Huge price increases at Greensboro cannery effective Monday Apr. 4

(I wish this was an April Fool's joke but its not.)

Email I just got from the Greensboro Cannery from Brother Midkiff:

"I received an email this morning advising that price changes will be effective at the canneries all over the U.S. this coming Monday and the price list will be updated online today. I don't have a current price list here at home with me, but the new price list, if memory serves correctly, milk is going up $5 per bag, sugar up $4 per bag, apples up $11 pre box, carrots and onions up but I dont remember the current price, oats up about $7 per bag and wheat up about $4 per bag. If any of you are wanting to come to the cannery today before the price change, I can meet you there. call me on my cell phone at 336-287-1767"
-Brother Midkiff

Two quotes by Ezra Taft Benson

Ezra Taft Benson (General Conference, October 1980) (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.265)
“Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake ... cannot happen here. Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them. Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that they will somehow be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion. The Lord has warned and forewarned us against a day of great tribulation and given us counsel through His servants, on how we can be prepared for these difficult times. Have we heeded His counsel?”



Ezra Taft Benson, (“Not Commanded In All Things!”, Council Of The Twelve General Conference,  April 6, 1965)
"For years we have been counseled to have on hand a year’s supply of food. Yet there are some today who will not start storing until the Church comes out with a detailed monthly home storage program. Now suppose that never happens. We still cannot say we have not been told. Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the Church— and the need for that cleansing seems to be increasing— a famine in this land of one year’s duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned."

Walton Feed raises prices 5%

Our stake has just turned in all our orders for our twice-yearly Walton Feed food storage order, and now today I got an email saying Walton cannot honor their prices, and we have to send in 5% more money for this order.  This is amazing, and is a sure sign that prices are going up so fast that big companies like this find it necessary to raise prices right in the middle of a big order.

(The following is from our stake Walton Feed coordinator)

March 27, 2011    Unfortunately, and for the first time in our history of ordering, Walton has had to raise their prices for the upcoming order and is not able to honor the prices originally quoted.  If you have have not submitted an order yet, please use the attached spreadsheet as it will add the price increases.  If you have already turned in your order to me or your ward rep, you will need to revise the order to accommodate the price increase by filling out the new spreadsheet attached.  More detail about why this happened is included in the below message from Melissa C., the main group coordinator for Walton orders.  The revised spreadsheet is attached.   If you are using a printable form or if you have send me an email with your order, add 5% to the total.

The deadline has been extended.  All orders with payment are now due to ____ by April ___.  I apologize as I know this will be inconvenient for all of us. Please pass this on to all in your wards or groups who received the original order.

Aimee S.

From Melissa C.:

 Hello Everyone!

Price Increase

I received information from Walton Feed that they have had to raise their prices and it is effective immediately. They cannot honor the prices on my price list for this current order because everything they are ordering in stock is more expensive now....and shipping is also being increased. This is the first time we have ever had to do this in the 12 years we have worked with them. I have worried and prayed and thought over this and decided that I had 2 choices...I could cancel the entire order, or I could send out information to all of you and let you know that we have to raise the prices. I chose the second option, because I know most of us don't want to cancel the order.

How Much?

We will be adding 5% to the total cost of each person's order. (That is $5.00 added to a $100 order.) I have made some adjustments to the spreadsheet so that it will automatically add up the 5% extra. I have attached the new spreadsheet for you. It will only affect some of the orders by a few dollars, but in the entire scope of the order, it will affect it by about $15,000! That is not something I could cover out of my own pocket, so raising the prices was really my only choice.

  

PS - Something Interesting

This is one paragraph of an email that one of the Stake Leaders sent out to her people after I counseled with her about this. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it.

" I guess the question really is why it took them (Walton Feed) this long (to raise their prices).  Those of you who have been following the world weather events know that there were floods in Australia and drought in China and Russia and Chile, way before the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan.  Commodity prices have been sky-rocketing all over the world.  Wheat prices doubled when Russia banned its wheat exports due to its drought.  Corn is up 52%.  Cotton is up 89%.  Rice and soybeans are up somewhere around 26%. It takes a while for these increases to trickle down to pricing here in the United States.  It wasn't until the last few months that our Consumer Price Index started going up."

What is in my 72 hour kit, or Go-Bag.

If you are stranded somewhere without any other source of food than what you have in your bag, you really begin to see what types of food to pack in the future.

I attended the Glenn Beck Aug. 28, 2010 event in Washington D.C., and brought a small cooler with me.  It had food and water in it for 24 hours.  I paid special attention to what I liked and what I wished I had.

(Note:  Most emergency preparedness people do not call this a "72 hour kit" anymore, because you should actually have more than 3 days worth of food.  Probably 5 days is better. So a lot of people are calling it a "Go-Bag" instead.

 And the Church doesn't specifically teach "72 hour kits", they basically teach us to get 3 months of short-term food and then get long term food storage.)

While I was in D.C.,  I realized for each meal I wanted something savory, something starchy, some fresh vegetables and then something sweet.  I would NOT have been happy if all I had were granola bars.

So, for my 72 hour kit, I made sure to get all those different flavors.  And enough of each to have 5 days of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, for the 3 people living at my house.  I actually made a chart of each meal, and what to have for each meal, to make sure I had enough.  We won't be very full, but we will have food to eat for 5 days.

The one food group I wish I had more of is vegetables and fruits.  I'll try to add more of those next time.

As you can see, there are a lot of items that need to be rotated.  So my plan is to rotate the food every General Conference.  So this weekend we will start eating a lot of junk food.

What food should you put in your 72 hour kit?

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/2011/03/24/72-hour-kits-revisited-part-2-of-2/

Go to Food Storage Made Easy, and see the big long list of 72 hour kit food options and ideas that they have put together.

General Mills Warns of Further Price Hikes

Here's another one of the many articles I have seen recently about rising food prices.  Prices will NOT be going down, so buy your food storage as soon as you can.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42231299

General Mills Warns Of Further Price Hikes; Shares Fall

March 23, 2011

"As we look forward to fiscal 2012, we currently anticipate that supply chain inflation will be higher than this year's estimated 4 to 5 percent rate," said Chairman and CEO Ken Powell in a statement before the company's conference call.

But during the call, Powell admitted that higher inflation is a real concern right now and not just in 2012.

"We believe (that) we are going to see generalized food inflation across all segments," he said,...

Consider the need for food in Japan

 

 

BY PETER FOSTER, LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 19, 2011

 

 

 http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Forced+forage+food+some+Japanese+robbed+their+dignity/4469257/story.html

In another time, another place, Kazuhiro Takahashi could be taken for a tramp, out scavenging for food after a long night on the bottle. In fact, he is just another hungry victim of Japan's tsunami trying to find food for his family.

"I am so ashamed," says the 43-year-old construction worker after he realizes he's been spotted. "But for three days we don't have enough food. I have no money because my house was washed away by the tsunami and the cash machine is not working."

If his haul wasn't so pitiful - his bag had two packets of defrosted prawn dumplings and a handful of vacuumpacked seafood sticks inside - Takahashi might be taken for a looter. But in the port town of Ichinomaki, 320 kilometres north of Tokyo, his story is disturbingly common.

Japan might be a rich country, but a week after the tsunami struck it is struggling to feed and house the victims.

more:http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Forced+forage+food+some+Japanese+robbed+their+dignity/4469257/story.html#ixzz1HHoeT3a0








Note from Amy:  I am putting this story on here to remind us all of the terrible plight a person is in after any major disaster.  If all families had a year's supply of food, the people whose homes were still standing could help the people whose homes had been washed away.  

Pancake Breakfast from food storage

Here is another one of the meals that I can make completely out of food storage.  Wayne loves the boxes of Aunt Jemima Whole Wheat pancake mix, but I actually have a great recipe for Whole Wheat Blender Pancakes that I could make instead. (For that recipe, you put wheat kernels into the blender and it grinds them up, you don't need a wheat grinder.)

Either way, I have wheat OR Aunt Jemima pancake mix, powdered milk, powdered eggs, oil, pancake syrup, and canned butter.

This butter was delicious

We bought a bunch of cans of this butter a couple of years ago.  This week, my husband insisted that we needed to open a can to see if it was still good.  Yessiree, it was.  I wish I had a hundred cans, but alas, I don't.

I have heard that the price has gone up significantly, so I don't know if I will be buying more.  But if I ever see it for a reasonable price I will buy it, for sure.

Prices for Propane

I think it is smart to have several full propane tanks, so that when the power goes out we will be able to cook over our propane grill.

You can tell by the weight whether they are full or not.  If a tank is full, I can barely swing it along between my feet using both arms.

If a tank is empty, I can carry it in one hand.

One of our tanks was empty, so I checked the prices.

Harris Teeter:
To buy a full tank, $59.99.
To trade an empty tank for a full tank:  $21.99.

Walmart:
To buy a full tank: $43.94.
To trade an empty tank for a full tank: $17.96.

(I got my propane at Walmart.)

Free Download- Preparedness Manual

I got a copy of this book and love it.  It contains everything for preparedness, and it is free to download.

Go to this website page, and scroll down a little and you will see it. "LDS Preparedness Manual". 

http://www.ldsavow.com/resources.html

"This manual has been prepared for, and is intended to be read primarily by, the active members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Please Note: The contents of this booklet are intended to assist individuals and families in coping with emergency preparations. However, final decisions on preparation for actions taken during an emergency are the sole responsibility of individuals. No one knows your needs or can take care of you better than you can-nor does anyone else have that responsibility. Information and examples contained within this booklet are provided for illustration and advice only. Therefore, no liability is assumed by the Editor or any of the Authors for the use or misuse of any information or products contained in this publication.

This publication has not been endorsed or produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and its contents and the opinions it expresses are those of the Editor and the separate authors. While it should not be construed as an official church publication, effort has been made to ensure that all materials are in accordance with general church guidelines on food storage and family preparedness. "

Someone asked me some questions

I taught a class on Food Storage at my stake's Women's Day on Saturday.  One of the class members sent me these questions later:

1. When storing salt in a plastic bucket, is an oxygen absorber needed?  i think you wouldn't use a mylar bag with it though, right?

I have left all my salt in its original packaging.  Mostly I have purchased cardboard packages.  The only danger is that the salt might go hard from humidity, but if so, I figure I can dissolve it into the liquid of any recipe and smash the lumps out.  If someone else has experience with this, please add a comment.

1. when storing my own food in the buckets, do the mylar bags make it last longer?  are they necessary for every item?

I don’t have any experience using mylar bags inside buckets.  I have always just put the food into the bucket and either treated it with dry ice (not recommended anymore) or with oxygen absorbers.  Maybe you can look at other websites for more information on this.

1. Will honey keep in just the regular containers that you buy in the store if they are unopened?  or should it be transfered?

Honey will keep forever, and no, you don’t have to transfer it from the store packaging.

I don’t think its smart to buy honey in huge containers or big buckets, because there is no way to melt it after it gets hard.  A friend told me they had to break chunks of honey off with a chisel and hammer and then melt the chunks.  That doesn’t sound fun to me.

I like to buy honey in the regular 5 lb. plastic jugs at Sam’s Club.  After several years the honey goes hard, but when that happens I saw the top half of the bottle off with a serrated knife (because it is too tall for my microwave) and cook the honey in the microwave for awhile until I melt the honey again.  Then I pour the liquid honey into a new container.

1. Have you heard of anyone storing Masa for making tortillas?  it's very dry so i'm assuming that it can be stored, but generally it goes stale way before my flour does when in the regular package.  i can see it being very handy for quick meals in emergencies, as you only add water and tortillas can be cooked almost anywhere. (i.e. on a rock if necessary!)

I just learned to make corn tortillas, so I just bought my first bag of masa.  I am hoping that I can store it the same way I store cornmeal, in buckets or tupperware.  I am definitely going to buy some more.

1. Chocolate??  in an emergency, I WILL NEED CHOCOLATE!  Can I buy bars and store them or will that not really work great?

I have stored many pounds of chocolate chips and M&Ms by using my Tilia FoodSaver vacuum sealer and the jar attachment.  I put the candy into regular canning jars, put the lid on (but not the screw-on ring) and then attach the vacuum sealer and pull out all the air.  I have heard that chocolate, nuts, coconut,  and candy stays good up to three years in vacuum sealed jars.

I have also stored many packages of cocoa, in their original containers.  I don’t know if I can rotate through them before they go bad, because I don’t know how long they will store.  But I bought them anyway because I love chocolate!