Growing up in the 70s and 80s my family had a 2 year supply of food that hardly ever got used. My mom would do her best to rotate it, but buying fresh food to cook with tasted better and required little storage space.
If they had put the money towards the mortgage or savings, they would have been better off.
If anyone asks me how I know the TSCC is false, I just give them the example of the food storage program.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2019 01:01AM by chipace.

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage?lang=eng

When society's food supply gets low, remember that you are simply holding the food for the toughest guy on the block (or for the police when they come by to confiscate it).

chipace Wrote:

> you are simply holding the food for the toughest guy on the block (or for the police when they come by to confiscate it).

Yes indeed. Only have to watch Walking Dead to know that!!!

put away some gold just before the Great Depression hit, were probably feeling pretty good about having done the wise thing, the prudent thing, forgoing spending their cash for immediate gratification and, instead, exercising self-discipline and sacrificing some things now in order to be prepared and have a more secure future.

Yep, they were probably feeling pretty good about themselves...right up to that moment where the Federal Government announced that they all privately held gold was now subject to confiscation, to be surrendered immediately to the government for a tiny fraction of its market value...so that the government could then make it available to the richest of the rich (i.e. the "toughest guys on every block in the world").

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2019 11:02PM by anybody.

I just remember as a teenager 1990's, going into my g-grandmas house a few years after she passed and all the old 1950's storage was there in the dirt basement that was always flooded. The peaches were green and there was canned green beans all discolored. I wondered what kind of botchalism grows in that kind of stuff. It was really scary.

And on the walls were old old Edwardian family portraits in gold frames, all dressed in black, like the Addams Family.

When my MIL badgers my hubby about food storage he says he stores guns and ammo.

Of course he is kidding, but it shuts her up.

Around 1965 the head of the Institute of Religion at the University of Utah was a close friend of my father's (former missionary companions). I remember him boasting to my father that he had a good supply of weapons so he could defend his family from the hordes of black people who would be coming to rob and assault them during the turbulent times just over the horizon.

Like another poster on this thread I recall being in a dark, dirt cellar with rotten looking bottled fruit on a shelf covered with dirt and dust.

I was asked if I would like to have this fruit so I could recycle the bottles to use in my canning.

You've got to be kidding me.

one of these days...maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow and maybe not even the day after tomorrow, but one day there will come a time when it will prove to be a good idea.

Too bad there are no prophets around who could tell us when, so that we wouldn't have to waste tons of money and food waiting for some emergency that may or may not come in our lifetime.

It's always been a good idea to have a few weeks or so of emergency supplies. Regularly maintaining a two-year supply is totally impractical, unless you're in the business of managing bunkers for rich people.

The fact that the Mormon "prophets" have never provided anyone with any useful information that couldn't be had for free anywhere else does indeed constitute one of many items of evidence showing that it's all fraudulent.

A Mormon prophet can get up in General Conference and tell the congregation that it's a good idea to look both ways before trying to walk across a busy highway...and Mormons will act like it's the first time anyone has ever uttered such profound wisdom.

"Whoa! Look both ways before crossing the street. Did you hear that Lavina? That's from a Prophet of God! I'm tellin' ya. Prophet of God! I feel so sorry for people outside of the church. All the needless accidents crossing the street. If only they would listen to the Prophet."

Having emergency supplies is the same kind of thing. You'd think the ordinary members would get sick of being treated like idiot children by the leaders.

Wally Prince Wrote:

> "Whoa! Look both ways before crossing the street.
> Did you hear that Lavina? That's from a Prophet
> of God! I'm tellin' ya. Prophet of God!

This reminds me of a scientific study that found that more pedestrian fatalities occur within painted crosswalks.

The department where I worked at the time considered painting over the crosswalks...till someone pointed out--more people cross in crosswalks, so that is why there are more deaths there.

:) :) :)

Logic can get you a long way, can't it.

Logic: without crosswalks we could cut those fatalities....

It was a triumph of logic!!! :) :) :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2019 01:34PM by mel.

:) :) :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2019 01:35PM by mel.

make them cross where the roads are curved ;)

One of the last priesthood classes I attended passed around a list to sign up to purchase 100 pound bags of wheat.

I handed the list off without signing up.

The Elders Quorum president tried to hand it back to me. I told him only fools would buy raw wheat.

He said I could make bread with it in emergencies.

I then asked how in an emergency would one grind the wheat, find eggs, milk, yeast etc to make dough. Then let it rise. Then bake it?

For the same money I could buy rice that only needs boiling water. I could buy cans of pasta with tomato sauce and meat or I could buy cans of soup with meat, veggies and pasta plus canned fruit and juices.

When I walked out of the class I saw only a few names on the list and I understand some of those backed out.

Someone was selling 100 lb bags of wheat that day. And you put a cramp in their style.

Serves em right. That isn't food storage for emergencies. You're right about that.

Heck, if things get so bad we need to start cooking everything from scratch it's going to take more than 100 lb bags of wheat to save us.

Around the late sixties wheat attained a near divine reputation among Mormons. Like you, I've never quite understood why.

the fact that MORmON polygamist births do not overwhelming favor females is proof that MORmONISM is BS

the Book of MORmON is proof that MORmONISM is BS

encouraging food storage and emergency preparation is one of the few valid things that MORmONISM did

if you want to talk about something that disproves MORmONISM, (which FTR I detest), especially as an issue that disproves MORmONISM then you should bark up a different tree

if you want to talk about MORmON style foibles that occurred while attempting to implement food storage then fine

if you want to talk about something that disproves MORmONISM (FTR I detest MORmONISM), especially as an issue that disproves MORmONISM

*to others*

then you should bark up a different tree

It makes sense to me to have a supply of food for certain situations. Maybe enough veggies, etc. to get through the winter or a month's supply in case of a health, financial or other emergency.

What I don't understand is the fascination with buying tons of whole wheat that is never rotated, never used. No one wants to eat that crap, its just going to age and isn't easy to prepare if SHTF.

I just clicked on that link... found this gem.

"Take the amount of food you would need to purchase to feed your family for a day and multiply that by 7. That is how much food you would need for a one-week supply."


durrrrrr....

I bet if you multiply that by 52 you'll get how much food to feed them for a year!

My father wasted a lot of money on apocalyptic food powders that should have gone to the family. For his part, it was parental malpractice. For the Mormon church it was fraud.

Smirk wrote:

"encouraging food storage and emergency preparation is one of the few valid things that MORmONISM did"

I've lived through two emergencies where food storage was a good idea.

First was the LA riots. Although I was in a suburb, EVERYTHING closed INSTANTLY! Gas stations, stores, everything just shut down and no one came out of their houses. It just amazed me how quick it happened, and with no warning. Without food for a few days you would have had to go out, and nobody did.

Second was Hurricane Katrina. News gave plenty of warning but we still didn't know how bad it would be, and my house (2 hours from the coast) was without power for 2 weeks.
Needless to say, canned goods were it, can't cook or heat anything without power.

Nobody came to the house with guns but in some areas (I worked for the state) our personnel always went armed, for months, and there were incidents, trying to steal water, mostly.

The problem I see with the prep is assuming there will be water and power. There wasn't, and the longer it went on the worse it was. Hospitals on emergency power and prescription drugs having to be shipped in from out-of-state federal storehouses. People couldn't get their meds, etc.

So yeah, I agree with Smirk, prepping isn't bad, but a timeline would help. Raw wheat would be useless!

Yeah, but saying that having food and water for a week or two--which makes imminent sense--validates the LDS doctrine is unreasonable.

In the 1950s and 1960s the Mormon standard was two years, then it was cut back to one year, and a couple of decades ago it went to 3-4 months. Every single version of that policy was wrong. If anything happened that cut off the supply of food and water for more than a few weeks, there would be far more serious things to worry about.

So we are left with a ridiculous policy that cost its members money and time to no avail. What was the upside? For the church, it was perpetuating the sense of persecution and the apocalyptic fears that binds Mormons together. But that's about it.


ETA: Saying that since a couple weeks' storage is good means that the church's teachings about 1-2 years of food and water is a bit like saying a doctor who tells the elderly to run marathons every day is wise because taking short walks is healthy. At some point the lack of proportionality means the teaching is bonkers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2019 03:53PM by Lot's Wife.

my mother spent every summer of my childhood slaving over a hot canner. She processed tons of food that her family hated. What a waste of beautiful summer days. We could have been doing something that was fun or even more productive.

Every Monday she ground wheat and made bread, that her family hated.

She had chickens, that we all hated, and a milk cow that only she could love. None of us would drink the raw milk.

What a waste of a life. We lived 2 miles to the nearest supermarket and a few more miles from a major city. Buying milk would have been a lot cheaper and saved her tons of work.

I don't recall Wrote:

> What a waste of a life. We lived 2 miles to the
> nearest supermarket

Yes I figured this out the first summer I spent weeding and getting bit by fireants for around 3 bucks worth of cucumbers....

Cheaper to just buy them and enjoy summer in air conditioning like it is meant to be!

mel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Yes I figured this out the first summer I spent
> weeding and getting bit by fireants for around 3
> bucks worth of cucumbers....

Ah, fire ants. Another one of god's marvelous creations.

Well Jesus wrecked the whole program when he didn't show up AGAIN for the end of the world. :D

My mom was conned. She never rotated it out and the wheat attracted mice and possums. Huge mess.

And then there was her canning garbage. I forever remember the year 1988. While the roofing company had a giant bin required for re-roofing, I took advantage and dumped her hellish mason jars of scum. Really bad stuff rotting for 15 years. Thankfully, she was too busy planning her primary lessons to notice. Then about 2 years later, my older sibling noticed that the junk was missing. And she actually took credit (for dumping it) "Oh that canned stuff was going bad so I threw it out." Thankfully, she hasn't restarted the food storage nonsense.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well Jesus wrecked the whole program when he didn't show up AGAIN for the end of the world. :D

Ha! Yes those old Moron guys are so obsessed with the End talking to them for more than a minute they started warning me how the world was all ending....

Obsessed

You would think the church would be all for gay marriage so it would hurry up Armageddon.

Ha! So they could be proved right, pronto!

Good one.

Back in the day when the church magazines were commercially oriented, the Improvement Era was brought to you by a host of Mormon-owned companies, including multiple food storage companies. Back then the expectation was of a 2-year supply, which realistically and logistically is a flawed idea. But we were living in the "Red Scare," which was preached constantly from the pulpit, and about which a number Mormon authors wrote books. The general authorities were of no help, either. I remember Bruce R. McConkie saying in a talk, "...and nuclear war, which surely must come,..."

So food storage became a barometer of how faithful a member you were. Drive a broken down car and live in a ramshackle house? Show your faith by buying food storage instead of having an engine repair. Need a new toilet flange because your toilet is leaking into the basement? Test your resolve by buying more food storage instead.

Occasionally, the stake president would call out a family's name during stake conference, where he would put the family on the spot by calling them to live entirely on their food storage for a week and report back next conference.

I'm sure others will back me up on this. Ask NormaRae and Don Bagley just how important food storage was in their households. Fortunately for me, I lived with an LDS foster family who never had their act together, eating very close to the bone, and who depended on the meager income from the Kern County foster placement office to make ends meet. They bought the occasional 5 gallon container of wheat, of course, and had a few objects like powdered peanut butter, powdered cheese, a few gallons' worth of powdered milk, but had no way to prepare anything. And, to hear the general authorities speak, all of us were going to have our asses blown to fine ash by a nuclear explosion with no prior warning. So...

cludgie Wrote:
> But we were living
> in the "Red Scare," which was preached constantly
> from the pulpit...

How interesting! Back then people weren't restricted to only talking about the Atonement like they do now???

> They bought the occasional 5 gallon
> container of wheat, of course, and had a few
> objects like powdered peanut butter...

Well, there's something I never dreamed of. Powdered Peanut Butter, to go along with, presumably, your home-made bread and (?) powdered jam?

As a matter of fact, Mormons then weren't restricted from talking about anything except (as I recall) Emma Smith; we had to talk about her in whispered voices, because Smith had said all these grandiose things about Emma, but she elected to stay behind. Anyway, gospel doctrine class was taught from books by the notorious right-wing dingbat Cleon Skousen, and from Duane Crowther's book, "Prophecy, Key to the Future." Teaching from a book by Skousen was much like teaching from the writings of Glenn Beck. And everything back then included the "evils of Communism and Socialism," and how the Soviet Russians would attack us at some point with nuclear weapons, so we all had to have food storage. And by some never-explained future happenstance, we would all quit our various locations and travel to Missouri to gather in the New Jerusalem for the ushering in of the Last Days. This was constant, mind you, and was a classic mind-f*ck for the youth. Many of us were very scared. So... You think the church is nutty now,...

Why do I find myself telling more "olden days" stories here all the time? Guess cause I'm old. My parents weren't really as Nazi as some about food storage. Don't EVEN get me going on my ex-inlaws. But yeah, I remember families being called to live off their food storage. I distinctly remember my family's turn. I must have been about 10 because I remember it being in our old cool church when we were announced as being the family of the week.

Luckily, my mom had to go to the store that evening to get food "for the baby." Good thing that baby liked tuna and Ding Dongs. But just to play along we did have to eat sprouted wheat cereal with the weevils picked out with powdered milk. My dad was really on a "mixed milk" kick for awhile. He'd get the milk as soon as it was delivered (yes, by a milkman) and mix it half and half with powdered to use up our storage. My brothers and I would try to get up early enough to get some milk for our cereal before my dad got a chance to mix it. He'd also grind up wheat for bread and grind the weevils along with it. He could and would eat literally anything, so we were supposed to also.

I remember hearing something at church in the mid 60s that scared me about the Russians dropping a nuclear bomb. Can't remember what it was, but it scared me so badly that I started hording my own food in a box in my closet (Pop Tarts, other canned or packaged things I could eat), so that if we had to live on food storage, I could be sneaky and have some good stuff and not just sprouted weevil wheat. The things we remember.

Geez, you're younger than I am, and far better looking. But you did, after all, wear those awful one-piece garments with butt flap, didn't you? Eh? Didn't you?

Oh god, don't make anyone have to have that image in their mind. Yep, I'm not that young. I was imprisoned in those things for 5 years. Never felt sexier.

for a week. Oh joy! When I purchased a milk card the next day at school, one of the girls from the ward told me that wasn't part of the idea. We were in 3rd grade.

We weren't one of the holiest families in the ward, though I think we got called on as the bishop, who was one of the good guys in those days, knew my dad really well and they were both farmers.

Growing up my grandparents and parents had large gardens and they canned food and it was used during the winter months. But it was not the only food we ate. Maybe 10 to 20% of the total food.

For some, if they rotate and use the food then I have no problem with a 2 year or 1 year supply. It is a good idea to have a few weeks supply.

But there is some many issues to have excess food and then throw it away. Wasting money, health issues and wasted space to name a few.

But there are economic and global issues. The over production of food is wasted resources, especially natural gas and oil, since fertilizer is made from natural gas and the fuel to transport the food and supplies.

Also, many economic decisions are made based on food production of which additional taxes are used to support and distribute the food.

In 1974 went to Army Major's home in small family quarters on FtLeavenworth. He and his wife TBMs for sure used their
food storage items to make a long and tall ceiling high wall between kitchen and living
room. Most creative thing I have ever seen and they hauled that stuff from base to base when reassigned. They were drinking the
food storage Kool-aid for sure.

My half-nephew and his wife just got through the federal shutdown because of their food storage and small savings. I'm sure they chalk it up to their faith and LDS food storage system. He'll get his back pay eventually. But according to her, they've fared better than most. It may be one of the few times in their life that the food storage came in useful.

I think that having a small amount of food storage is not a bad idea. There have been times when my local grocery stores have been closed for up to a week due to a major blizzard or hurricane. Or 2-3 weeks worth of food on the shelf has gotten me through a little economic bump in the road. So maybe having 1-2 months worth of food on hand is not a bad thing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2019 05:37AM by summer.

they probably would have been much better off in the fed. gov. shutdown situation, if they had set aside some money for emergencies, rather than having set aside the food.

Things could be different in a future calamity. But in the majority of disruptions families have experienced during the past 100 years, they would have been better off if they had set aside two months' worth of money for financial needs, instead of being less than one paycheck away from having nothing to buy basic groceries and necessities with.

One of the factors that put many Mormons into that situation was spending their savings on useless "food storage" crap, instead of just keeping and adding to the savings.

I know many Mormon families who, after 30 years of diligent food storage, would weep, wail and gnash their teeth in anguish if they were ever to sit down and calculate how much money they would have in their savings, if they had simply saved it during all those years instead of spending it on food storage that ultimately went to waste.

Oh well. The problem is that they thought they were led by a prophet who was giving them valuable counsel and letting them in on some inside information from God that would give them an advantage over non-believers. Turned out the prophet wasn't really a prophet and didn't know anything more than anyone else.

Who could've ever seen that coming? ;o)

The food storage idea is big a long running business enjoyed by many business owners selling on the idea there is the end of the world. When that didn't happen it was a pending race war. When that didn't happen it was a impending civil war. That hasn't happened yet. If ever, but you'll run into online people who think it's within (X days / X years) and the goal post keeps on moving.


Food storage business is still re-labeling their products for dozens of online presence vendors.

That's one of the examples... but why use an example when an EX is AMPLE enough?

Food storage can kill you, faster or slower than Mormonism, but certainly not deader.

Some stuff, if you keep it long enough, will disappear on its own... by bugs and critters and time, and calling the young men in the area to dispose of it.

It's more for a way for the church to make money than for you to survive.

M@t

A friend, nevermo, was saying the economy was going to
collapse. He was convinced about 11 years ago that the
recession was the end of civilization as we know it. He asked
me if I had enough food to last two months. I said, "yes." He
was truly shocked. we always have a lot of food in the pantry.
It's not that we're saving for Armageddon, just that it's good
to be able to take advantages of sales etc.

It's not considered "food storage" because it's what we eat.
It doesn't sit in a basement until it rots, it gets eaten.

However I recall 45 years ago living in Orem-Provo area and
going to a food-storage type place to buy wheat (which we
ground up and used--didn't store away). It was right after
conference and the Mormons behind the counter were saying stuff
to the Mormon customers like, "did you listen to the last
conference? The Brethren really know something." The idea was
that any "self sufficiency" advice in conference was coded
prophecy that the end was about to happen.