Getting Started with THRIVE Foods

I realized that I've dived right into Shelf Reliance lingo and that maybe not everyone is as familiar with the terms or you're feeling overwhelmed trying to figure out how to start.  So I'm taking a step back to the beginning today to help you figure out how to get started.

A year ago I had the basics in my food storage - rice, wheat, sugar, flour, pasta, etc.  I also had some canned fruit and vegetables (about 1-3 months worth) but I wasn't happy with the health aspect of those canned goods and knew I wanted to add more variety as well.  I also didn't want to depend on my freezer for storing a whole bunch of fruit, vegetables, dairy and meats. So that's why I started looking at THRIVE.  THRIVE Foods are freeze dried and dehydrated foods in a variety of sized containers with an unopened shelf life up to 30 years depending on the product and packaging and storage conditions.  It does not need to be stored in the refrigerator or freezer and once opened, most THRIVE Foods have a shelf life of 1-2 years.

Create a Plan
It's hard to be successful in reaching our goals without a plan.  To help with that Shelf Reliance has developed the THRIVE Planner.  It generates a custom food plan based on your choices.  I have a step by step tutorial on using the THRIVE Planner here.  The Planner generates a custom food plan for you but you also have the ability to edit it to match YOUR family's preferences and needs.  Note that to save the plan you need to have a Shelf Reliance account, but it does NOT require any purchase.  You can create an account yourself through www.shelfreliance.com or my webstore at http://imthriving.shelfreliance.com, or you can have me set up your account in my customer database.  If you have me set up your customer account, I will be your default consultant but you are not restricted to ordering only through me (one exception is that generally, your Q stays with the consultant who sets it up).  Also if I set up your account, it helps me to serve you better in the future because you are already in my customer database.

Put your plan into action
After you have your plan, the next decision is whether you want to set up monthly shipments with a Q, buy it all at one time, or buy it in individual shipments on your schedule.  I chose a Q for my family because I can have great intent on reaching my goals but a few months in, that intensity diminishes or something else comes up to distract us or distract our finances.  I have the Q set up in my budget as a monthly bill just like all the other bills.  This keeps us making progress every month.

Want to get a jump start on your food storage?  You can also combine individual orders with having a monthly Q.  My first order was an individual order taking advantage of  Black Friday sales (I'm expecting that they have a Black Friday sale again this year and can't wait to see the deals that are offered). And at the same time I set up a Q to start a few weeks later. 

Why not just start the Q immediately?  You definitely can and most people do!  When you start a Q, you are locked in for 3 months at the budget you set and for the shipment date you set.  When I placed my Black Friday order, we had a little extra we were investing in our food storage, and it was more than what we could do on a monthly basis.  So I did it as an individual order and then set my Q to start a few weeks later for what my monthly budget would allow.

How do I know what the specials are?
At the beginning of each, Shelf Reliance announces month long specials.  You should get an email from Shelf Reliance with that information if you sign up for their newsletter when you create your account.  I also post the monthly specials on this blog.  Here's a link to the August specials.   You also can sign up for my email newsletter.  I send out information on all specials via my newsletter and this happens normally 1-2 times per month so your inbox is not going to be filled with emails from me.  Shelf Reliance will also offer limited time special pricing on packages only available through consultants.  I will post information about the packages on the blog but without the prices.  You have to contact me to get the pricing OR sign up for my email newsletter.

What's the benefit of a Q over doing individual shipments each month?
The simple answer?  The Platinum Q Club.  By contacting me as your Shelf Reliance Independent Consultant, you can get Q Club pricing on your individual orders.  But only Platinum and Gold Q Club members have access to the monthly Q-Pon.  This is one THRIVE Food for a special price each month.  The other benefit to the Platinum Q Club is you earn reward points for every dollar you spend in your Q.  These can then be redeemed for free product.  The other BIG advantage of a Q is it is automated, making it easy for you to consistently make progress in building your own home store.

I don't know what I'd like or how to use it
Shelf Reliance has created the THRIVE Smart Start option for those who want a quick, easy way to get started.  Smart Start is made up of 3 shipments of THRIVE Foods plus a recipe booklet with recipes you can make after each shipment.  Smart Start will show you how easy it is to use THRIVE Foods and allows you to sample 52 different THRIVE Foods.  See the flyer here and the FAQ here.

I'm ready to get started!
I am here to help at any point along the way and can even get your plan started for you.  Contact me at 417-886-9489 or at imthriving@gmail.com with any questions or to get started.  In the near future, I will post more information on the Q and a tutorial for creating it.

Using the THRIVE Calculator

A great way to get started with your home store (aka food storage) is the THRIVE Calculator.  The THRIVE Calculator uses information from you to create a custom food plan designed for your family.   Here's step by step on creating your family's food plan.

First select, how long you'd like your food plan for.  You can choose anywhere from 3 months to 24 months.

Next, you will enter information about your family.  How many people?  Child or adult?  How many calories for each person, each day?  Caloric Needs are dependent on height, weight, age, gender and activity level. Most Emergency packages provide 1,000 calories per day. Under Normal circumstances, it is recommended that most adults consume 2,000 calories per day.   The default for an adult is 2000 calories and for a child 1200 calories.  You can set it from 1000 to 3000 calories, in increments of 200.

Decide - Do you want basics like flour, sugar, salt in your plan?
Do you want Ready to Eat meals in your plan?
Percentage you want to be Freeze Dried foods?  This is for when there's both dehydrated and freeze dried options.  Not sure of the difference?  Check out these articles on What is freeze dried? and Dehydrated vs Freeze Dried.
Do you want the Q Starter Pack? (Information below picture)

What is the Q Starter Pack? It's THRIVE Smart Start.  With a Q of $163/month, you can get the THRIVE Smart Start which is 3 months of pantry size cans of THRIVE Foods with recipes geared to make each step of the way (Recipes you can make month 1, then recipes you can make month 2, etc., as you receive the 3 shipments).  This is a great way to try a huge variety of THRIVE Foods and see how easy they are to use.  It DOES include basics like flour in the shipments.  Click here for what's included and here for FAQs about the Packs.

Click Create My Plan (lower right side of the Planner).  Your plan will be created and look like the picture below.  In the upper left, you'll see your family information.  Underneath that shows how your plan fulfills your family's needs by category.  In this example, 125% of what you need in vegetables is in this plan.

I can then edit my plan.  I collapsed the Grains category and expanded the Vegetables.  I can then see what and how many of each item are in my plan.  I can edit those selections by clicking Edit (where the black arrow is in the picture below).  In this picture, you can see 6 cans of Spinach but what if my family can't stand spinach?  I can edit that quantity, or remove it altogether.  What if we like Broccoli more than Green Beans, then I would decrease the amount of green beans and increase the Broccoli.  And as I do these changes, the % of Vegetable Needs Complete is going to change.  I can watch it where the blue arrow is in the picture below.

 

Once I have all my editing done, I have several options - they're in the red boxes below.  I can Set up Monthly Shipments (which is the Q), Add the Entire Plan to my Cart (for those who just want to get it all at once), Email my plan, and Save My Plan.  To save the plan requires creating a Shelf Reliance login if you haven't already gotten one.  You can create one yourself, but I can also create one for you in my customer database.  That helps tie your account to me as your Shelf Reliance Independent Consultant and helps me to service you a little better.  Note that this does not restrict you to only ordering through me but does give you access to consultant website pricing (but know that you can get the BEST prices by having a Q or contacting me directly).

 

I know I should - but WHAT should I buy - Part 3, Plus Chicken Enchilada Recipe

This is the final segment of our 3 part series on what THRIVE foods to include in your home store.  So far we've covered snack foods and foods that take a long time to prepare,  as well as foods that you commonly throw away and foods that you commonly run out of.  So that leaves "Family Favorite Recipes" and foods you don't want to buy when living on your food storage.  These are probably my two favorite types of food to make sure are in my home store.

Family Favorite Recipes
My family has lots of favorite recipes and since I love to try new recipes, that list of family favorites is always growing.  If we had to live off our food storage, I don't want to change what we eat.  We'd already be having some stresses so it would be nice to keep family dinner normal.  With THRIVE Foods, it's easy to convert most recipes to THRIVE Recipes.  And as you go through your recipes, don't forget to include some favorite desserts.  With FD Granny Smith Apples, I could make an apple pie.  With THRIVE Brownie Mix, I'd satisfy my chocolate cravings.  Here's an example, using our favorite chicken enchilada recipe (sorry - I don't have a photo of the enchiladas).

Jasmine's Enchiladas  (original)

1 pkg tortillas
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 tomato, diced
1 lb skinless chicken breast / 2 cups cooked chicken
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can green chiles

If using chicken breast, cook chicken and dice.
Combine cooked chicken, cream of chicken soup, diced tomato, green chiles, some of the cheddar cheese and 1/2 of the enchilada sauce.
Put 2-3 T of mix into each tortilla and roll up.  Spray 9x13 pan before putting tortillas into pan.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce over enchiladas.  Top with cheddar cheese.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Jasmine's Enchiladas  (THRIVE'd)

1 pkg tortillas
1 can cream of chicken soup or 1 recipe of cream of chicken soup
2 cups THRIVE cheddar cheese, rehydrated
1/2 cup THRIVE FD diced tomatoes,
2 cups THRIVE FD Chopped Chicken
1 can enchilada sauce (can make using THRIVE Tomato Powder)
1/2 cup THRIVE green chiles


The night before, rehydrate cheese.
Rehydrate chicken, tomatoes and green chili peppers.
Combine cooked chicken, cream of chicken soup, diced tomatoes, green chilis, some of the cheddar cheese and 1/2 of the enchilada sauce.
Put 2-3 T of mix into each tortilla and roll up.  Spray 9x13 pan before putting tortillas into pan.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce over enchiladas.  Top with cheddar cheese.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Foods I don't want to buy if living on food storage
I've shared short comments on this blog that 3 years ago this month we went through a semi-unexpected job loss.  That job loss has inspired a lot of my choices in our home store/food storage.  We had basics in our home store (flour, sugar, rice, wheat, etc.) and we also had some frozen meat, canned fruits and vegetables, cream soups.  We even had some powdered milk but no one wanted to drink it.  Having this stockpile was very helpful as we looked at how to cut our budget to make the funds that we had stretch.  But I realized I still needed grocery money for eggs, milk, cheese, fresh vegetables like lettuce and tomato, and additional meat. 

I wished there was a way to store these foods without filling my freezer and hoping for no power outages (we live in tornado country).  Then in 2011 I discovered all the wonderful THRIVE Foods.  The freeze dried cheese immediately caught my attention.  I also was interested in the freeze dried chicken and beef so that I could store meat without being dependent on electricity.  I have also discovered freeze dried fruits and vegetables that I can use in place of fresh ones for various recipes.


So as you think about what to put in your home store, envision what things you would want to feed your family that you're not going to want to spend money on if you're having to live off your food storage.  Here's a few of my favorites:


THRIVE FD diced tomatoes
THRIVE FD Chopped Chicken
THRIVE cheddar cheese
THRIVE Sour Cream Powder
THRIVE Ground Beef

Whole Egg Powder  

Recommendation

Now we've gone through 6 different methods of determining what to put in your home store.  My recommendation is start with a favorite recipe for the first few months so that you have everything to make those recipes.  I also recommend that if you find the same items coming up on multiple lists/categories, then those items should be at the top of your THRIVE shopping list.  I look forward to seeing what you make with THRIVE!

I know I should - but WHAT should I buy? Part 2

This is a 3 post series breaking down what THRIVE foods we should have in our home store into 6 categories.  They are based on the THRIVE Shopping List plus my personal experiences.  Yesterday, in Part 1, we went over foods that your family likes to snack on and the foods that take a long time to prepare.

Today's focus is on the next 2 categories - Foods I commonly throw away and Foods I commonly run out of.  My family loves for me to focus on the snack foods from THRIVE that we talked about yesterday.  And I do buy a few things in the category of items that take a long time to prepare.  But the foods I commonly throw away were some of my first purchases.

Foods I commonly throw away

The phrase "the most expensive food is the food you throw away" has stuck in my head since I joined Shelf Reliance.  I hear it every time I go to clean out my fridge and I throw away leftovers or even worse foods that we had planned to eat and didn't get around to.  One wonderful benefit of THRIVE Freeze dried foods is that you only use what you need and the rest does not go bad!  Most THRIVE foods have an opened shelf life of 1-2 years and an unopened shelf life of 25 years, giving you plenty of time to use it!

I've talked about it several times already on this blog as well...

Spending More Can Save You Money <<< Celery
What a Waste <<< Yogurt
Product Feature: Green Bell Peppers <<< Bell Peppers
Product Feature: Tomato Powder <<< Tomato Paste/Tomato Powder

So what foods should you include in your THRIVE Shopping List?  Anything that you would often throw away before eating.  If you love Blueberry muffins but don't eat all the blueberries before they go bad, put them on your list.  Or maybe you're like me and the only one who eats mushrooms on their pizza so the rest of the mushrooms go bad.  THRIVE is a great solution!

Foods I commonly run out of.
For years, I have been building up a basic home store - flour, sugar, white rice, so these are not things I, personally, run out of.  But if you're just getting started, that may be something you experience and THRIVE has those Basics as well as the freeze dried foods that tend to be my focus.  So what do I run out of?  Eggs.  Butter/Margarine.  Cheese.  Milk.  So guess what are on my Shopping List (in my Q food plan)?

Whole Egg Powder
Butter Powder
Instant Milk
Freeze Dried Cheddar Cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, and Colby Jack Cheese

Now I'm covered when I go to make something and discover we're out of an essential ingredient.  The only restriction is with the cheese - it needs to be rehydrated and sit overnight before using in most recipes to get the best texture.  What do you run out of?  Add it to your Shopping List.


Tomorrow, we'll go over Family Favorite Recipes and What do you NOT want to buy.

I know I should - but WHAT should I buy? Part 1

Building up a home store (aka food storage) can be overwhelming trying to figure out what you want in it.  The THRIVE Calculator is one great way to create your food plan!  But that's actually not my focus today.  Today I'm introducing you to the THRIVE Shopping List.  The Shopping List is a great tool for identifying those THRIVE Foods you want in your home store.  There are 5 categories of foods on this document you want to store.  And I will add one more category - if you had to live off your food storage, what foods do you not want to have to buy at the store?

Today we're going to talk about 2 of the categories.  And then we'll go over 2 more tomorrow and 2 on Thursday.  Follow along and build your shopping list or THRIVE Q as we go.

Foods your family could snack on.
The #1 THRIVE foods that come to mind for my family for snacking are the yogurt bites and fruit.  THRIVE fruit is simply fruit.  No sugars, no preseratives, and no added dyes.  The yogurt bites are great for snacking compared to yogurt at the grocery store because it's not messy AND doesn't require refrigeration.  My favorites are the Strawberry and Pomegranate yogurt, but you may find Cherry, Blueberry, Passion Fruit, Vanilla or Orange to be your favorite.  I'm keep some in a little container and take it with us wherever we go for when my girls say they're hungry.

A surprise snack for me was discovering the Freeze Dried Sweet Corn and the Freeze Dried Green Bell Peppers.  They are a delicious snack without rehydrating.  Just scoop some out and munch!  Easy, quick AND healthy!  No guilt!

I would also list in here desserts.  If you were having to live off your food storage, there's going to be some stress involved.  And for me that means dessert, and chocolate.   Our fudge brownie mix is DELICIOUS AND only requires water to mix up - no eggs or oil required.

Foods that take a long time to prepare. 
My immediate thought of something I don't like to make because of the time involved - beans!  So I definitely have the THRIVE Instant Black Beans on my Food Plan.   These beans are ready in just 20 minutes.  THRIVE also has Instant Red and Pinto Beans.

I'm also going to put foods that are a pain to prepare in this category.  Best examples for me - Freeze Dried chopped onions (no more tears pouring down my face), and Freeze Dried Mango (have you ever cut up a mango?  Super messy for me!).  THRIVE Foods are pre-chopped and many don't have to rehydrated for you to use, making food prep quick and easy!

Tomorrow, we'll go over Foods you commonly throw away and Foods you run out of.

What size should I buy?

Those of us who have been working on building up food storage for a long time often don't think about the terms that we use and forget that others may not realize what a #10 can is.  I usually describe it as "those large cans of vegetables or tomato sauce you would buy at Sam's?" or food service sized cans, like in a cafeteria at school.  But it also has been described as "gallon sized" can.  Basically, it's a large can of whatever food you are buying.

But what if I don't want that much?
Shelf Reliance actually offers most THRIVE Foods in 3 to 4 sized containers.  The smallest is the pouch size.

Pouch sized items have a seal across the top, plus have a reusable seal about a inch lower.  Most THRIVE foods in the pouch have a 5 year Unopened Shelf Life and the same Opened Shelf Life as the other sizes.

The pantry can is the next size up from the Pouch.  It is the same design as a #10 can but is smaller.  It's designed to fit in your pantry or cupboard easily.  It has the same Unopened and Opened Shelf Life as the #10 cans.

Next up is the popular #10 can.  Many THRIVE Foods have a 25 year Unopened Shelf Life and a 1-2 year Opened Shelf Life.  To find out the Shelf Life of a product, you can look at it's product page on imthriving.shelfreliance.com.  The information is also available on our Home Party Price List.  Both locations also show you the number of servings per container.

And the largest container is the Bucket.  Your THRIVE Foods are sealed in a large mylar bag with oxygen absorbers inside.  Then it is sealed in a bucket with a GAMMA lid on top for easy access.  The GAMMA lids make daily use easy.  In general the bucket holds the equivalent of 7-8 #10 cans.  Not all products are available in buckets, but most grains, beans, milk and TVP products are available in the bucket size.

I also want to mention that if you prefer the #10 cans but want to order in larger quantities, you can order by the case.  A case holds 6 #10 cans of the same product and saves you 5% off the price of ordering 6 individual cans.  You can also buy a Pantry 10-Pack, which is 10 Pantry cans of the same product.

Now let's look at the numbers for the Instant Milk.

In our price lists, #10 Cans are listed at the top for each product.  Going across, you'll see the item #, the Retail Price, the Home Party/Q Club Price, # Servings, Unopened Shelf Life and finally Opened Shelf Life.  Note how the Pouch has a shorter Unopened Shelf Life than the other sizes.

For the Instant Milk, a #10 can has 53 servings at $19.59, so $0.369 per serving.  A serving is 1 cup of prepared milk.  Now let's compare:

#10 can= 36.9¢ per serving

Pantry = 52.6¢ per serving

Pouch = 81¢ per serving

Bucket = 19.7¢ per serving

Case = 35.1¢ per serving

Pantry 10-Pack = 51.1¢ per serving

**And for those who are wondering, if you estimate fresh milk at $3.50 for 1  gallon = 21.9¢ per serving. 

In general, you can safely say that the larger containers will give you a better per serving price.  So why would you decide to buy a smaller container instead of a larger one, for a less expensive per serving price?  There are several reasons that I can come up with -

• Opened Shelf Life.  The Instant Milk has a great Opened Shelf Life of 2 years; but the Whole Egg Powder has a 1 year Opened Shelf Life.  Unless we were strictly living off our food storage, my family of four is not likely to use up a #10 can of Whole Egg Powder (equivalent of 216 eggs) before the Opened Shelf Life expired.  Remember the most expensive food is the food you throw away!
• Distance Traveling.  A close friend had a job that required him to travel extensively.  Instead of eating out every meal, he would prepare meals in his hotel room.  How wonderful it would have been for him to have Shelf Reliance (it was before I was introduced to THRIVE) to prepare delicious, easy meals!  My Mom is an avid camper (she has retired to an RV rather than backpacking) but her storage space is limited.  In both of these cases, having a pantry can or a pouch would be perfect.  And you could refill them from your #10 can or bucket.
• Trying something new.  Want to try something new without investing in a larger quantity?  The pouch or pantry can gives you more than just a sample to truly know if it's something your family will eat.
• Sampling.  As a consultant, I love the pantry cans for presenting at Home Parties and at Expos.  They are small enough to take with me but contain plenty for the recipes I make and for sampling.  Again, I can restock from my #10 cans.
• Not a favorite food.  Our family does not love celery.  If I buy it for a recipe, I end up throwing most of it away.  So instead of a #10 can, I bought a pantry can of FD Celery to use in recipes.
• Snacks on the go.  I take Strawberry Yogurt Bites with us constantly.  They are our Go To snack.  Being able to grab a pantry can of our favorite THRIVE foods (FD Sweet Corn, yogurt bites, FD Apple Slices) is much easier than transferring foods to a ziploc bag plus it protects the food much better from being stepped on if it gets loose in our vehicle.  (And as a consultant or hostess, this is great advertising as we sit and munch at soccer practice.)
• Cooking for 1 or 2.  Several of my customers are empty nesters.  Purchasing in a pantry can just makes sense for them.
• Gifts.  For teacher appreciation, I prepared a cute card and attached it to a pouch of FD Strawberries.  You could do this for all kinds of celebrations.
• Prizes.  Are you hosting a shower?  You could turn a pouch or a pantry can into a cute door prize.  As a consultant, they are also great as a Hostess Thank You or a door prize.

What size works for you will depend on your tastes, the number of people you're feeding, how often you'll be using the product, your storage space, and how you'll be using it (on the go versus always at home).   Shelf Reliance has the size for you!

How to Edit your Q Shipment

As I was working on my personal Q this afternoon, I thought you might find it helpful to see how to edit your Q shipments.

Tip - Firefox works better with Shelf Reliance's website than Internet Explorer.

First, log in to your Shelf Reliance account.

This will bring to My Dashboard.  From here you can click View/Edit Q Settings and Shipments (for my family's privacy, I smudged out our order details).

This will bring you to your THRIVE Q Summary.  On this page, you can Edit your budget amount (my budget as a Consultant is $60, which is $50 minimum in product and then money for shipping and taxes).  You can also Pause your Shipments (you can pause shipments for a month or two without losing your free Platinum Q Club membership.  If you pause longer than that, you would have to pay the renewal fees to re-establish that membership.  You can restart your Q, though, without that membership if you prefer.  But we're here today to Edit the shipment

When you click on Edit, you will go to the Edit Shipments page (below).  This will show you what the computer has put into your shipment, based on your Custom food Plan.  In the picture below, I had already made some adjustments but I hadn't finished yet.  If there are items planned for your shipment that you don't want, click "Remove" to the right of that item.  Then add items from your food plan by clicking on the appropriate food category about halfway done the page.  For my order, I wanted to add the Freeze Dried Green Bell Peppers that are on sale for June so I selected Vegetables and that category expands to show what's in my food plan.

You may have to scroll down to see everything on your screen, like I did.  But when I looked for the peppers, it wasn't on my list (but I didn't get that screen shot).  So I had to click Add More Vegetables which you can see at the very bottom of the vegetables list. 

I was then taken to the Food Groups page for vegetables and I selected the Green Bell Peppers.  I told it how many I wanted, of which size.  In my case, I wanted 1 #10 can of Green Bell Peppers (as I keep using my Green Bell Peppers, I'm thinking that should have been more to add into my plan).  I then have two options - Add to THRIVE Q, and Add to Cart.  I want to add it into my Q shipment, not an individual order so I selected Add to THRIVE Q.

You are returned to your THRIVE Q Summary.   The item is now listed in the Available Items, but not in your current shipment.  So scroll until you find the item (I wanted the Green Bell Peppers) and click Add to Shipment to the left of the item.

 

A pop up window appears in front of your Q Shipment Summary and asks how many you want in your shipment.  You have to click the Up or Down arrows, not type in a number.  Then click Update.

The item now shows in your shipment.  Now that you've customized your shipment, be sure that the Locked box is checked (upper right of the shipment section).  This will prevent the computer from changing the contents of your shipment.

You can also edit future shipments by clicking the Next button that's on that green bar.  Here's what the computer says it's going to send me in July.  Germade is not a priority for me so I'm sure that will be a change I make for next month.  I can do the changes I want now, but I won't - I'll wait to see what goes on special for July and adjust my shipment accordingly.  If I knew I was needing a specific item ordered in a future shipment, I would make those changes and then click the Locked button so that it doesn't get changed by the computer later.

I hope this helps you with your Q.  If there is any way that I can help with your Q, please let me know!  The Q has become invaluable to me in reaching our food storage goals, one step/month at a time.