The LEAST expensive way to store your grains...

Many of us have several #10 cans in our food storage. These are a great way to store your grains and food storage. However, for a less expensive approach, here is what I do. I have talked about this before, but I get several emails of people not quite sure what to do.



This is what I do, but you can adapt it to whatever works for your family and the size of your food storage room. For all of my grains and legumes (wheat, flour, germade (cream of wheat), rice, pasta, cornmeal, oats, and my dried beans), I put them in large plastic totes. I have them in all sizes, colors and shapes :) You can put them in 5 gallon buckets, Rubbermaid totes (small or large), washed out laundry detergent buckets, plastic garbage cans (mine are in industrial containers we got for free from a neighbor--they look scary but they do the job :). Most containers will do as long as they are thick plastic with a lid that you can close tightly. The idea is that it is keeping your grains away from moisture, rodents, and bugs. I have stored my grains like this and have never had a problem with weavel, rodents or moisture. Basements are the best place to store your food storage because it is generally cool and has low moisture. If you don't have a basement, you can store your food under beds (it is generally cool in bedrooms because of air conditioning), in the bottom of a pantry, etc. Garages are not the best place for food because of the temerature. Grain in #10 cans would be better to store outside in a garage rather than grains in totes.

If you don't have your year supply of grains, I would suggest going to the closest LDS cannery and buying it as soon as you can. With the crops destroyed in Missouri and Iowa, the prices are only going to go up more! The prices of nearly ALL the grains the cannery stores are BY FAR less expensive than anywhere you can get them. The only ones that are lower at Costco is the rice. It is only a few dollars difference though, so you might as well get it all in one place and save you time.

If you are unsure how much of each item you need. Go to our website (http://www.myfoodstoragedeals.com/) and under the FREE DOWNLOAD tab there is a PDF download called FOOD STORAGE INVENTORY SHEET that will tell you exactly how much you need of each grain per person.