Jordy Blog

Food Storage Christmas

This Christmas our family gift is a years’ supply of food storage –and I’m thrilled to have it.

I decided I’ll also be giving the gift of food storage to my family and friends. No I’m not buying it (although I think a box or a bucket of wheat makes a tremendous gift idea), but I do offer my time as a resource in food planning and food packing. (For anyone who has canned their own food, you know this has potential to be a major time commitment.) The offer is good until next Christmas, but please give me a call right away so we can get you started today.

For those of you who are not my family and friends, I’d still like to help you with your food storage planning; basically determining what food items you’ll need and where you can buy them. I’ll point to a few resources in case you want to do it yourself, but please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or just need help getting started. I was relieved to have a great friend who talked me through it, and I’d like to pass the favor along.

For anyone who wants to get started on there own emergency food storage, you should check out he following resources:

StockUpFood.com is a free food storage calculator that helps you determine your emergency food planning needs based on family size and how much food storage you would like, whether you want enough for just 1-month or 2 years. StockUpFood.com also helps you track what food storage items you buy (and use) so you can keep a running total of what you need to purchase –plus it gives you a “percentage completed” to help you track progress toward your goal. Very cool –especially for people that want to ease their way into emergency food storage.

The LDS church also has some great resources their provident living website. By far the most useful resource there (for me) was an order form for the dry-packed food products, which are purchasable in bulk sized bags or by the can. It’s easy to fill out out (using the food storage calculator I linked to above), and you can just bring it along to at any Family Home Food Storage location. There you can buy the vast majority of your food storage in large bags, and you can get them at a pretty great price. And if you want your emergency food canned (for longer storage and easy rotation) you can dry-pack can it right on location and just take home the items you need. This is a lot of work, but if you’re doing canned food (instead of bags or buckets) it’s by far the most convenient way to go. You can also buy it pre-canned, (which is even more convenient) but you’ll end up paying more.

The Lindon LDS Family Home Food Storage is only open on Tuesdays and Thursday, but you’ll want to call to check availability in your location. They also lend dry-pack canning equipment out, in case you’ve already purchased food in bags but want it canned.

I should mention that many grocery stores (at least in Utah) have foods like dry wheat and beans by the bucket and the bag. Selection is fairly sparse, and buying a full years’ worth of food would take up several grocery carts; but it can be done. I bought a lot of bulk food stuff at Macey’s, a local grocery chain which has pretty good prices. I wish I’d held off on some of the bagged food I got there since I still want to dry-pack can most of it anyway, but the buckets are a great way to get a little at a time if you need to stretch out your food storage purchases over several paychecks. You can also get large water basins, wheat grinders, empty buckets, and other equipment there as well.

Lastly, if you live in Utah and are (or would like to become) an emergency preparedness junkie, check out UtahPreppers. It’s new, but judging by the people who run it, I think it will probably be a pretty great resource.

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But enough about you…

I guess I have time to blog, now that I’m done with school. I just graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Business Managment from UVSC. It’s been long and sucky, but now it’s over. :) Actually, I rather enjoyed the experience and will look back with fondness. Hopefully I’ll be able to continue learning everyday, an effort that may actually be easier now that school is out.

A bit about me:

I’ve been married for almost 2 years and have 1 kid on the way, a (currently unnamed) girl due on Feb 15, 2006. My wife (Julie) is awesome and we both come from good, close families.

I served as a missionary for the LDS church in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. I speak fluent Portuguese and decent Spanish. I’m a big music fan and like to play guitar (another hobby long-neglected because of school).

I’m 27 years old and have worked for most of my life (since junior high) at Castle Rock, my dad’s souvenir shop in Orem, UT. It’s been great for me because I’ve been able to work with and learn from my dad, who is one of the kindest people in the world. It’s also been very flexible, which is important for anyone trying to succeed in school. I recently started a job as a “Small Business Portfolio / Project Manager” at Provo Labs, Paul B. Allen’s recently funded internet business incubator. My first day is tomorrow, and I’m excited to learn.

I’ve also been fairly involved in the open source community in Utah, co-founding the Utah Valley Linux Users Group and doing some (mostly nominal) work with the Software for Starving Students project.

Well, that’s probably enough for a first post. Don’t want to bore my 0 readers. :)