Monday, March 17, 2008

Turning Wheat into Gold


So you all know the story of Rumpilstiskin and the girl who can turn straw into gold. Well last week our stake organized a huge food storage order from some giant Idaho food distributor. Food storage has always been a hobby of sorts for me. But as of late, the price of wheat has increased significantly and has really got me thinking about how we are doing and if we needed to place an order. When I commented on the price of wheat, J reminded me of that Brigham Young quote where he says that there will come a day when wheat will be more valuable than gold. On Saturday morning I was listening to public radio and heard the Market Place Money Report which announced that gold has reached a new high. It is trading for more than $950 an ounce! My thought was, "Boy, I can't wait for my hundreds of pounds of wheat to appreciate that much!" Maybe that extra hundred pounds of wheat I was thinking of ordering will come in handy one of these days as a long term investment strategy...

(Okay, reality check also says that if my wheat is more valuable than gold, I probably need to keep it because the state of the world will be such that my basement may be the only grocery store I have access to for quite a while.)

Long story short, Saturday night we did an inventory of our food storage and found ourselves fairly satisfied, minus a few exceptions. The peace of preparation far outweighs the price of gold.

BTW, the Church has emphasised a little different strategy for food storage as of late. It emphasizes a complete three month supply of food and then a years supply of the very basics (the three months supply can be part of that year supply). That may not really sound new, but if you go to providentliving.org, the approach is slightly different and the recommended amounts have changed some what.

4 comments:

I stinketh not!! said...

I have an old RS president who stored choclate so in that she will be able to barter for other things. I like that idea. I wish we didn't move so much so I could start storing.

Natalie said...

We have chocolate syrup in our food storage! You never know how the powdered milk will taste...

You've really done a great job with your food storage!

Lindsay said...

If anybody has ever tasted your bread Chellae, they know that Rumplestiltskin has NOTHING on you. We've been thinking of you guys. Found your blog from a comment on somebody else's. A is SO cute. Happy Easter!

Kristen Wilde said...

I noticed the new advice on 3-month vs. 1-year storage when the "All is Safely Gathered In" pamphlets came out, and thought it was very sensible. We had about 4-5 month's worth of the basic basics at that time (wheat, sugar, rice, etc.), but were always having to run to the store for our everyday cooking. Now we've built up a nice little supply of canned veggies and frozen meat - not yet 3 months, but probably 1 - and it makes life so much easier!