Blurb:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church or the LDS church, has a rich, though recent history. Within the 200 years that this religion has been practiced, traditions regarding food have developed and morphed into the current cultural and religious taste of the LDS church. The LDS church, led by a modern day prophet, has issued guidance to help its members through challenging times, including the instruction for each Latter-Day Saint family to store a year's worth of food. This, in addition to nearly 1 million acres of land owned by the LDS church used for farms and ranches, many of which are welfare farms, creates an unparalleled dynamic between food and Latter-Day Saints. Though self-preservation is expounded upon continuously, Latter-Day Saints are encouraged to store food that they would usually eat and church welfare programs give out staples that can be used to make a variety of popular LDS dishes. This leads to LDS families not only storing beans, rice, and pasta, but also ingredients to bake bread, cinnamon rolls, and other sweets. As LDS families have kept food storages through the decades, food storage businesses have shifted from only offering staples to making food storages taste good. Although many members of the LDS church abstain from consuming specific foods, looking at the foods Latter-Day Saints do taste and the unique ways they approach storing food offers particular insight into the history and values of their religion.