How do you get your food storage?

Obviously, there are many ways to get food, but I believe the best way is through the Church. The Church's regional canneries provide foods storage items of good quality and economical cost.

To order from the cannery...

1. Save the Family Home Storage Food Products order form on your computer


2. Type in what you want in the "Number of cans," "Number of pouches," and "Number of packages," and/or "quantity" columns.


3. Click on "Order Total" on the bottom right to have the total calculated for you.


4. Save your changes.


5. Email the form to Brother and Sister Peacock (our stake's canning coordinators) at rpeacock8123@yahoo.com.

The Peacocks would like to receive all orders one month before the next canning date, but if the next canning date is less than a month away, email them and ask if there's space for your order to be canned that day.

To get what you order...

1. Go to the cannery on the scheduled canning date (see Canning Schedule post)


2. If you ordered cans, you and everyone, who ordered cans, work together to can everyone's order. Also, everyone who ordered pouches will be sealing pouches together. Essentially, everyone will help out until everyone's order is filled. If you ordered in bulk, though, you can either simply pick up what you ordered and leave or help others out.


3. Drive home with your order. :)

For more info and guidelines, see the Canning Schedule post.

Ordering Online

I finally found where you can order your food storage online. It's at ldscatalog.com. It is more expensive (case of 6 No. 10 cans of quick oats $20.50 vs. $13.25) to cover shipping, but it might be worth it for you. To see the online catalog for food storage items, click here.

The rest of the information here was in the Longer-Term Supply post, but for clarity purposes, I moved it here.

So...how should I store the food? In No. 10 Cans, Pouches, or Bulk?

When we were first looking into buying our food storage, I didn't know whether to buy it in No. 10 cans, pouches, or bulk. Since then, I've talked to several people about what they've done, and I've found that it all depends on how you're planning on storing it and use it once you get home. For our family, we went ahead and got all boxes of No. 10 cans. They stack well. They're protected against bugs and rodents, and when I open a can, I don't have to worry about how to store the rest of the food I don't use. The No. 10 cans I bought came with plastic lids.

Some people are die hard pouch fans. One advantage is that pouches are cheaper to buy and hold a bit more food than the No. 10 cans. Also, you have more readily available opportunities to pouch than to can your food (if you pouch your own food). I believe every ward has a pouch sealer, and some members have even bought their own sealer. One disadvantage is that although pouches protect the food from bugs, they are not rodent proof. You'd have to store the pouches in another container (i.e. large plastic bins with covers or 5/3 gallon drums). Also, once you open a package, you're opening a bag as opposed to a can with a lid.

Buying in bulk is definitely the cheapest way to buy, but you run into the problem of how to store the food once you open the large bag. This is where having access to a pouch sealer comes in handy. After you buy 25 lb bag of _____ and a bunch of empty pouches from the cannery, you borrow the ward's or a friend's sealer, and then, bada bing bada boom, you'd have your food storage.

Canning on your own requires more planning. The stake has a canner you can borrow for five days (talk to Sister Peacock in Sugarland 3rd ward), and a sister in the Mablewood 2nd ward (Sister Margarita Trudo, I believe) has a canner. With canning you should remember, it's difficult to can more than one type of food item at a time because you have to meticulously clean between each food you'd like to can.

According to Sister Trudo, it's best to setup canning parties where only one food item is being canned. For example, you want to can wheat, so you invite all your friends with wheat to come join you and can wheat for a couple hours. During that time, your kids play together, everyone bring treats (hehehe), everyone helps clean up, and then everyone goes home happy with their canned wheat. Then you set up another date (the next day or the next time you borrow a canner) with all your friends who want to can oats.

Sound's good? Well, personally, I think it's easier to order canned food items from the cannery, go to the cannery on our stake's schedule day, help everyone fill everyone's order, and go home happy with all of what you ordered already canned, but don't necessarily take my word for it.

Well...Happy Food Storage Building!