The Ugly Truth

I'm here to tell you that I inherited about a hundred pounds of wheat that had been stored in plastic garbage bags inside a clean plastic garbage can for over 15 years. We kept it from getting wet, but that's about it. It was stored in several garages and sheds, in both hot and cold extremes. Basically, this wheat was just stored "all wrong". Short of storing it on the garage floor in nothing but the paper bag, we couldn't have stored it any worse. When I finally cracked open the container, there was one bag that had been open and partially used. It had some funky looking little critters in it. The other bag is good as new. I didn't have to sift out any bugs, it tastes fine and hasn't killed anyone! If I were truly hungry, you bet your left ear I'd do my best to sift the critters out of that partial bag, grind it up, and make up some bread! And as bad as it may sound, I'll probably hang on to this partial bag too. If I were ever in a tight spot, I might still be able to sprout it, plant it or give it to my chickens.

What people don't understand is that if you are truly hungry, you will do anything, and I mean anything to provide for your family. If you didn't store any food, and you showed up at my house and all I could give was this poor, improperly stored, buggy bag of wheat, you'd spend all day picking the bugs out so you could eat it. It would keep you from having to lie, cheat or steal just to feed your children for one more day, and you'd be glad to have it. I'll let you in on a little secret: We've grown fat and lazy in our land of plenty. We have grown disconnected from the agricultural process. The idea of eating anything that touched dirt or has bugs in it sounds icky and not at all OK. But guess what? The things you eat started their lives outside, and Mother Nature? She got ALL OVER THEM! Yep. Your food doesn't grow or get harvested in a sterile environment. But listen, if you are in a position of having to spend your days figuring out how to procure your next meal, you'll have plenty of time to pick bugs out of your wheat if you didn't do a perfect job of storing it. In history, people have literally eaten their own shoes in an effort to survive. Start storing some food! You can get to the details of storing it well as you go. Don't let your own perfectionism, or worse, someone else's perfectionism, keep you from doing what you can do.