The Experiment

The Aries family is trying an experiment this month. It is to live off only our food storage supply for one month. I got this idea from my mother-in-law a while back and had been wanting to try it but had always been to chicken. Well I plucked up my courage this month and on Monday, March the 2ND presented the idea to the family for our Family Home Evening that night. Here are the ground rules that we set for ourselves.

1. Starting today mommy would not going shopping anymore for the remaindered of the month. The one and only thing we will buy is milk but it is for drinking only (for the health of the children) and all baking or cooking will use powdered or canned milk.
2. We will only use the food that we currently have in the house including things in the cupboard, fridge, and chest freezer. No pizza delivery.
3. We will not waste food.
4. The same rules apply for the non food idea like shampoo, toothpaste etc.

When we presented the idea to the kids Joshua said with big eyes "You mean we can't eat anything for a whole month?" Once we explained the rules again the kids were actually excited about the idea. Everyday they come home and ask me, "Did you going shopping today mom because remember the experiment." Joshua said he was going to make a sign for the garage that said "Don't go anywhere!"
Sarah came up with the idea to print up a blank calendar so that when we do run out of something we can write it down on the day. This way we can keep track of what we ran out of first. I've always felt that we have a pretty good food storage so it will be interesting to see how it really holds up. We hope that this will help us see any big holes or mistake in our food storage and also be more grateful for what we have. Kids are notorious for wasting food such as making a huge bowl of cereal then dumping half in the bin when they are full. I explained to the kids that if they waste food then I won't buy a new box cereal. One of the urges I had to resist was running to the Sams Club and stocking up right before we started the experiment. But I thought that would be cheating. I shop about once a week anyway so I had a normal supply of groceries in the house. This week has not been bad because of the fresh thing that I did have on hand but I think next week it will be tougher.
Every Monday night we thought we'd sit down as a family and talk about what we ran out of, did we miss not having it or was it "no big deal". I'm also planning on doing more baking this month. I rely heavy on the quick prepacked foods which are disappearing quickly. I'll have to dust off my old recipe books and really get creative.
So if anyone has any great recipes or ideas I'm all ears. Specifically egg ideas. Has any one tried powdered eggs or is there anything you can substitute in the place of eggs when making cakes, breads, etc.????