Provident Principles and Practices
© David Edwards, 2009
PRINCIPLES: The LDS Provident Living Web site suggests that we may wish to consider adding to our basic and extended food supplies some additional foods and food preparation items such as cooking oil.
While the brethren have not specified exactly what we need to store, they have recommended that we focus on vital foods supporting life. One of those that they mention is cooking oil. (See the First Presidency Letter to the Church, dated June 24, 1988.)
One of the most extensive discussions of cooking oil in Church literature is that of F. Enzio Busche, writing in the June 1982 issue of the Ensign. He felt that the most valuable food item in Germany during a time of starvation was cooking oil. It's value was great, with one quart being readily traded for other valuable commodities such as fruit or root vegetables in the hundreds of pounds. Cooking oil enhanced the flavor of items not even normally considered foods, such as wild leaves and roots.In the LDS Church booklet called Essentials of Home Production & Storage, copyrighted in 1978, the authors recommend storing about 20 pounds of fat or oil per person per year.
PRACTICES: Some oil and/or fat is essential for health. Many people suggest storing about 10 quarts of cooking oil per person per year. That is approximately equivalent to the 20 lbs/person per year recommended in Essentials of Home Production and Storage. Purchase cooking oil fresh. Check expiration dates. Generally, it is best to store cooking oil in airtight containers.
Even in unopened bottles on the shelf, most healthful cooking oils tend to go rancid relatively quickly, within six to twelve months. Light, oxygen and heat are the main culprits. Keep oil in opaque bottles and/or out of light. If possible, store oil in glass or metal containers, impermeable to oxygen. Stored oil generally lasts longer in a refrigerator, and even longer in a freezer, perhaps as much as several years. Olive oil tends to freeze well and last quite a long time. After freezing, cooking oil may turn thicker and cloudy, but it becomes fluid and transparent upon warming to room temperature. Rotate cooking oils regularly, using older product first.
In an emergency, cooking oils can be used as a source of lamplight, with a twisted multistrand cotton-string wick or similar wick placed in the oil on a wire guide with a little bit of the wick remaining above the oil surface to allow the oil to wick up for burning. Olive oil burns cleanly.For info on cooking-oil lamps, see www.judyofthewoods.net/lamp.html; www.instructables.com/id/Make-an-oil-burning-candle/; and www.thriftyfun.com/tf45633038.tip.html. For Church counsel on storage foods and amounts, see www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,7498-1-4070-1,00.html.
