An udderly great resource!

If you are familiar with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat you’ll recognize this song. Here is Pharoah’s Dream (Genesis 41)

And here is Joseph’s interpretation of Pharoah’s Dream:

Moral: Store food during times of plenty.

Quotes on food storage had moved from the right sidebar to its own page.  These quotes are helpful if you are preparing a lesson on preparedness.  There’s still a couple quotes that I need to verify source.  Hopefully will post soon.

The vegetables page has been updated.  Check it out and learn what vegetables to store and grow.

I’ve been motivated to get back into Holy Cow Food Storage.  I’ll do my best to blog my tips, recipes, and wisdom.  Please come back often and contact me to give me some motivation to get back on the bandwagon.  If you don’t see me here, I’m probably at www.melindabeth.com/blog.

Today I finally broke down and replaced the old stinky sponge I was using to wash my dishes.  I know it was way overdue, but the past couple of weeks I was just too lazy to bend over and retrieve a new one from beneath my sink.  Ahhh!  The new one is so firm and fresh.  What joy!  I tell you this as a reminder to think about your sponges.  You wouldn’t want to have to use the same sponge for a whole year!  I’m not sure if there is an official recommendation for replacing sponges, but I remember on Oprah once somebody said to replace it ever 1-2 weeks.  That seems reasonable to me.  So, do you have 26 sponges?  But no need to hurry out and get them now.  Wait until they come on sale.

Today was an exciting day in my household.  My husband finished off a 40 oz. Jif peanut butter container.  So now I have another one to add to my collection and store beans.  I delightfully washed the #2 PETE plastic container and Goo Gone’d the label off and poured 2 lbs (actually 1 lb. 15 oz.) of lentils into it.   A 40 ounce peanut butter jar typically store 2 pounds of beans.  Therefore we need 30 of these containers for each person in my family to have 60 lbs of beans per person.  Our family finishes off a 40 oz. jar in approximately 3 weeks which means we collect containers at a rate of 17 per year.  Hmmm…that means it would take us about 14 years to complete our collection.  I may have to enlist the help of friends or eat more peanut butter. 

• There are about 12.5 cups of rice in a #10 can. 
• A #10 can of white rice contains 88 oz. (5.5 lb.)
• 1 cup of white rice weighs 7 oz. 
• 1 six gallon bucket of white rice contains 44 lbs.
• 1 six gallon bucket of white rice = 8 #10 cans.
• 1 six gallon bucket of white rice contains 100 cups.
• A typical serving is approximately 1/4 cup dry rice (1.75 oz.)

Use these numbers to figure out how much rice your family should store for a year supply.

Example 1:

A family of six eats rice at dinner twice a week for a total of 4 cups of dry rice per week (2 cups dry rice/ meal.) 

If they eat 4 cups per week for 52 weeks, they would need 208 cups of dry rice.

If there are 12.5 cups of dry rice in a #10 can, they would need 17 #10 cans of white rice (208/ 12.5 = 16.64)

They may opt to store 2 six gallon buckets + 1 #10 can  of white rice.

Or 1 six gallon bucket + 9 #10 cans of white rice.

These amounts are equal to 93.5 lbs. of white rice which is approximately 30% (93.5 lbs/ 300 lbs.) the recommended storage of grains for one person for a year.

Example 2:

Since rice is easy to store, and easy to prepare especially in emergency situations, I like to recommend to plan for 2 oz. of dry rice/ person/ day.  With this number, our family in the example above would need to store

6 people x 2 oz. x  365 days = 4380 oz. rice

4380 oz. rice/ 16 oz. = 273.75 or 274 lbs. rice for one year.

This is equal to:

6 six gallon buckets + 2 #10 cans

or

50 #10 cans

These numbers can also be applied to brown rice, however, brown rice will not store as long as white rice.  Plan to use your brown rice withing a year or 6 months of opening.  White rice is better for long term storage.

Happy rice storing!

Bi-lo has been sending out these awesome coupons in the mail. Your choice - $7 off $75 or more or $10 off $100 or more. Tonight I used a $7 coupon and I always try to get exactly the $75 or the $100 to make the coupon really worth it. So I add the groceries in my head. As long as I’m not buying a lot of produce, I can add it pretty well. I did a pretty darn good job tonight and my total added up to $75.24. Awesome. So including my bonus card savings, I got a $103.01 worth of groceries for $68.24. A total savings of $34.77. Not bad. I mostly stocked up on ground beef, mozarella cheese, and bought the regular 4 gallons of milk and 5.60 lbs. of bananas.

The Prices I Pay
Milk $4.19/gal
Shredded Cheese $6.99/2 lbs. (sale - reg $7.99)
Store Brand 100% whole wheat bread $1.59
Bananas $0.59/lb.
Ground Beef $2/lb (sale - reg $3.99)

I’ve decided to end my Holy Cow! Food Storage! hiatus and continue my blogging. I was a little overwhelmed with my other blogs and I didn’t quite know what to do with this one. I gave up on living off of food storage because I’m pregnant and a pregnant woman should be able to eat what she wants. But I’ve been inspired to continue maintaining this site despite my failures and intimidation and make improvements at a slow rate and hopefully turn it into a success. At the moment my plan is to blog on Saturday evenings and record my grocery savings for that week. At the end of the year I can total my savings and give myself a big pat on the back for the hard work and determination to be a savvy shopper. Also, on Wednesdays I will blog the extra good grocery store deals for my area grocery stores and blast it out in an email as a link to my friends who are also interested in knowing what to buy that week.

I sorted through my cake and muffin mixes today. They must always look so good in the store, but I have a habit of not using them. I sorted them by “use by” date and found the oldest with a use by date of August 2004. I decided to give it a try. [Read more →]

This evening I was famished! For breakfast I had a bowl of cereal. Lunch was pasta with butter and parmesean cheese. I ate an orange as a snack. I began to panic that my hunger was an indication of malnourishment so I began to cry [Read more →]

27 more weeks to go for baby #6. I decided to add some bagged spinach to the leftover ABC(123) soup tonight for a little extra folate. We also enhanced it with some cheese. The kids ate frozen chicken nuggets. [Read more →]

Tonight was ABC soup night, but Emily was quick to correct us that technically it is ABC and 123 soup. It was the first time I made this from the mix I ordered in a #10 can. I simmered it in 2 quarts of water seasoned with a couple tablespoons [Read more →]

Breakfast: Cereal and Milk
Lunch: Eggs, grits, toast
Dinner: Pancakes with blueberries and whip cream
I didn’t realize it until just now, but I guess we ate breakfast three times today. But it was good! I was planning to [Read more →]

Today we searched for some more affordable housing. Before departure we ate a simple breakfast of cereal and milk. Because we were out and about while our house was shown twice today, we ate lunch out. We dined at a modest italian restaurant. We [Read more →]

Dinner tonight was actually delicious. I cooked up some ground beef I had frozen since April and made angel hair pasta with meat sauce. Dissatisfied with the spaghetti, Bradley, Sarah, and Wendy ate yogurt.

Earlier today [Read more →]

We had a showing on the house tonight so we got to go out to eat. Where can you feed a family of seven for under $20? Kids eat free at Quiznos on Thursdays! But we walked in and the placed smelled like turpentine [Read more →]

We just arrived home from a five week long visit with my parents in California. Upon arrival back at home, the house was clean (considering it’s on the market) but the cupboards were bare of the normal everyday commodities. It is now time to [Read more →]

So we have been blessed with the unfortunate circumstance of a lowered paycheck. It’s the dreaded curse when you work for powerful attorneys and they cast the spell on us a couple of weeks ago. We suppress [Read more →]

Good morning, class.
If you would turn or click in your scriptures to D&C 89:14
What is the staff of life? [Read more →]

Let’s talk water. We all know water is essential for our survival. It is estimated that a human can only survive 3-5 days without water. I could list all the awful things that occur during extreme dehydration, but I know ‘yall can Google “death by dehydration.” [Read more →]

I liken food storage to our progression of skill at putting together jigsaw puzzles. We don’t expect a toddler to be able to put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Most likely the toddler would spend a minute or two pretending to try, jam a couple of pieces together, [Read more →]