Lame excuses

[English Saint]

What are the worst excuses you've heard from members for not having any food storage?

As part of this month's HT message we discussed some of the articles in this month's Ensign.

One established family in our ward gave the following reasons for not bothering with FS.

(1) We don't have any room - cans rust in our garage.
They are one of the wealthier families in the ward, and they have a bigger home than mine. I don't want to get into any discussions on how I store food because I don't want them knowing what I have if they aren't going to bother getting their own.
(2) I don't like canned food.
(3) Wheat! What am I going to do with that?
Oh, the church has only been telling RS sisters what to do with wheat for 70 plus years.
(4) I think about all of the starving people in the world.
I'm not quite sure what this has to do with not having food storage, but I've heard it a couple of times now.
(5) It'll get stolen by rampaging mobs.

I remind them that prophets have told us to get FS. Still their eyes glaze over or they change the topic of conversation.

Perhaps my respose to people who say that they don't have room should have been to get rid of those silly display cabinets and trinkets. What's more important in these uncertan times, having a neat and tidy home that is food storage free, or having having plenty of FS in a home that is a bit cluttered?

[Nan]

The apostles and prophets are not talking about it anymore.

I don't know how to do it. (It can be very overwelming when you first start.)

We don't have the money to do it.

We will just go to our parent's and use their food storage.

[ShawnC]

A few ideas...

http://kunaprepare.blogspot.com/search/ ... 0Doctrines

[HoneyBee]

.

[ChelC]

Instead of fighting with people about their ideas being wrong, I think a better approach would be to take the fear away. For many of these people the excuses are due to being overwhelmed about it, or maybe not having spousal support for the endeavor.

Perhaps scheduling speakers whose lives have been blessed by storage would be good. I remember a woman speaking in our ward about it. She'd been widowed years earlier and she talked about what a blessing it was that even though she had to sell her house to pay her husband's medical bills, because of his foresight they had no debt, and they had food storage so they had something to eat when she could barely pull herself out of bed. Let them see that food storage is not just for an end of times.

Maybe a step by step of what happens at the cannery would be good. I remember the first time I went to dry pack, I was terrified! I was embarrassed to ask because I'd reached an age when I figured I had no excuse for not knowing. Of course once I got there I realized that there wasn't anything to know.

How about asking members who don't have storage to volunteer their time in helping to can on others' behalf. Chances are they'll pick up a little something. If you have one nearby, borrow a can sealer and host an activity to demonstrate how it's done... let them bring their own sealed stuff to can. Show them that food storage doesn't have to be wheat. At an activity or in a bulletin post some nice appealing pictures of organized food storage. Let them see solutions for utilizing dead space.

In the end, you won't convince anyone who has chosen to rebel, but if you've helped those suffering from ignorance, shame and fear and warned the rest, you've done your job.

[ShawnC]

Instead of fighting with people about their ideas being wrong, I think a better approach would be to take the fear away. For many of these people the excuses are due to being overwhelmed about it, or maybe not having spousal support for the endeavor.

Perhaps scheduling speakers whose lives have been blessed by storage would be good. I remember a woman speaking in our ward about it. She'd been widowed years earlier and she talked about what a blessing it was that even though she had to sell her house to pay her husband's medical bills, because of his foresight they had no debt, and they had food storage so they had something to eat when she could barely pull herself out of bed. Let them see that food storage is not just for an end of times.

Maybe a step by step of what happens at the cannery would be good. I remember the first time I went to dry pack, I was terrified! I was embarrassed to ask because I'd reached an age when I figured I had no excuse for not knowing. Of course once I got there I realized that there wasn't anything to know.

How about asking members who don't have storage to volunteer their time in helping to can on others' behalf. Chances are they'll pick up a little something. If you have one nearby, borrow a can sealer and host an activity to demonstrate how it's done... let them bring their own sealed stuff to can. Show them that food storage doesn't have to be wheat. At an activity or in a bulletin post some nice appealing pictures of organized food storage. Let them see solutions for utilizing dead space.

In the end, you won't convince anyone who has chosen to rebel, but if you've helped those suffering from ignorance, shame and fear and warned the rest, you've done your job.

Excellent advice ChelC. Agree!

[A Me]

Perhaps my respose to people who say that they don't have room should have been to get rid of those silly display cabinets and trinkets. What's more important in these uncertan times, having a neat and tidy home that is food storage free, or having having plenty of FS in a home that is a bit cluttered?

We had a home teacher once who bought a few metal shelving units like the kind you put in your garage. His wife made some beautiful muslin "covers" that attached to the units with velcro and completely hid the contents. Those shelving units were kept in the living room of their house and blended wonderfully with their cream colored walls.

I don't think the problem so much is "where do I store it?" Most of the trouble I've seen with those in my area have fallen into one question: What on earth do I do with it?

* I don't have a grinder.
* I don't know how to cook.
* We don't really like wheat.

Too many people I've known think that you must have a grinder to use wheat and some even want to avoid bread products so they won't store it in the first place because they think that's all wheat is good for. In fact, the last time my husband went to the cannery, we were the only ones getting wheat. Everyone else was getting sugar, rolled oats and powdered milk... at least they have breakfast covered.

I also wonder, based on comments regarding the skill of cooking I've heard over the years, if the "new" take on food storage is similar to what I personally call the Soup Shift (I've never heard it named but it's our family's favorite analogy right now).

Guy 1: Try the soup.
Guy 2: I don't want soup.
Guy 1: Come on, try the soup.
Guy 2: I don't feel like soup!
Guy 1: Please, just try the soup.
Guy 2: Okay, okay, I'll try the soup. [pause] Where's the spoon?
Guy 1 [smiles in a you've-finally-got-it way]: A-ha!!

See, I know very few women who know how to cook. What passes for cooking nowadays is knowing which prepackaged food to mix with this other prepackaged food to create something resembling a home-cooked meal made from scratch. This, in spite of the fact that the actual energy needed to create true scratch meals is not much more than using the mixes (let's leave the whole meat thing out of this for now... making truly fresh meat dishes does require quite a bit more effort in prep).

In fact, the only thing cooking whole grains and legumes--the basics of long-term food storage--requires is enough planning to start the process the day before. Actual hands-on time is minimal. But to do it well it is best to have someone at home during the process just in case the cooking process starts to go awry. That means one person who doesn't work for money. As in, one income for the family. And traditionally, who usually stays home? So, it's imperative in our two-income society to denigrate true cooking. Just assign it to corporations and restaurants and continue the push for mom and dad to stay at their jobs, farm their kids to daycare, etc.

Thus, people forget how to make a simple dish like red beans and rice. Or a bulgar pilaf. And when you forget (or never learn) how to cook, when you only eat the tasty yet nearly worthless garbage corporations pass off as food in the freezer section, or waste your money buying dinner from a restaurant, something like Food Storage begins to sound... weird... because it demands skills our current society would rather we not have.

So, I wonder if part of the reason the GA's want us to store what we eat is so that we can have a paradigm shift like the guy with the soup.

I don't know. Just some thoughts I've been kicking around lately.

[gruden]

Going to a ward with many student families, the one I hear most often is "We don't want to have to move it."

In the past I've helped move a few of them, and I'd have been happier to have moved cans and buckets of food than some of the other junk they had.

Some interesting ideas, ChelC. That being said, I've offered to pick stuff up for people, all they had to do was tell me what they wanted and write a check and they still wouldn't do it.


Why don't more members do food storage? Thinking about it, and looking to myself why I didn't try harder previously, it comes down to multiple reasons that I can think of:

1. Organization. You have to reorganize your home - or at least a room - to do it. Those with small homes/apartments don't see how it can fit. Those with larger homes already have space allocated to something else and it would involve cleaning up/organizing a spot or deallocating cherished space.

2. Money. Who wants to spend more money buying stuff they already bought this week, especially when they want to do fun things like go out, or buy new clothes or TV. I've become convinced food storage is one of those things for many people is an indicator how much you're in Babylon. While having food storage doesn't mean you're out, not having it means you've chosen to place your faith that Babylon keeping the food coming, which leads me to

3. No Want. Most Gen X and the Millennial (Gen Y) generations have never known a time when they couldn't go to the store at any time and buy what they needed. We've lost the ability to conceive the possibility food can be scarce and/or unaffordable.

4. Someone else will provide. In my lifetime a sense of entitlement has seeped in and infiltrated our society, including our church. More people enroll in government welfare programs. If something bad should happen, the bishop, family, or even the government will provide. Heck, the Lord probably will, too. Someone has always been there to catch me when something bad happened - isn't that how it works?

5. Negative associations. Society looks down at people with pantries just a little too big. My uncles laughed at my mom when she showed them her storage - laughed in her face. People thinks it's weird (starting to change now), and many people already sensitive about being Mormon outcasts don't want to look any stranger.

6. Too busy. The catch-all. Gradually I'm becoming convinced the people who prepared for bad times are the misfits, the people not quite comfortable with society's machinations. We long for something better. The way the world works does not sit well with us and we wish the Second Coming would happen tomorrow. Conversely, the people who fit in well and for whom life is great become too caught up in it. They're too busy to be concerned about with might happen. We're just doom-n-gloomers who need to get a life.

[ldsff]

I was told once "My dog ate it"

[lamanite]

Priorities. I wonder if members think that they have to prioritize what they are going to improve on first and most don't make it past Home Teaching? Who says you can't do your food storage until you catch up on temple attendance which you can't do until you do your home teaching which is useless unless you're perfect in your titihing or scripture study or whatever. Unfortunately I think there is some sort of unspoken priorities list in people's heads and you don't dare get things done out of order...!

[shadow]

I'm planning on Shawn sharing his food storage.

[ShawnC]

I'm planning on Shawn sharing his food storage.

I was waiting for that to show up sooner or later.

May the fleas of 1000 camels find refuge in your armpits.

[shadow]

May the fleas of 1000 camels find refuge in your armpits.

Sweet! Chocolate covered fleas anyone? They're a little on the salty side and taste a bit like Old Spice, but I'll share.