SO, IF YOU ARE CONFINED TO YOUR HOMES WHAT ARE YOU GONNA EAT?

Does all the Swine Flu hype have you a little nervous? Is your imagination galloping off into the murky distance, leaving you looking in the fridge, muttering, "If they quarantine the nation what will I eat?" as you are shaking the milk carton with half an inch of questionable stuff inside.

I'm going to answer your question. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has asked it's members to store food and other necessities for times of need. So we do--or at least we try to, but some of us don't really have much of a plan.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Costco when I met Liesa Card, the author of "I Dare You to Eat It," a book about food storage and actually being able to eat what you store. Her book is excellent. She gave me permission to share it on our Relief Society bulletin, which I will start doing this week. She also has a blog by the same name. Click here to check it out.

One of her premises is to store enough "comfort" food for three months. That is food you would normally eat. She keeps three recipes worth of groceries for five meals in five categories: wheat, beans, pasta, potatoes, and rice. That makes three months worth of recipes. She uses these recipes all the time so her stored food is always naturally rotated, as she replenishes the used items.

I made her Fiesta Wheat and Bean Salad twice in a week. (I used more lime juice, some garlic powder and more jalapenio and it would be good with hot sauce.) I took some of it to five families along with a bag of tortilla chips to eat it with. I don't know if they like it but I do. I even eat it on corn tortillas, lightly fried in a little olive oil and topped with hot sauce. I eat it for breakfast, weird I know but tasty.

We can do this. We can get prepared for times of emergency. It will take a little planning and a bit of work but won't it feel good to be prepared when/if the store shelves are all of a sudden empty?

Check out her web site, and there are other "Food Storage" web sites on the Internet, too. Let's get busy and do what we have been told to do for so very long. It feels good to be prepared. At least that's what I've heard. Ask me later in the year, when I've figured out my thirty meals times three.