Mormons horde food, and when it spoils, they try to dump it. But not with the rest of the trash. Instead, to make themselves feel better, they offer food that is years, even DECADES, beyond its dated shelf life to others.

All to save 30¢ a can so that they can give the church an extra $20 a week? If members didn't waste $350/ month it might not be so necessary to buy inferior food to eat at home or store up - to give away in five years when it is so spoiled it even makes them sick, in more ways than one.

The question to ask is, would you eat it yourself or give it to your mother or father; to the church itself or to the profit? Would you serve it to your finest guests?

My idiot father opened up one of the wheat barrels from Salt Lake City one day to find it crawling with weevils. Oops, could've paid for the kid's school lunches instead. Oh well, no harm done.

Years ago my dad opened the door to the under ground cellar to check on the food storage.

Everything was infested with mice! They were hopping, springing, sprinting, screwing, eating, squeaking just like in a horror show!

There were 100 pound bags of wheat, rice, and sugar.
Nothing was packed in barrels or storage containers. My parents didn't see a need - they were following orders from a prophet! They thought gawd would keep it fresh and wholesome!

Stupid freaks.

My conversation with my Dad on church food storage

Dad are ever going to eat this 100 pounds of wheat?

Nope

Why do we have it?

Mom bought it from relief society

So what are we going to do with it?

Well, if we run low on food we'll spread it around the back 40 and shoot the deer when they come down to eat it.

Properly canned, I have seen food last more than thirty years and still be excellent eating. Personal experience!!!

I have also seen food not properly canned poison people in three months. Personal experience.

To store raw wheat or rice in bags or boxes is like a death wish.

And sugar !!!!! Nice to know that God loves mice so much.

My mother had the good sense to throw out her stash of wheat when she moved out of her condo but she still thinks that anything in a can will last forever. I opened her small pantry (pantry is right next to the HOT water heater !!) and found that a couple of cans had burst long ago and I couldn't even get the mess off the wall. I opened a couple of cans of fruit that were nothing but liquid black goo. My mother even had some cans she had saved when HER mother moved in the 60's (my mother is 90)! Needless to say I quietly trashed all her cans of food. There wasn't all that much because she gave up on the the church recommended "year's supply" long ago because she just plain didn't have that much space. But she insisted I keep the single, large container of Tang. I disobeyed and opened it. It was a solid hardened brick. Guess we could have used it to lick some Vitamin C or repair the foundation. lol

My mother grew up in SLC in the fifties and sixties. She once told me a story about a girl in her home economics class in school:

Teacher: What is the purpose of sifting flour before baking?

Girl: To remove the weevil.

Why remove the weevil? They are edible and a good source of protein! :)

Ha! One of hubby's TBM grandmothers would always say that :)

ETA: Speaking of food going bad...Over the holidays, my TBM mother-in-law was making turkey pot pie with canned vegetables. She opened at least a dozen cans of green beans to find two cans that were not spoiled. We politely excused ourselves to go "sight seeing" and went out to eat..now hubby is very hesitant to eat anything his mother cooks, lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2016 03:55AM by eunice.

Someone paid my brother to haul away ancient morg food storage from their deceased parents' cellar. My brother was trying to feed a passel of hungry children on next to nothing. He thought the food would be safe for them if his goats survived samples of it first.

The flaw? Goats are not people and can eat things that kill humans. Remember the cartoons of goats eating tin cans? Only a slight exaggeration of goats' digestive dexterity.

As far as I know all of the kids survived but might have been a little worse for wear.

This rotten old meat man can exploded. Throwing out all the old cans, I realized this was a can of old meat. Good thing we didn't eat!

http://allincircles.tumblr.com/image/2141380915

I helped my husband move his elderly Mormon relative to a new home last summer. It took days to clean the food storage room. I found food from the early seventies. It was sad, really. We threw away thousands of dollars worth of food that at one time probably could have helped someone.

The food that I was surprised doesn't last much past its expiration date is mandarin oranges. There were dozens of exploded cans of mandarin oranges. The sweet syrup coated the shelves and beckoned critters...yuck.

Ewww! Now I'm glad we only had one can of meat (whatever it was). Never liked old canned food! Mandarin oranges!! Just a minute please! I (with your reminder) finally threw out a (plastic) 'jar' of M.O. It was only three years past 'yuck' but I've been wanting to throw it away anyway since I've housed it [about 6 months]. Thanks again for the reminder.

We've eaten 20 year old food spoilage (from the top of the pyramid, even ldsINC, of course) such as milk (pretty satisfactory too), pasta and dehydrated tri-fried beans. Mormons are too busy doing busy Works and mental gymnastics, and jumping to conclusions, as exercise and forget about the exercise - and FUN! - in rotating food storage.

Please pass the Salt, Peter!

"Expired" canned goods are usually fine. They don't "spoil", but there may be chemical reactions in the can. This is particularly true of acidic foods like tomatoes and, especially bad, mandarin oranges. The acid eats the can, and may get so bad as to creat pinholes in the can. At that point, the contents are no longer sealed, and will spoil.

Non-acidic foods, like canned corn, for example, has quite a long shelf life. The taste and texture may degrade, and vitamins tend to break down, but it won't make you sick.

BTW, those expiration dates are not set by federal standard. They are the manufacturer's decision on when quality starts to decline. They set relatively short expiration dates these days in the hope people will chuck the expired stuff and buy replacements.

Canned dry goods like wheat are generally not heat processed. The cans should be filled with an inert gas, nitrogen or CO2. If this is is not done properly, weevils already in the wheat may grow. But unless they were already there, or the can leaks, weevils can't just magically appear.

That's right Brother Of Jerry.

Especially how you differentiated between canned and dry-canned/ dehydrated. However, when I opened a (gallon?) can of orange drink mix [Tang anyone?] thinking, okay, maybe try it, though some was still orange, it must have had a "leak" because the color of most of it was brown. I know it may have been fine but out it went!

It's spiritually crazy to even consider the level of neglect it takes to ignore this food (while it is, or still may be, somewhat fresh-good) while eating out at fancy restaurants and going to Banquets and brunches and picnics, only to decades later open a (skeleton) closet and say EWW, what is all this SHIfT!?!... and try to dump it {without feeling rather foolish}.

I've see Mormons Drive 5 miles out of their way to save $0.30... and another 10 miles, and three+ hours (every week) out of the way to give tscc $300 (a month), and then 30 years later throw out $3,000 worth of crap ["food"] (while giving $90,000 {more} to the church in the MEANtime). These are the same folks that buy cheap food on occasion and expensive food on others- depending on who they're trying to feed or impress, who is paying for it, and how bad or good it makes them (or occasionally the 'church') look or "feel".

I'm like, 'would you feed Jesus like this'? Would you serve this to your finest guests? To yourself? Then WHY store it, as if it will somehow nourish you or keep you alive while the restaurants are forever closed and there is no electricity, gas, firewood or a spark (of intelligence, propriety or adaptability).

Spoiled food sucks! Notice even the Mormons don't even eat together these days? This is one of the reasons. Plus the dicktators don't want leisure time with families or for followers to have a good time eating and breaking bread together.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2016 01:42PM by moremany.

Tang is high acid. Most fruits are high acid. They do not have long shelf lives. Yellow fruits go brown and mushy. I'm not sure how you recognize degradation in fruits like cherries, other than taste, or simply having an expiration date rule.

My mom passed away a few years ago, and a room full of food storage was chucked. Fruits over two years old and canned meats or tuna over three years old were tossed. Dried beans and dehydrated soups over fifteen years old were tossed. That and other accumulated junk filled a six cubic yard dumpster. It was all a waste of time, space and money.

The thing about food hoarding is one reason why Mormons, especially Utah Mormons are such gun nuts, because they believe they have to protect their hoard at all costs. You see that on social media after a mass shooting, their paranoia about the evil government confiscating their guns comes out.

It's not just (Utah) Mormons [hoarding or stockpiling] food and drugs, fuel and water, gold and silver, kindness and goodwill, guns and ammunition, and junk and everything. Many people get up in arms when someone tries to harm them or their family. Lots of people keep guns to keep intruders out.

Think of the large families, grocers, merchants, ship's captains, drivers, contractors, marijuana farmers, cattle ranchers, antique and fine arts collectors, big time entertainers and such. Who is their protection? It depends on who and where they are and how much they have and how much they worry or have to lose or protect.

It's all in what you have and how - and when, and if - you use it.

Bumper stickers I'd like to see: "Mormons Are Delicious!"

Food storage systems and rotations are helpful when they are utilized effectively and efficiently but what about electronic-digital reminder calendars-apps?

How about Food Storage Monday Home Cooling Evenings? Target practice Tuesday? We don't know what it is Wednesday?

Food doesn't spoil when you eat it. Eat fresh - be happier.

My mother horded food to be ready to hie off to Missouri at the end of times.

When my father died and she had to move, she had to throw away tons and tons and tons of food. No exaggeration. She had at least 6 - 32 gallon trash bins full of wheat and rice and beans and crap. And 4 or 5 shelving units about 6' high and 10' long filled with canned and jarred food. The basement was completely full. They ended up hauling 90% of it to the dump.

Now she has outlived the money Dad had managed to save, and I'd love to ask her if that money she wasted on hording might have been better spent in investments.

my short attempt to hoard Mormon food ended when several of those small tomato paste cans burst within a day or two of each other and spread bad smelling paste all over the wall.

Any other pictures of food explosions, spoils, spills or disasters?

Any church cooking stories, potlucks, dinners or crazy home Mormon food parties?

Desserts in the Deserets?

My dad got big blue cans of wheat in the late '70's when he bought a couple of Magic Mills; as the years went by the blue paint began to flake off and the original US government olive drab paint was exposed, along with the yellow Civil Defense markings.

Cold War surplus anyone?