Top Food Storage Tips: Move Beyond Wheat

If you missed the other posts in this series, you can find them here:

Food Storage Tip #1: Food Storage isn't just for natural disasters.

Food Storage Tip #2: Food Storage will allow you to give

Food Storage Tip #3: Try White Wheat

Today's food storage tip is: 

Newbie Food Storage Tip #3:  Move Beyond Wheat

One thing that kept me from starting a food storage program for quite a while was the excuse that I didn't have a wheat grinder and I didn't know how to use wheat.  I knew I was supposed to store x amount of grains for each person and I just assumed (naively) that most of that would be in wheat.  I had some rice too, but thought all food storage consisted of buckets and buckets of wheat that could be ground and used in breads, sprouted and used in salads, or washed and used as a meat substitute.  All that sounded very overwhelming to me and I just couldn't bring myself to get started for quite a while.

I have overcome some of that fear.  I now use wheat all the time in bread and I have sprouted it.  I have still never created "wheat meat," although I likely will sometime.  I'm interested to see just what it is like.

Since I've overcome my fears, I now highly recommend learning to use wheat.  It truly is incredible!  However, if you are like I was and aren't sure you are ready to store a bunch of wheat and buy a grinder, then I have a suggestion.  I wish I could have told myself this years ago:

There are many other options out there for grains in your food storage if wheat overwhelms you!  

Many grains have a very long shelf life, and are far easier to cook than wheat.  What sort of grains does your family eat every day?  Rice?  Oats?  Pasta?  All three of these foods have a very long shelf life, especially when store correctly (vacuum sealed away from light and heat).  Oats and white rice will store 30+ years.  Pasta is closer to 5-10 years if stored as mentioned above or 2-3 years if you just store it in the box you get from the store.

What about flour or cornmeal?  Many of you likely use those items often in baking.  They have a shelf life of about 5 years when properly stored and are easy to use.

One of my favorite grains is Quinoa.  With its 20 year shelf life, it works very well as a replacement for brown rice (which has a very short shelf life) and is incredibly nutritious and as easy to cook as rice.

Or, maybe you are comfortable with wheat and are ready to branch out bit and increase the variety of grains you are storing.  Have you tried Amaranth (try popping it), Barley,  Millet, Oat Groats, Spelt?  Branch out!  You DO NOT want to store just 1-2 foods in your food storage.  Not only would you get tired of those foods very quickly, eating just 1-2 foods for an extended period of time would make you ill.

Want to learn more?  My friend Heather, over at Cooking with my Food Storage, talked all about this a while back.  She has some fun charts and details that are helpful.  Check it out!

 
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