Care for the Children Foundation » food

My New Favorite Quote and an update

Lee Bradshaw — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:53:13 +0000

‘My major problem with the world is a problem of scarcity in the midst of plenty … of people starving while there are unused resources … people having skills which are not being used.’ Milton Friedman

I met last week with someone who I hoped would help me this year. I know if we come close to meeting our goals this year we will have a problem with distributing the food that we gather fast enough. So as I was talking about our goals and needs I was informed of his needs and we agreed to help each other out. He is going to make his walk in refrigerator available to me. This was a great load off of my mind because one of my worst nightmares is gathering food and then having it spoil before I can get it to the people in need. So now we have a partner to help us. But now I have another worry. His problem is that he sometimes gets more than one truck load of fresh produce that he can not store. So now he has recruited me to help distribute truckloads of food. I have always said this project is as big as we let it be.

Now I have a few new items on my wish list: industrial canning equipment and dehydrating equipment and volunteers who know how to run it.

God Bless all of you that have shown your support and continue to do so.

GET INVOLVED!

Jaime Buckley — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:40:16 +0000

I am visiting with Lee Bradshaw weekly and watching this incredible project grow by leaps and bounds, but not because of financial donations. No. This project thus far has grown by people being creative and donating their resources, their connections and in some cases, themselves as manpower (or ‘womanpower’).

As a husband and father of 10 (+1), the challenges today’s society throws at us are not always ones we can control. People who are in need are not usually people who refuse to work. In fact, most are hard working, loyal, tax paying, kind individuals and families who have not been able to make enough, or by circumstances, have found themselves in a dire situation. Many times it’s a choice between paying a bill or food on the table and many feel obliged to pay their debts! Think about that!!

I stopped down town Salt Lake City and watched good men, lined up in the early morning frost with bitter winds, just in the hopes of getting a bus pass so they can get to work that day.

We have resources. All of us. From money to food in our back yards, to people we know who are unaware that Care for the Children and it’s harvest projects even exists. I would implore you to tell them about this site. To tell them of the work that has been done, what is being done and what we HOPE to do this year!

Take a moment to tell someone about us. Help us grow our connections with the people of the communities, while Lee Bradshaw and his volunteers make connections with companies and government entities.

The goal is to fill every belly. Please help us do it.
Contact us and give us your ideas and support.

God Bless.
Jaime Buckley

Food Storage vs. Food Rotation

Lee Bradshaw — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:01:51 +0000

This last week was very busy and heartbreaking. My family has been helping a older couple clean out their food storage room. It is huge, 21′X 16′, with cement floor, walls and ceiling. It is amazing the time and effort these folks have gone through to be prepared in a time of emergency. It was wall to wall food.

Now here is the heartbreaking part: As we started cleaning out this room we found that over 75% of it had to be thrown away. There was food that was bottled in 1960. There were 5 gallon metal buckets of honey that had rusted through the bottoms and leaked all over the floor. Can goods that were bulging and ready to burst.

As an organization that prides our selves as saving food and not letting it go to waste, it was a sad week. But as I told my wife, this stuff in these bottles ceased being food long ago. Yes, they have found food stored by the Egyptians that is still edible, but this wasn’t. Bottled food is best if used within three years. Fpur years should be the max. I don’t see this as a problem because we should be eating the food that we are storing. Many experts have said that storing whole wheat for the future is a grave mistake unless we start using whole wheat today to make our bread.

Now why does that make sense? I’ll tell you why: we need to change our diet slowly starting today so that when we have to rely solely on our food storage, our bodies are used to processing it. Otherwise, we are going to bloat up and have serious health issues when we try to force our bodies to process only whole grains. We have conditioned ourselves to use processed garbage foods for fuel. It’s foolishness to think we will be able to instantly convert to a higher food source without serious injury, when our systems are not acclimatized! These whole grains are great for our bodies but it will shock our systems if we don’t change over time.

It would be my suggestion that people store what they eat and then rotate what they have stored. And of course learn to eat good whole foods.