Spelt, Wheat and Food Storage

Did you know you are supposed to prepare your wheat to be stored when storing long term?

Here are a few suggestions for storing your wheat, rice, noodles, legumes, and the like:

• You can “can” it or seal it in 10 pound tin cans using a dry pack canner.
• Use a nitrogen pack to create an oxygen free atmosphere
• You can use a 5 or 6 gallon bucket with those cool spin-on and off gamma lids. They claim to be air-tight.
• Use a 5 or 6 gallon bucket with a regular lid, sealed tight with a nitrogen packet.

Also, wheat has an incredibly long shelf life, so if you don’t rotate it for 20 years or so, it is still good to use after those 20 years have passed - so long as someone has taken the time to store it correctly.

Now, if you are only going to store it short term, you still want to make sure it is sealed in a bucket (you don’t really need a nitrogen pack for short term). But you do want to keep weevil and other pests out of your food storage, so make sure it is packaged nice and tight in some type of clean bucket or container.

Happy Storing!

I figured out that I have access to Food Paks for a decent price. The short definition is Food Paks are dehydrated foods in bulk. Here is an example of one food pak that would cost $599.00

If you are interested in this pak or more comprehensive ones, contact me at info@histakes-spelt.com and I will get more accurate shipping rates for getting it to you. Or if you just have questions about it, just ask - I am happy to talk to you about it. By the way, if you are anxious to get a good easy start to your food storage, I think this is an excellent way to go.

So, I’ve been thinking about building my grain storage and rotating it - how do I do it? I just do… I’ll try to put it into words and ideas, but I am totally open to more ideas and what works for other people. (So feel free to leave comments and give me ideas.)

I think that buying a 50 lb bag of grain - once a month might be more cost effective than buying several hundred pounds at one time - buy do what you can afford. To keep it rotated, you need to know how much grain you go through a month. I find that purchasing two of the same item and writing the date on them helps me with keeping track of how long it takes me to use and item as well as keeping track of rotation (using the oldest one first). Glad my mom taught me that trick.  =)

Also, if you buy one grain item per month, it also gets you in the habit of keeping up with your food storage and making sure you have enough in stock and not waiting until you run out of it to take action and buy a bunch of “whatever” to build your supply back up. Make sense?

So I was in Washington a few weeks ago and delivered some spelt to a bakery.  For fun, they gave me some of their product. They call their bakery the Live Bread Shoppe. Live because it uses FRESH ingredients that still have fresh nutrients. So, they gave me some of their Gourmet Healthy Cookies made of “uncompressed, wholesome, natural ingredients” and I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. I was worried they would be just another heavy, wholesome piece of styrofoam (that is really what I think about a lot of “health” foods), but this was incredible. It tasted good and before I knew it, the entire (big) cookie was gone!

Go to their website http://www.livebreadshoppe.com for a picture and explanation of the anatomy of their gourmet cookies. It is kind of cool. They also have a great explanation about the “live” thing. And they use spelt!

They also gave us some of their apple pecan spelt live bread. That was better than I expected as well. I liked it toasted best.

To tell the truth, I’ve been meaning to write about that for a long time… I remembered again when I saw a stash of live cookies in my freezer this afternoon. Cookie anyone? It is healthy!

Don’t forget… here is the website:  http://www.livebreadshoppe.com/

Until later.

Jodi had a great comment and an excellent resource. I wanted to make it a real post so you wouldn’t overlook it. Here it is: http://www.trackmyfoodstorage.com/default.aspx

I haven’t been through it all, but it looks very well organized and a great helper for all of us who need food storage help.

What do you think? Let’s focus on grains this month.

This top of the table is for 1 adult (actually a person over 7 years old), then the bottom part of the table is for a child less than 7 years old. It is recommended to have the following:

By the way, I got this information from the food storage calculator I mentioned in a previous post.

I just found I have a good resource for red and white wheat - until they run out. If you really want some, contact me we can work out how to get it to you. They have a limited amount right now - white wheat in 6 gal buckets, 45 lbs for about $30 and red wheat in 50 lb bags for just under $30. You can contact me at: info@histakes-spelt.com.

Offer stands until the end of April or until these good people run out of grain. Whichever comes first.

Do you realize that corn is not the major reason why there are wheat shortages? Do you know what the real reason is? (Remember, we grow and farm wheat. We keep up with the markets and the real agriculture news. Not just what major news stations want you to focus on.)
So, if it isn’t ethanol and corn, what is it? Are you getting anxious? Did I stall enough for you to get excited? The main reason wheat is in short supply is because of crop failure. Have you heard about the diseases afflicting wheat throughout the world? How about the droughts in the mid-west (part of Texas) or the flooding in other parts of the mid-west? Major droughts and major flooding - especially at critical growth moments - create crop failure. Either the wheat doesn’t produce a bountiful crop or it is just destroyed altogether.
It is not ethanol.

Oh - and just because wheat is in short supply, I am not recommending that you go out and stock pile it and hoard it in your storage area. Don’t make a made dash and buy out all the wheat or flour you can find. However, I do recommend that you should get some that you will use and maybe a little extra for food storage - especially if you have none. That way you will have some to use and add to your building food storage rotation.

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What do you think about getting a “food storage” group together, so we can focus on one item every few weeks and build our storage by ordering in bulk?

Just in case you want to get started on what to do, here are a few resources for more information:

Family Storage Pamphlet:
http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,7554-1-4081-1,00.html

Food Storage Calculator:
http://www.survivalring.org/foodcalc.htm

You might be asking this very question, wondering why you might need food storage. Well here is a list of ideas why you might consider having at least 1-3 months of food supply on hand:

• Boy Scout Motto:  Be prepared
• Major snowstorm strikes your area. You are snowed in for days (and you still want to eat).
• Hurricane/Major storms hit and there is no other food supply for days or for miles.
• War closes down transportation of food and supplies
• Flooding and/or drought affect the crops this year and production is not what it should be to meet demand
• It costs a lot to go to the store everyday - save fuel
• If you have a sudden craving, you could probably do something about it if you had food storage containing your favorite ingredients.
• Debt doesn’t allow you to purchase much food for a month or possibly longer
• It’s a good idea
• I’ve even heard an FBI person as well as other world leaders advise it
• And last, you could sustain life, if you needed to because you were prepared

Is that a good enough list of reasons? Does anyone want to add to that? (Feel free.)