SELF-RELIANCE: STORING FOOD IS OLD TRADITION FOR MORMONS

Caisa Pope and her family are ready for Y2K. They have a couple of cases of Spaghetti O's in the basement.

"You don't buy things that no one is going to eat," said Pope, who grew up canning and storing foodstuffs for hard times. "My kids eat Spaghetti O's, so we have Spaghetti O's."

Pope and other members of the Mormon church would have yearlong supplies of food regardless of the millennium, computers and their viruses. Mormons, or members the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have always stored food.

"It goes back almost to the beginning of the church in the 1830s," said Wesley Mueller, bishop for churches in Southeast Missouri and parts of Southern Illinois. "It's based on a principle of self-reliance."

Mormons were forced to play the role of social outcasts early in their church history, so food storage arose from living outside the mainstream, Mueller said.

For many years, church officials asked members to keep enough food on hand to survive for two years. Now they only request a one-year supply, said Brad Tobler.

Since Tobler has been out of work for part of this year, the spare food has helped.

"We have about four or five months worth of food in the basement now," he said. "So now, even without a job, I have food for my three children and my wife."

Food storage is part of a larger churchwide welfare system, which not only extends outside the church, but overseas.

"A lot of times you'll see that when a disaster happens, our stuff will arrive before the Red Cross'," Tobler said.

Most Mormons have grown up canning and storing food, so this year hasn't varied much from the past.

When Tobler was growing up, he went with his mother to the grocery store to help push the two or three carts of food she would buy, he said.

"When we needed something we would just go down to the basement," he said. "It was like our own little grocery store."

Pope remembers putting up wheat with her mother in five gallon plastic buckets.

"She is probably still using the same buckets," Pope said.

Food storage should be tackled over time, Tobler said. When his family buys groceries, a little extra is purchased to set aside.

Just about any kind of food can be stored, Pope said, as long as particular storage needs are kept in mind. Everything preserved in glass jars has a short self life, so vegetables from the previous summer are eaten before new ones get canned, she said.

Foods stored in 10-pound aluminum cans, which area Mormons purchase from a church storehouse in St. Louis, can last for about two years, Pope said.

When Mueller lived in California, he said it was cheaper to buy canned goods at grocery stores than to can at home.

Items such as turkeys, salsa and spaghetti sauce can only be "wet packed" at St. Louis church facilities. But equipment for dry packing rice, oats and wheat circulate among area Mormons over the summer, Pope said.

Few people outside the church joined them to pack food, she said, although anyone could have come.

It would have been cheaper than buying foodstuffs from sundry retailers that have sprung up lately, Tobler said.

A company called Emergency Essentials in Utah offers a one year food supply package for $879. The one-person supply contains a wide variety, including powdered orange drink, lots of grains and taco textured vegetable protein. Walton Feed, based in Idaho, sells a similar 767-pound package of goods for $947.

Certain essentials make up most every storage pantry, Tobler said. Sugar, honey, pasta noodles, rice, oats, beans and yeast are always on the shelves.

Wheat is especially important.

"You wouldn't believe what you can do with wheat," Tobler said.

Say that a family of five only had a can of tuna and kernel wheat. Tobler would allow the wheat to soak in water overnight to puff up and make wheatberries. After mixing the wheatberries with the can of tuna, all five can eat.

"Normally you'd need four or five cans of tuna," he said. "It makes a good filler and spreads out what you eat."

The best wheat for storage doesn't grow in Southeast Missouri, said Mueller, who is chairman of Southeast Missouri State University's agriculture department. Local soft wheat is good for making cakes and all-purpose flour, but not for long-term storage. Red winter wheat, if uncracked, can be kept for 20 years or more, Mueller said.

Saving a little room for personal taste should not be forgotten in food storage, Tobler said.

"We keep some hard candy, which is admittedly frivolous and non-essential," he said. "But you think about some of the circumstances that you might be in if you have only your own food to depend on. Wouldn't it be nice to have something sweet in your mouth?"

EMERGENCY KITS

Several companies offer foodstuffs and other items to keep on hand for emergencies.

The following is what one company sells for $194 in a one-person, 72-hour kit:

* Nylon duffel bag

* Food and water for three days

* MRE heater

* Tri Fold shovel

* Leather gloves

* 15-function knife

* Two person tube tent

* Reflective sleeping bag

* Heavy duty PVC poncho

* Wool blanket

* 18-hour hand and body warmers

* Whistle

* Waterproof/windproof watches

* Fire starters and starter tabs

* 100 hour candles

* Deluxe water and sanitation kit

* First aid kit

* Potassium iodide

* AM/FM solar powered radio with hand crank

* Flashlight with batteries

* 12-hour lightstick

* 50 feet of nylon cord

* Sewing kit

* SAS survival guide book

* Utensil kit with water purification tablets

* Soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, tissue, razor and three sanitary napkins