American Fork man is food storage fanatic

AMERICAN FORK, Utah — The long, narrow room in Kenneth Moravec's basement looks like a food bank.

Floor-to-ceiling

shelves are lined with canned fruits and vegetables, dried or powdered

herbs, spices and drinks, along with drums of rice, pasta, wheat and

other grains. Each is labeled with its contents and the date of

purchase or when it was home-canned, usually right out of Moravec's

garden.

"Right now I have about a six-year supply of food," said

Moravec, whose e-mail tag line reads, "If you fail to prepare, you

prepare to fail."

Moravec has taken to heart a decades-old

directive from leaders of his Mormon faith that members should prepare

for hard times or natural disasters by stockpiling up to a year's worth

of food. A church Web site, providentliving.org, provides a guide for

members.

Moravec's own preparedness philosophy has been

cultivated through church teachings and hard personal experiences,

including job losses and natural disasters. As a child, he said his

family weathered an East Coast hurricane and then temporarily lived off

their cache of stored food.

"I've been in and out of work a lot in my life, but I've always been able to feed my family because of food storage," he said.

Concern

for others propelled Moravec to share what he knows. For two decades,

he's taught preparedness classes nationwide to everyone from Boy Scouts

to business executives and church women.

Once a year Moravec drops in on neighbors, regardless of faith, for a preparedness check-up.