# found a webpage of people dissing food storage



## margoC (Jul 26, 2007)

I was trying to find some pics of peoples food storage and the search brought up a page titled "mormon sister rants about food storage". 

All these people were posting in a thread about how wasteful it was to store food and how the church pressured people into doing it. I did not notice till the end but it was a site for "ex-mormons". 

A lot of the posters told of experiances of cleaning out a relatives home full of old food that nobody would eat, like wheat and stuff. I guess a lot of people don't rotate or stock food that anyone would want to eat. 

Only one poster had anything positive to say, like how they were able to weather an emergency because they had food. 

I've been canning venison for awhile but I've just recently decided I didn't have enough variety of stored food so I've been stocking up on other canned stuff like canned potatoes, soup, pasta, mostly convienience food that I eat. 

Now I'm worried I'll wind up wasting food or something. 


I decided against posting the link. I'm not sure what the rest of the site is like. I've never read anything like that before, it was wierd.


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## margoC (Jul 26, 2007)

Here is a quote:



> It cost them 1000's of dollars, most which were a waste.
> Lots and lots of time and energy.
> space that could have been better used.
> The recommended food to store is disgusting to her.
> She feels like she was pressured to waste a lot of time energy and money on a worthless project.She is resentful about the pressure to comply that she constantly gets at church. She thinks there are more important things the church should be worried about. She thinks it was a wasteful way to live. She has spent 2 days hauling wheat out of her basement. Nobody wanted it. I don't blame them, it's 20 years old. It's all going to the dump. It sounds to me like she thinks her leaders led her astray on this one.


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## margoC (Jul 26, 2007)

Here's another one:



> Re: TBM [Mormon] Sister Rants about food storage.....
> Years ago I helped clean out DW's grandmother's food storage. She was 90 when she died. I just shook my head thinking of all the time that was wasted over the years. There must have been 60 years worth of effort (canning, rotating food, etc.). That was my wake up call about food storage. I never did buy the brainwash on that one.





Is this just a disgruntled few? It sounds like some of the prepping wasn't done right.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

The LDS church does mention for people to take care of themselves. Part of that is to keep a store of food around for emergencies. Usually there's a food storage specialist in each congregation, but not always. Some congregations mention food storage more often than others do. Maybe that's pressure to some people. Usually it's not pressure unless they don't want to do it.

1. I doubt $1000's of dollars were spent on it unless that wheat was bought at a health food store. The last time I bought wheat through the LDS storehouse, it was just under $7 for 25 lbs. Let's say, I have 1000 lbs of wheat stored in my basement. That's $280. 

2. Some of my wheat is over 30 years old. I guess the lady in the story doesn't realize how long you can store wheat? Perhaps that's one reason we were encouraged to store wheat for so long? It's nutritious, it's filling, it's cheap, it stores for along time.

3. Each of us get to decide what is important and what is wasteful. I wonder if her granny didn't think some of the things this lady did with her life as being wasteful? I like to garden. People tell me it's a waste of my time. I could save a lot of money to just buy my food. I wouldn't have to work so hard rather than go shopping. Well, I think shopping is a waste of time, as is getting my nails done or sitting in a tanning bed. To each their own.

4. I guess there's a reason she's on an ex-mormon website. Probably she's offended by more than the advice to store food.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

My BIL is an ex-Mormon. He is a bitter ex-Mormon, so much so that he refuses to speak to his oldest son who has remained a LDS. Of course there is more to that story, bitter divorce and ex-wife who remains LDS and somehow BIL connects the divorce to the church. I can't explain what his thinking is because he refuses to speak with me, my DW (his sister) or even to be nice to my dog because we refuse to cut the son or ex-wife out of our lives. 

If that ex-Mormon is any indication of how nasty ex-Mormon can be, there's no doubt a lot of vitriol is slung on that website.


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

What the unhappy granddaughter doesn't realize is that storing that food and having a security net made Grandma HAPPY during her lifetime. She knew she could provide for her family and having lived during the Depression, food was of utmost importance.

Really, it's nobody's business what someone decides to collect during their lifetime - Hummel figurines or food storage. Sounds like the grandaughter just wished Grandma had left a wad of cash for her instead of stuff she didn't want.


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## doodlemom (Apr 4, 2006)

If you have chickens or pigs you'll never waste food.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Gosh ,now that we have computers, I'm a total idiot because I collect books.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Always amazes me that people will spend thousands of dollars on hobbies like boating, or mag wheels for their "ride", or tattoos, and so on.....

AND/OR spend thousands and thousands on car, boat, health, life, even PET insurance......

And not spend a dime on food and water insurance.

I don't know one thing about what the Mormons believe religion wise, but I do admire them for having the sense to believe people should take care of themselves if at all possible. There are a whole lot of folks that could take a lesson there.


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## margoC (Jul 26, 2007)

It did seem like a bitter website full of sheeple. 


For a minute I thought it was me!


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## MJsLady (Aug 16, 2006)

They are all grasshoppers and will perhaps one day need food and not have any because they refuse to plan ahead. 
The thing is, from what I have heard the mormon storehouses will still help them, because that is what they are here to do.

I am not mormon but I know some folks who are and better people I have never met.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

There is a difference between being prepared and hoarding.

Personally, I think that buying a bunch of food that your family won't eat and stuffing it into storage and never looking at it again is hoarding.

Being prepared is figuring out how to store what your family eats, and rotating stores. Preps really need to be taken care of, just like everything else on the homestead.


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

oregon woodsmok said:


> There is a difference between being prepared and hoarding.
> 
> Personally, I think that buying a bunch of food that your family won't eat and stuffing it into storage and never looking at it again is hoarding.
> 
> Being prepared is figuring out how to store what your family eats, and rotating stores. Preps really need to be taken care of, just like everything else on the homestead.


Maybe the Grandma was widowed and her family didn't live near her. It's a huge job, rotating and replacing food storage, and maybe she wasn't up to it in the last decade or two. Plus if she lived alone, she could never eat through a large stash of food. I'd be happy to die with a pantry full of food storage, knowing that I had been ready for a SHTF that never happened. And I'd die hoping a friend or family would snap up my canning jars and buckets of wheat and continue on with it.

A friend of mine moved in with her grandma, who is in the late stages of dementia. Grandma's house was full of a lifetime of things which probably did approach hoarding (clothes, knickknacks), but she also had a ton of canning jars, gardening tools, an old greenhouse and chicken coop, and some very old food. The friend is giving me the canning jars and pressure canners (YAY!) and has donated a lot of the other stuff too. Grandma has been in a slow decline for a decade, so how could she rotate and use her food storage?


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

oregon woodsmok said:


> There is a difference between being prepared and hoarding.
> 
> Personally, I think that buying a bunch of food that your family won't eat and stuffing it into storage and never looking at it again is hoarding.
> 
> Being prepared is figuring out how to store what your family eats, and rotating stores. Preps really need to be taken care of, just like everything else on the homestead.


Sure, tell that to my Dh after you look in his pole barn. Have you ever seen the stuff a diesl mechanic drags home.


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## lathermaker (May 7, 2010)

I'm probably one of the least religious people on here, but I like to take things from all religions and learn from them. The way the Mormons push self-reliance is one of those things. What difference does it make if I decide to prep to take care of my family? It makes me feel safe and secure knowing that if TSHTF tomorrow I've at least done what I can to help us survive it. Those people that poo poo preppers will be the first ones in line for a handout!


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## Usingmyrights (Jan 10, 2011)

7thswan ~ I want to a monthly men's ministry meeting where they talk about different "guy" topics with so scripture afterwards. The meeting before last they talked about emergency preparedness. The guest speaker had brought a couple copies of Foxfire 1-4 on cd. I committed about how good is it going to be when the power goes out. He told me that they had it for their kindle. He was shocked when I told him that I had one full and one partial set if 1-8 hardcopy. He didnt even know that they made past book four. I know your post was meant as a joke, but I try to get hardcopies of stuff that I really like. Pam6's downloads were great and I definitely got a decent number of them, but they won't do much good unless I get alternate power to charge my device. In tbe meantime, I just have to go to my small in home library.


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

If you look at all the websites you will find that for any idea there will be one against.And yes people will not tell the truth in everything on the internet in fact most of it will be half truth.


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## naturelover (Jun 6, 2006)

margoC said:


> Now I'm worried I'll wind up wasting food or something.


No, you won't waste food because if you're worried about it then you won't let that happen.  

Just rotate foods the way you're supposed to like normal, stock only the foods that you know you're family is going to eat and everything will be hunky dory with no waste.

.


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## MJsLady (Aug 16, 2006)

Usingmyrights said:


> 7thswan ~ I want to a monthly men's ministry meeting where they talk about different "guy" topics with so scripture afterwards. The meeting before last they talked about emergency preparedness. The guest speaker had brought a couple copies of Foxfire 1-4 on cd. I committed about how good is it going to be when the power goes out. He told me that they had it for their kindle. He was shocked when I told him that I had one full and one partial set if 1-8 hardcopy. He didnt even know that they made past book four. I know your post was meant as a joke, but I try to get hardcopies of stuff that I really like. Pam6's downloads were great and I definitely got a decent number of them, but they won't do much good unless I get alternate power to charge my device. In tbe meantime, I just have to go to my small in home library.


This to me really isn't a joke.
Our area loses power at least twice a year.
All the electronics in the world are no good with out power.
Plus what if an emp of some sort hits"? Good by cd and kindle!
All my favorite books I have on kindle and in hard copy. Cook books, homesteading, anything I will read more than once is in hard copy as soon as I can get it!


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

I figure kindle is for reading, and checking out books that I may want a hard copy of...

The good ones, get a hard copy (and have extra glasses, so you won't be like that Twilight Zone where the guy was alone, had the whole library to himself after end of world, and broke his glasses. {{ of course, seems he could find a pair from an empty store or dead person}} )

By the way - you can wipe out a Kindle with your computer. I've done it and I don't know how I did it.
But, I was deleting extra books, so they'd go back to the cloud so there would be exchange memory room for searches - when I disconnected from the computer - something must have happened.

I do not even get the screen saver screen now, but it will power up. 
Strange.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

My version of karma says, the day after the disgruntled ex-Mormon dumps thousands of bucks worth of perfectly good food (oh no, it's 30 years old! I have some wheat with an 'expiration' date of 2032... 30 years, although as long as the seal is good, it is), and then posts her rant on the internet... the apocalypse arrives and she starves to death, or puts her tail between her legs and goes back and begs forgiveness from those silly Mormon preppers!


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## MJsLady (Aug 16, 2006)

Angie, have you contacted them yet?
Our first kindle just up and died and they replaced it for free. They may be able to help you reset it, or they may replace it.


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## terri9630 (Mar 12, 2012)

That "wheat and stuff" is not instant microwave food they probably don't know how to use or are to lazy to use.


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## sdnapier (Aug 13, 2010)

margoC said:


> Here's another one:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am LDS and the concept of food storage/very well stocked pantry is simple self reliance. What people actually do with their food is up to them. I personally wouldn't buy clothes, put them in the closet and never wear them so why would I buy food and never use it:shrug: You are correct, the prepping wasn't done correctly. The LDS church doesn't pressure anyone. They give out good advise and it is left to each person to do as they wish. We have many people who do not do anything because of "the stores will always be stocked" mentality.


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

Over something like seven years of gradual prepping, one thing I've come to accept is that a certain amount of effort will become "insurance payments" over a period of time if no lengthy absolute emergency/ collapse develops. Certainly, rotating supplies will minimize that effect but I confess to being one of those (surely I'm not the only one??) who, when finding a gonzo bargain on some type of prep-storage oriented supply, will pack up and set aside a certain amount, buried inaccessibly from normal rotating processes. Over the years, I've spotted such as S&W canned beans at net 8c a can, Kraft salad dressings 10c, good pasta 25c/lb, and so on, that *I* know, should we be reorganizing stuff while SIP during a pandemic, coping with grid collapse after an emp attack or Carrington event, or whatever, will be perfectly fine for totally emergency rations. Should DW and I both get croaked in a car wreck, eaten by zombies, or whatever, though, anyone looking much of our supplies over would surely react similarly to those relatives of the LDS folks. You could easily have vast home-canned inventory of wonderful quality, but unlabelled or just dusty, that you'd just have to accept would be wasted by ANYbody other than yourself who had to decide whether to use it.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I think that if someone that didn't know me had to clean out my basement, they might think the same thing as the woman in this article about some of our storage. I have literally a ton of wheat sealed in gallon cans. Why would I open them if they are good for up to 50 years? It's inconvenient as well as a lot of work to get the wheat into those cans. The cans are a good way to go when you bought it a bit at a time and want it to last a lifetime. When I make bread, I open a bucket. When the buckets are empty, I go buy more and fill them back up. If we ever open one of those cans, you know it's a real emergency. I can see many that might think I was silly to store something that I wasn't eating. The reality is quite different though.


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## NamasteMama (Jul 24, 2009)

Only about 14% of LDS actually have food storage. The church used to recommend 7 years, then 3, then 1, now they are just begging people to get 3 months worth. They have books, classes, website, there's no excuse for buying a ton of wheat and letting it sit. store what you eat and eat what you store.


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## Mutti (Sep 7, 2002)

I don't worry about my storage foods going to waste as both my sons and their wives are on board with prepping. They frequently shop at "Mom's store". 

We don't use alot of our storage as it is packaged for long term but we do eat these foods daily from kitchen stores. Since I can go to the local Mennonite store and buy all the grains, beans, pastas,etc. that we use daily I feel the investment in commercially prepared items is just that. My bank account, I guess. Just having foods put away without rotating or learning to use it is a waste of time. You might not want to eat beans and rice daily but you should,at least, know how to cook some delicious recipes with what you've stored

You'd be surprized how many older people have stored food on hand. Many survived the Depression and it turned them to always having enough on hand to get by.


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## TexasGunOwner (Nov 26, 2010)

So it's sane to save money (fluctuating value) but not food? What would people from 1913 think?


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

This is all very interesting. Not the saving for a rainy day aspect. It's that these women _did not want to_ store vast quantities. They _did not want to _store things they wouldn't eat. They did it (wasted 1,000's of dollars) because they were told to. People on this board have storage because we've all decided it is a good thing to do. When you make the decision yourself you are much more likely to make it fit your personality and likes, and more likely to try and make it logical. We understand what we are doing and work from that understanding.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

Callieslamb said:


> I. I can see many that might think I was silly to store something that I wasn't eating. The reality is quite different though.



No, you are not being silly. You are not storing something that your family doesn't eat. Your family eats wheat and you have note of how long your wheat will be good and you have the knowledge of how to use it before it gets to the end of its storage life.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

I wonder if this woman feels the same about insurance?


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## thequeensblessing (Mar 30, 2003)

In reality, gardening and raising livestock is a form of food storage. 

Being LDS myself, I can tell you for a fact that the Church does not pressure anyone into having food storage. They teach the correct principle about personal responsibility and self-reliance, and then they leave all members to follow those principles as they see fit for their families. We are taught, however, that if we are going to store food, to store what we eat and eat what we store. We have at least 2 years of food in our pantry, but we use it constantly and we replace it constantly. Nothing sits in a can, even wheat, for more than 3-5 years. We constantly rotate it. When I had a personal/family crisis, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my DH stopped working for a while to take care of me, and our two young children (he was self employed) and we lived off our savings. The cash in the bank paid to keep the roof over our head and the lights on, and we simply lived off our food storage for food. Because we had stored what we eat, we were able to eat what we stored and not even notice a difference in diet. That was something very reassuring to us, and especially important to our children.

Yes, I would have to say that food storage is probably the least of the issues these posters had with the church, but its as good as any other to rant about. Meh.


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## Limon (Aug 25, 2010)

I think the important thing to remember is that is an ex-Mormon website. Religion is a very personal experience, and it can leave some scars when it goes badly. The people there are bitter enough about their experiences that they seek out a website dedicated to complaining about their old church. It's highly unlikely you'll find many people there saying anything positive about anything associated with their old beliefs.

But there are people who do things just because their church tells them to do so. Without understanding and accepting the rationale behind it, the odds are they're not going to see the value of it, or do it properly. Those would be the people who buy a ton of wheat, and nothing else, or never store it properly so it rots, etc. For those people, "prepping" would be a waste because of how they approached it.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

when someone is ex-anything and goes to a website that is ex-anything -- you're never going to find anything good there, just a bunch of people complaining about whatever it was they are an ex of.

never could figure out why some people have so much anger about something they quit -- they should move on with their life.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

mnn2501 said:


> when someone is ex-anything and goes to a website that is ex-anything -- you're never going to find anything good there, just a bunch of people complaining about whatever it was they are an ex of.
> 
> never could figure out why some people have so much anger about something they quit -- they should move on with their life.


What I admire about the Mormons I have met is how much of themselves they invest into a faith, a culture of faith, and their community. You can't get in that deep and then decide it was all wrong, and not have some emotional response. Different people express that sort of emotion/pain/resentment/regret in different ways. 

Some of them might think they are helping others not make a similar mistake, some might still be grieving in a way, and yeah, some might just be mean, bitter, evil people.


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