I Dare You To Eat It Presentation

I have had several friends who were unable to attend Liesa Card's presentation last Thursday ask me for handouts. Here's the thing, she doesn't really do handouts. She feels that they are usually a waste of paper and just get thrown away. Instead she provides everyone in attendance with a half sheet of paper and a pencil so they can write down points that they feel are important (plus she handed out bookmarks with her website address so you can check out some of the recipes that she has up there for free, but I already put the link above). So I thought that I would write down the things that I thought were important here on my blog. Of course what I write here doesn't do justice to her entire presentation, but here we go.

• Using your food storage should consist of 3 things: A one year supply of staples (grains, beans, etc.), a 3 month supply of items that you regularly use in your cooking (sauces, canned vegetables, etc) and fresh ingredients (meat, dairy, produce). Meals that are a mix of these three are far more likely to be eaten by your family.
• Thomas S. Monson has asked us to live in the present. At the moment the present includes the grocery store. The First Presidency has never asked us to stop going to the grocery store.
• Food storage doesn't have to be weird, in fact it's best if it's not. Some examples she gave of food storage meals that her family eats on a regular basis include white bean chicken chili, tuna noodles, sloppy joes, beef borgie and shepherd's pie.
• If you have your ingredients on hand, you can use your food storage to put together meals faster than you can pick up take-out, but they're healthier and cheaper too.
• You can get a year supply of food storage for a family of five for about $1200. Yes, that is not pocket change, but with some planning and some effort it is doable. Find a way to save $100 a month and put that towards food storage. As you use it, it will save you money.
• Food storage can make you a better mother. There is an peace and assurance that come with knowing that whatever the world has to throw at us, at least I have the means to feed my family. "I won't fail them when it comes to food."
• Food storage is not about fear, it is about peace. We have been asked to store food, not in a spirit of fear, but because of the blessings that will come from having it.
• Food storage is almost like a secret blessing from the First Presidency and people don't realize how it can make their lives so much easier.
• If we ever come to a point where we have to use our food storage, we will wish that we had kept the furniture in the garage and food storage in our house.
• If the 'what if' happens, we make adjustments. If a disaster happens we're still having white bean chicken chili. It may or may not have chicken, it probably won't have cheese or sour cream or tortilla chips, but it is close enough to what they are used to that the family will still be comfortable eating it.
• There are three tricks to using your food storage: 

1. Keep 6 open cans of food storage IN YOUR KITCHEN. (wheat, pasta, beans, oats, rice and potatoes)
2. Gather a three month supply of ingredients and keep them in your kitchen. (She uses 30 recipes and buys the shelf ingredients in groups of three. i.e. 3 bottles of spaghetti sauce.)
3. Get a binder and start collecting food storage recipes that your family is actually willing to eat. It doesn't have to be fancy, just a place where you have them together.

 If you want more information I Dare You To Eat It can be found at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Deseret Book. Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows that I mention this book a lot. Liesa does not compensate me in anyway to promote her book. I promote it because it has changed my life, makes my job as a mother so much easier and I believe that it can make the lives of many other families easier too. And if you live near me I do have a few copies that Liesa gave me to sell at a discounted price. I am not getting a cut, I'm just trying to share the good information.