Food Storage Long Term Storage Recommendations

What are the long term food storage requirements for food storage?

I heard a Gospel Doctrine teacher say the other day that Food Storage was no longer relevant and not being taught by the Brethren. is this true?

Also is Providentliving.org maintained by the Church it has BYU recommendations on how much to store but others say it is not from the Church or the Brethren.

rickgwilliams wrote:What are the long term food storage requirements for food storage?

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage ... lang=eng#4 contains information on long term storage.

rickgwilliams wrote:I heard a Gospel Doctrine teacher say the other day that Food Storage was no longer relevant and not being taught by the Brethren. is this true?

The church itself sells food for long term food storage directly from store.lds.org. I don't know why the church would do that food storage wasn't still relevant and considered important.

And just a few months ago President Monson wrote "We should remember that the best storehouse system would be for every family in the Church to have a supply of food, clothing, and, where possible, other necessities of life" (September 2014 Ensign). The same message talks about food storage at other points as well.

rickgwilliams wrote:Also is Providentliving.org maintained by the Church it has BYU recommendations on how much to store but others say it is not from the Church or the Brethren.

ProvidentLiving.org is the same as providentliving.lds.org which is part of the official church website. It isn't a BYU website. As such I think you can consider it as official as any other part of lds.org.

rickgwilliams wrote:What are the long term food storage requirements for food storage?

I'm not seeing a set of "requirements", but rather the general goal of longer term storage.

rickgwilliams wrote:I heard a Gospel Doctrine teacher say the other day that Food Storage was no longer relevant and not being taught by the Brethren. is this true?

I think you need to bring that to the attention of the bishop. Teachers are supposed to be sticking to the manual and not straying into hearsay. This principle can be seen in Lesson 3: The Teacher’s Divine Commission

rickgwilliams wrote:Also is Providentliving.org maintained by the Church it has BYU recommendations on how much to store but others say it is not from the Church or the Brethren.

The website is owned by Intellectual Reserve - as is lds.org. (You can verify it at internic.com) And you can certainly find information about food storage on the lds.org website, such as here. The pamphlet All is Safely Gathered In, copyrighted in 2007 can be found there, with a forward by the First Presidency.

Doing a search on General Conference, I'm not seeing any mention of "food storage" since 2008 - but I would be cautious about drawing any conclusions from that. It may be that other things are more important at this time, or perhaps it's out of consideration to members' financial situation with the economic downturn. But it's has not been retracted and I certainly wouldn't say it's no longer relevant.

There has been less emphasis on a "year's supply," but food storage is still in force as a prophetic recommendation. Most of what you see from recent official sources is to gradually build up to a rotating three-month supply. I don't know if a year's supply is still recommended.

There's probably more emphasis on a 3-day supply to deal with natural disasters. That's one that's preached even by local government officials.

Member stated The "Church" doesn't have much to do with the Providentliving.org site. It is watched over by a sister employee who doesn't know that much about food storage obviously. If it has links to BYU about food storage they are not from the Brethren.

Long Term Shelf Life

At a home storage center individuals can purchase food items such as wheat, dry beans, rice, and other products that have been prepackaged for longer-term storage. Consider using this resource from the BYU Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Science department: An Approach to Longer-Term Food Storage.

It seems that food storage is not a big concern according to this member and the sister employee over the food storage site.

I know our local bishop's storehouse is just now opening up a new "store" in a room off the regular storehouse for members to purchase bulk and other food storage items, so it certainly doesn't appear to me that the church thinks food storage is no longer relevant.

You may wish to obtain the pamphlet (or read online)
All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage
as mentioned by others already in this thread. It might seem to some a "step down" from the previous suggestion of a years supply of food, but to me it just seems to take a rational approach:

We encourage Church members worldwide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings.

We ask that you be wise as you store food and water and build your savings. Do not go to extremes; it is not prudent, for example, to go into debt to establish your food storage all at once. With careful planning, you can, over time, establish a home storage supply and a financial reserve.

rickgwilliams wrote:Member stated The "Church" doesn't have much to do with the Providentliving.org site. It is watched over by a sister employee who doesn't know that much about food storage obviously.

Please be careful about repeating second-hand unsubstantiated rumors. The Church owns and maintains the ProvidentLiving.org website. That site is simply a part of LDS.org, and as such is an official website of the Church. It contains far more than just food storage information; I guarantee that the entire ProvidentLiving.org site is not watched over by one sister employee.

rickgwilliams wrote:If it has links to BYU about food storage they are not from the Brethren.

It hardly seems appropriate to throw doubt on the entire site just because of a single link to BYU. BYU happens to be an institution of research and higher learning owned and directed by the Church. It's quite plausible that the "Brethren" would approve having a link on an official Church website to a resource from BYU's Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Science department, especially when that resource specifically refers to Home Storage Centers and the online store on LDS.org.

The brethren say what and why. I don't see anything unusual for them to defer the details of the how to those with expertise in the field.

Instruction that each member should build up a reserve of money and food was repeated – by President Monson – as recently as September 2014: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2014/09/are- ... d?lang=eng

Again, the prophetic council to have food storage is still in force – but the implementation specifics (for example, "year's supply") may vary depending on your circumstances.

Thank you for all your insight.

Everyone has done a good job explaining. So, this is supporting what has been said. The Church has never rescinded any of the counsel for long-term food storage. In fact, as mentioned, the Church is even canning the products so we can buy them online and in the Distribution Centers. They are bending over backwards to help us get long-term food storage. Granted, the Brethren have not, for a long time, said get a "Year's Supply" over the pulpit, but they do consistently say everywhere else, in print and on church web sites, to begin with three months and then build up to a Longer Term Supply. They've always said (for decades) to begin small by buying a few cans extra each time we go to the store and to grow the storage, but now they advise us to begin with a goal of three months and then grow it. In essence, the counsel is the same as it has always been, but they have made it seem more doable by beginning with a smaller goal on the way to the big goal.

We can only speculate as to why we are not told much about long-term storage over the pulpit, but as we are a worldwide church and laws vary on how much food can be stored from country to country, it makes sense that much of the detailed advice would come from local leaders and not at General Conference. For example, in some European countries, there are anti-hoarding laws, and storing more than a few weeks' food is considered to be hoarding.

When you type providentliving.org into your browser, the url changes to providentliving.lds.org. That the Church, through Provident Living, is recommending the BYU Food Science and Nutrition Department 2015 guidelines and has a link to the guidelines means that the guidelines are good. It really does make it a lot easier when we can see exactly how many cans of each of the Church's Home Storage items is needed for each person in the family. Moreover, barring some fantastic sale, the Church's prices for that canned food are usually the lowest you will find and quality is great. The powdered milk for example, as been changed very recently and is every bit as good as the most expensive commercial product from the well-known companies.