This postYesterday Connor blogged about food storage, particularly how many of us single adults are told we don’t need to do it. And this morning I read a rather insightful comment on the post by Kelly Winterton.
First, can I just say how excited I get about food storage? The idea of provident living gives me goosebumps. Seriously.
That said, it is difficult to store food for a year as a student, primarily because of space and money. Spacewise, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it — except perhaps buy my roommate’s contract and store food on his side of the room, but then you run into the money issue ;) — and yet with some wise planning I could store at least enough food to get by for a few months.
What about the oft-cited BYU recommendation that students shouldn’t store food? Ostensibly it’s because they have a three-day supply on campus, but three days is not the same as one year, no matter how you run the math, and apparently the supply consists of frozen ice cream (though that may have just been wishful thinking on the part of the person who told me). And I haven’t seen the recommendation from any official source, so it may be utter rot. A good question for the 100 Hour Board, but I bet it’s already been asked.
And yes, it has. From The Excavator we find a reference to the 27 Feb 2003 page:
The BYU Warehouse and Dining Services combined have enough food to feed 33,000 students for three days. It is advised that students store their own water though, because it’s cheap and easy. Just keep the containers under your bed or in a closet. Three gallons of water per person is recommended. The food is kept in a fortified area that will remain standing, even if the building should collapse. So, contrary to popular belief the food storage is not kept in the underground tunnels.
But apparently it’s only for on-campus residents:
Addition to question 3: If you live on campus BYU does indeed have food storage for you. Your job is to have a water supply. At least this was according to my Heritage Halls Bishop. –Kassidy
Yeah. It’s only if you leave the dorms and hit the “real world” that you get hung out to dry. Start stocking up on rice! –Eowyn
A clarification: BYU does have food storage for on-campus residents, but not 6 months worth. They have enough to feed all the on campus residents for about a week: the amount of time they anticipate it would take for just about all on campus residents to secure transportation home. –CGNU Grad
And from CGNU Grad again, more on where the three days’ worth comes from:
Third, the three day food storage on campus is not down there. The three day food storage is simply the food that would normally be eaten over the next 3 days at the campus cafeterias and Cougareat. The reason it is legendary is simply because most other universities only have on hand the food for that day only, with the next days food coming in on trucks early the next morning. That’s it. No mystery.
However, back in 2002 Simeon Stepped Away wrote that:
Students should not be worried about having a year’s worth of food storage. Apparently, the Brethren told BYU’s emergency preparedness coordinator not to encourage students to store food. Why? Because BYU has enough food at any one time to keep all of the students alive for three days. (Rumor has it the food is down in the tunnels under campus.) However, students may not be able to eat three square meals during those day. Students should store three gallons of water (yes, per student). Water would be at a premium if an emergency were to cut off food supplies. (I personally have 2-3 soda bottles of water under my bed. They like it down there. I like them to be down there. The dust bunnies like them there, too.)
The part that catches my attention is the bit about the brethren telling the emergency prep coordinator not to have students store food, but it seems like with the other developments (like the food being restricted to on-campus residents), it is indeed our duty to store as much food as we can. (If there were a natural disaster, who knows how long we’d be stuck here, unable to get home.)
And thus begins my food storage adventure. :)
