We are now into the new year. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and made some great new years resolutions. Hope one of them was to continue on or get started on our Stake challenge of having at least a one year storage of food supply by October 2014 General Conference. This month, the goal is to get your water and salt storage going. First we'll talk about how to store it, where to store it and how to treat it.
Water should be stored in food grade plastic storage containers. Do not store water in used milk jugs or juice jugs as the plastic is to thin but mostly, dried milk or juice under the folded lid or anywhere else in the jug will cause your water to go bad. Here are some pictures of good water storage containers.
This would be an idea of a large storage container. It holds 1000 gallons.
The most common way is to store water in 55 gallon plastic drums.
15 gallon drums are another way and are more manageable for moving around. Water weighs 8.33 pounds per gallon.
Another great method is to purchase water bricks and then stack them. It makes it easy to line the bottom of your clothes closet two high then put a sheet of plywood over it to set your shoes or other things you store on the floor of your closet on.
Honeyville Farms also sells some very cool triangle shaped corner water storage containers in either 40 or 80 gallon. How many of us use all the corners in our homes?
Any way you find to store water, you want to keep it off of bare concrete and dirt.
How much should you store? It is recommended that you store 1 gallon of water per person per day. That is the bare minimum but since we live in Arizona where it gets hot in the summers, you might consider storing twice that much. Another thing to consider is that the minimum is only for drinking and does not take into consideration cooking, cleaning or sanitation.
As to where to store it, again, anywhere where it doesn't come into contact with bare concrete or dirt and out of direct sunlight. Inside the house is always better than in a changing temperature location but in your garage or on the back porch out of direct sunlight will work. Be careful storing water on the second floor of your house. You don't want to overload the floor.
If you are using city water to store, you don't have to add anything to "treat" it. Cities are required to treat the water so it is ready to go just like it is. Use a white RV style hose to fill up your containers. Make sure your containers are sanitized first. If you use your garden hose, who knows what bacteria is in there. The treated city water is good for about 10 years. Over time you might notice a "flat" taste in the water just like when you leave your soda pop out and it looses it's fizzies. What has happened is the oxygen has come out of the water. To help, before drinking, shake the water up or pour it back and forth several times between two glasses before drinking it to put oxygen back in it. After 10 years, you can either treat the water or use it on your garden and refill the containers. If you feel that you need to treat the water, the CDC recommends adding 1/8 teaspoon of household bleach to every gallon of water. Do not use perfumed or bleach that contains soaps or dyes.
Here is a great free set of plans to build a combination water storage and food storage rack. Click on the link and then download the plans. If that doesn't work, email me and I will send them back to you. Water and Food Storage Rack
Here is a picture of it.
SALT
The next item on our list to get for our food storage plan is SALT. We need salt in our diets. Most table salt has iodine in it. That is something that we get in other sources of food and isn't something that is necessary in salt. One negative thing about having salt with iodine in it is that over time, it can cause the salt to get a yellow tint to it. That is not something that will hurt you but will make it harder to barter with if you try to do that. Most processed foods has salt in it as do the freeze dried meats but if at some point you have to process your own meat and grow your own food, salt will be back in demand for doing that. Some sea salts have minerals added in it that can cause the salt to go rancid over time so do your research before buying. I just get salt with out iodine and store that.
Salt is like sugar in that you don't have to do anything special to it and it will basically store forever. You do need to take some care though. Don't just go down to the cannery and purchase a bunch of #10 cans and pour the salt in and seal it. The salt will corrode the cans and then it will be no good and could actually be poisonous from the corroded metal in it. Pour the salt into either mylar bags or one gallon zip lock bags and then place them into the #10 cans to seal. Another way is to buy 3.5 or 4 gallon food storage buckets and store it in them. That is what I do. It is easier to move them around that way. Unless you are the Incredible Hulk, I wouldn't store it in 5 or 6 gallon buckets. That would be VERY heavy. The recommended amount of salt to store is 8 pounds per person per year. Purchase a 50 pound bag, pour the salt into some food storage buckets and you have enough for six people plus a little left over for a year. It is one of the least expensive items for your food storage for one year that you can purchase at one time.
I have an excel spread sheet with the recommended amounts of food storage that you should have broken down for families up to 6 persons. If you would like a copy, send me an email requesting it.
That's all for now. Watch for our next blog.
Have fun with your food storage.
Bob and LouAnn Singer
No comments:
Post a Comment