Be Your Own Super Hero - Stock Up On Sprouts!

Ok this is a hysterical video (mostly because they actually found adults willing to act like this):

Preparedness Heroes Episode 1

but I love their point.  Sprouts are easy to store, easy to grow, and pack in vitamins and minerals your body would need in a time of food scarcity.  Too many people are intimidated by sprouts.  All you need is a couple of simple supplies and you are good to go.  Amazon carries everything you need:

Mason Jar

Sprouting Lid

Sprouts

You can get those fancy sprouting trays but they are not necessary, simple supplies work just as well.  You can probably find most of those things at your local grocer as well.  Doesn't matter where you get them but you should have them in your storage, and practice using them now, you will be amazed how easy it is and how yummy they are!  Mung beans are my favorite to sprout.  I like to just eat them straight as a snack.

Storing Spices

I had a question today about storing spices.  I thought I had done a post on that previously but I can't find it so I'm doing a brief summary here. 

When we were living on food storage I came to realize how important a good array of spices are.  It adds variety to your foods and can make the difference between your kids being willing to eat, and preferring to starve.

The problem is, spices do not have a long shelf life.  The way I have found that works best for me is to buy spices in bulk and then use them in my daily cooking.  That way I have a lot of everything and it still gets rotated.

When purchasing spices I shop either at Costco or WinCo.  If you have a WinCo near you and haven't discovered their bulk foods section yet, you are REALLY missing out.  Repent immediately and check it out next time you are in WinCo. 

Anyway, WinCo also sells these handy dandy spices jars that I use to keep my spices in.  I just added labels.  Then I went to an "Organize It" store in town and got some adhesive backed jar holders to attach to the inside of my cupboards.  And there you have it - a very convenient spice rotation system.

It always amuses me when I teach food storage classes because, invariably, the thing people are most interested in is my spice storage system  :)