying it all in the stores. That would be very costly. Instead look for alternatives. For example, are you familiar with the concept of gleaning? I know a family that has filled barrels with hundreds of pounds of wheat for free with this practice.

GLEANING - glen'-ing (laqat, `alal): The custom of allowing the poor to follow the reapers in the field and glean the fallen spears of grain is strikingly illustrated in the story of Ruth (Ruth 2:2-23). This custom had back of it one of the early agricultural laws of the Hebrews (Lev 19:9; 23:22; Dt 24:19-21). Breaking this law was a punishable offense. The generosity of the master of the crop determined the value of the gleanings, as the story of Ruth well illustrates (Ruth 2:16). A reaper could easily impose upon the master by leaving too much for the gleaners, who might be his own children. The old Levitical law no longer holds in the land, but the custom of allowing the poor to glean in the grain fields and vineyards is still practiced by generous landlords in Syria. The writer has seen the reapers, even when they exercised considerable care, drop from their hands frequent spears of wheat. When the reapers have been hirelings they have carelessly left bunches of wheat standing behind rocks or near the boundary walls. The owner usually sends one of his boy or girl helpers to glean these. If he is of a generous disposition, he allows some needy woman to follow after the reapers and benefit by their carelessness. It is the custom in some districts, after the main crop of grapes has been gathered, to remove the watchman and allow free access to the vineyards for gleaning the last grapes.

If you do not have any farms in your area, this may be tough, and will require extra arrangements. But if you do have farms around, there are many good farmers who will give you permission to glean leftovers that the harvesters and things spill from their fields. I've never seen a farm so efficient that there isn't plenty of food to glean if someone is willing to simply go pick it up.

Similarly, start a family garden and put those 7 children to work helping grow and can food. Wouldn't that be a great home school project? If you do not have land for a garden yourself, you can probably find someone in the ward who does and will let you use the land, especially if you share a little fresh food with them from time to time; you could also help the ward get started on a ward garden. Our ward has one and anyone who helps tend the crops can have some of the food.

Along those lines, get some fruit trees, they can be had for 10-20 bucks each. I recommend the dwarf varieties. They take little space, and start producing in a couple years. My wife and I planted a half a dozen of them a few years back and now have more tasty canned fruit than we know what to do with, all for very little cost. Then there is wild fruit and berries. Again, it depends on the area, but when I was younger we used to go up in the Rockies and gather buckets of huckleberries and blackberries. The only cost there was some gas.

I'm sure there are many other, low to little cost ways you can build your food storage. These are just a few examples. I firmly believe that with some work and a little creativity, a person can build up a good food reserve with very little expense.

[loquaciousmomma]

SYWH: You are right about home bottling. I have not mastered this yet, and hope to do so this year.

Rensai: I think you are right about not working. I have felt the need to learn to make things from scratch like soap and lotion to save money. I think the less money I spend at Wal-mart on cleaning supplies and personal care items the better off we will be.

The garden is a great idea. We do have one, the trick is making it more productive. A lot of things don't produce for us, for some reason - especially peppers. I think we need to put manure on it this fall to try and get a better result next year.

As for gleaning...this is a very interesting idea. We actually live in rural Iowa, so there are no shortage of farms. The trick is finding someone willing to let us do so.

Thanks for the input! I have really agonized over the situation and it is wonderful to have fresh ideas to give me hope that we can regain the ground we have lost these past few years.

[durangout]

It seems to me that there is a very subtle yet important reason The Church has discontinued the use of the term 1 yr Supply. The Church is trying to teach the spriitual principle behind food storage which is more important than physically having 1 yr's worth of food. I guess what I'm tryinbg to say is obdiience is good but understanding because of obedience is better. For example, the Jews of old were obedient but they didn't gain understanding because when The Savior came at the meridian of time, they didn't recognize him. "They missed the mark."

My question then for all of us is if you have food storage, what have you learned because of obedience to that commandment? In reality, having food storage won't save you but what obedience to the principle that it teaches does.

I think there are a couple more reasons the Church has changed the stated counsel. One reason is that, as a global church, the 'year's supply' is illegal in some nations. Also, as noted in my last post, the instructions were changed mid/late 2007. That is pretty close to 7 years after Pres. Hinckley gave his 7 years of plenty/7 years of famine reminder. (Well, he first brought it up in 1998, but then did repeatedly in 2001.) My Stake President, who was my next-door-neighbor, expressed his feeling (in 2007) that those who hadbn't got their year's supply yet, wouldn't be able to from then out. After reflecting on this the last couple days, my opinion is that we're in the 'lean' years now, and have been since at least 2008.

Now, as to what I've learned from storing.... I've learned self-reliance to a greater degree, become more fiercely determined to provide for myself and not accept 'freebies' (which are really other people's money!), management and inventory skills, food preservation is high on the list of 'used' skills, and I also am in the position to be of more service to the Lord, as I can help provide for those who can't. Or haven't, unfortunately. But that seems like part of the covenants I've made. And I'm willing to accept that.

What are you hoping to hear from this forum? Or are you just trolling?

My apologies. My intent wasn’t to antagonize or be insincere.
I guess what I was trying to say was that I think there is a deeper message in food storage than physical security. Here is where my thoughts brought me on this subject:
During the Israelite temple period, the people at large were under the law of obedience and sacrifice. Everything in their temple symbolized the Savior in some way or another including the sacrifice by the shedding of blood. In our temples today like those of old, everything points to the Savior. While we don’t sacrifice today by the shedding of blood, we are commanded to make other sacrifices. I think that one of those sacrifices is food storage.
What did the angle explin to Adam what was the meaning of the blood sacrifice? The Savior. Therefore, I think food storage is a representation of the Savior. Is it a coincidence that the main components of long-term storage items that are recommended by The Church are used to make bread? Who was The Bread of Life?
So, am I way off base here or is there some merit to my thoughts?

[singyourwayhome]

[quote="durangout"]It seems to me that there is a very subtle yet important reason The Church has discontinued the use of the term 1 yr Supply. The Church is trying to teach the spriitual principle behind food storage which is more important than physically having 1 yr's worth of food. I guess what I'm tryinbg to say is obdiience is good but understanding because of obedience is better. For example, the Jews of old were obedient but they didn't gain understanding because when The Savior came at the meridian of time, they didn't recognize him. "They missed the mark."
quote]
I'm grateful for how our church leaders manage to distill truths, I aspire to be this well-spoken. I ran across this talk again, "The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance" by Marion G. Romney. It was first printed as the First Presidency message in Oct. 1984, then reprinted in the March 2009 Ensign. Here's what he says about the matter:
"Doctrine and Covenants 29:34–35 tells us there is no such thing as a temporal commandment, that all commandments are spiritual. It also tells us that man is to be “an agent unto himself.” Man cannot be an agent unto himself if he is not self-reliant. Herein we see that independence and self-reliance are critical keys to our spiritual growth. Whenever we get into a situation which threatens our self-reliance, we will find our freedom threatened as well. If we increase our dependence, we will find an immediate decrease in our freedom to act.

Thus far, we should have learned that self-reliance is a prerequisite to the complete freedom to act. We have also learned, however, that there is nothing spiritual in self-reliance unless we make the right choices with that freedom. What, then, should we do once we have become self-reliant in order to grow spiritually?

The key to making self-reliance spiritual is in using the freedom to comply with God’s commandments. The scriptures are very clear in their command that it is the duty of those who have, to give to those who are in need."

I highly recommend that everyone become thoroughly familiar with the talk.

[durangout]

singyourwayhome thanks for your comments above. I agree. It all goes back to one of the most fundamental governing principle in the universe: Free agency. By having food storage, other physical preperations AND spiritual preperations, I retain my independence or in other words I have retained my free agency. Wasn't that what the first war in all enternity was about? That same war is being waged right now. Satan is fast getting people more and more dependent upon gov't or rather they are giving up their free agency for a guaranteed "salvation".

That is the real conspiricy.

[singyourwayhome]

Yes, that is the real conspiracy- depriving everyone of their freedom. Always has been; I agree with your comments on the war in heaven vs. now. That's what difference there is in socialism vs. consecration. See Marion G. Romney for that one, too: http://runwin.tripod.com/socialism.html

I was concerned about your original question ('missing the mark') because WAY too often people claim that it's just the spiritual that matters, and NOT the physical. They use that as an excuse to not prepare, to not become self-reliant. Or maybe they'll just be self-reliant when the going's good, and then fall back on whatever's available when things get uncomfortable, instead of setting up personal safety nets like food, water, money reserves.
It sounds like that wasn't your intent. Whew.

As to the change in Church counsel, it doesn't much affect what I do personally, because I'm on that open-ended step #4. It DOES affect what I teach, in my calling, to my ward members, though. I had been teaching the 3 month, then year concept. Time to repent, I guess. Once you get to #4, you need to study it out, think about the quantity you should get, and pray about it. Our leaders have been telling us for years that the days would come where we had to function off the Spirit rather than specific counsel. Looks like we're there. Ten virgins story, anyone?

[singyourwayhome]

There IS a current reference on lds.org to year's supply, after all... the only problem is, now I can't find it. I ran across it last week while preparing a talk.
It was in a general heading for something-or-other, all I remember is that under the heading were lessons to teach in either Priesthood or RS, about basic welfare principles. It stated that we believe in storing a year's supply....