Long-term food storage is one of many aspects of becoming more self-reliant in your life. By having food that you can turn to in difficult times, you can better weather a job loss, financial hardship, long or short-term natural disaster, or many other unplanned but difficult situations.

Having obtained a large quantity of whole wheat grains, or berries, my friend Russ and I decided to grind up some of that wheat with his hand-crank grinder and use the flour for waffles. Having never done this kind of thing before, it was surprising just how long, and how much effort, it takes to grind even a pound or so of flour. To generate enough flour, we took turns at the crank and still it took us about 45 minutes.

That definitely gave me a new appreciation for people who make their own cornmeal and flour using nothing but mortar and pestles or other stone tools.

Having made our lovely hand-ground flour, we mixed the batter using locally-produced goats’ milk and then went back to the modern world, utilizing an electric wafflemaker to finish.

And of course the waffles were fantastic, because we knew the effort that had gone into producing them. It’s funny how a little extra effort makes you appreciate things so much more.