THE HOME STORAGE STARTER KIT

The Church’s Home Storage Centers provide pre-canned home storage starter kits at a nominal cost.  This kit consists of a box containing 6 #10 cans (about 6 gallons) of food suitable for storage or everyday use.   There are 1 can each of pinto beans, quick oats, white rice, hard red wheat, white wheat and white flour for a total of 29.4 pounds of food.  The white flour has a storage life of  about 10 years.  The other products all have  a storage life of  about 30 years.

To actually live off of this supply you would need need potable water, salt, sugar or other sweetener, butter and/or other kind of cooking oil and yeast.  A method of grinding the wheat would be needed. You would also need some kind of stove and fuel for cooking in case you did not have electricity.  If the municipal water supply was cut off or contaminated you would need a supply of water in barrels or other containers.  See the Library on this web site for additional information and ideas for surviving in hard times.

Suppose you had a family of 4 and each person consumed 1 pound of food a day.  This starter kit (plus the other ingredients needed) would feed the family for about 29.4 /4 = 7.4 days or about one week.  To store a years supply at that rate of consumption would require the equivalent of 52 starter kits.   

To be healthy for that year you would need fresh vegetables and fruits in your diet.  Better invest in some garden seed.

Since you will most likely not have everything you need to survive for a year, it would be wise to have a supply of barter items.  

As can readily be seen here, one starter kit would only be a starter for the needed supplies.

Click here to see a list of many other items to consider when building a short term or long term supply.  

Feb 27, 2015:  The Starter Kit is no longer available, but the products contained in it are still available at the Home Storage Center.