Archive for the 'food storage quickie' Category

Friday Food Storage Not-Quite-So Quickie - $5 Week Beginner Food Storage

Sharon October 17th, 2008

This is a guest post by a little mouse who’d like to remain anonymous.  I think she’s written a superb piece for such a small creature, and that this might help someone who feels unable financially or personally to begin with food storage to take a step.  The piece is long, but valuable I think.

The Curious Tail (er…Tale) of How This Piece Came to this Blog:

I was surprised … no, shocked…when I heard Ms. Anon E. Mouse squeaking
at me yesterday afternoon.  Ms. Mouse and I have frequent chats, but always
before they have been in the dead of night, when EvilKitty is safely shut
into the laundry room, dreaming of catching a…….well, never mind that.
The dogs are also sound asleep, and only the twitch of a paw or a soft
puppy-bark reveals that rabbits are romping through their dreams.

‘Ms. Mouse,’ I said, ‘What are you doing out of Mousel in broad daylight?’
(Ms. Mouse does have her little harmless affectations and naming her Mouse
Hole after a village in Cornwall is one of them.  She spells it the way it
is pronounced.)

‘Urgent, urgent, urgent,’ squeaked Ms. Mouse in reply.  ’It has come to my
attention that some Feckless and Foolish Humans have no food storage
whatsoever!’

‘Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,’ I replied.

‘Everymouse knows that food storage is important.  Everymouse has bread
crumbs, cheese and peanut butter set aside for an emergency!’ squeaked my
small friend.

‘I have even heard,’ continued the furry creature twitching her ears, ‘that
some humans think they don’t have enough money for a basic food storage.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid that’s true also,’ said I.

‘Foolish humans!  I always knew that mice are more intelligent!’ said Ms.
Mouse in reply, hastily adding ‘Present company excepted, of course,’ so as
not to hurt my feelings.

‘I’ve written a Very Cheap Food Storage Plan for foolish humans,’ continued
the benevolent rodent, ‘and I want you to send it to Sharon so that she can
use it.’

‘But Ms. Mouse,’ I protested ‘Sharon is a sophisticate,’ I continued ‘She
already knows about food storage.’

‘Cat?  Cat?  Where’s a cat?’ exclaimed my furry pal in alarm, glancing
nervously over her shoulder.

‘No, no, Ms. Mouse,’ I reassured her, ‘Not that kind of cat.’

‘Oh,’ she said, mollified.

‘But even if Sharon is a … sophisti…no, I cannot say that
word.  Even if she is knowledgeable, how do you know that she doesn’t have
friends or neighbors who don’t already know these things?’ demanded Ms.
Mouse.

I was forced to admit that I don’t know.

‘So,’ instructed Ms. Mouse, ‘Send it to Sharon! But don’t reveal
my identity,’ she instructed.

‘But Ms. Mouse, don’t you want to be credited with the Plan?’

‘No, no, no, positively no.  No time to answer questions, no time at all,’
she replied.

‘OK, OK, Ms. Mouse,’ said I, ‘Would you care for a thimbleful of mint tea?’

‘No, no, must rush, must rush, work to do, work to do,’ exclaimed the
rodent.

‘What are you doing now, Ms. Mouse?’ I inquired.

‘Must rearrange food storage, must move bread crumbs behind cheese to make
more room for winter food,’ squeaked Ms. Mouse.  ’Must go, must go, must
go:  too much work to do!’

And with scarcely a twitch of her ears, Ms. Mouse scampered back into
Mousel, and dragged out a very long piece of paper.

‘Here’s the Plan,’ she exclaimed, ‘Send it to Sharon!’ and off
she disappeared into Mousel.

I.
The ANYWAY, Very Cheap, System of Food Storage for
Emergencies and/or Inflation for People Who Think They Cannot Afford Food
Storage

While people in other countries MAY think that their government will come
to their assistance quickly in a natural disaster, and Americans *used to*
think this, we know from bitter experience in New Orleans that this is no
longer true,  More recently, three entire years after Katrina, we know that
many, many people in Houston received very inadequate help after Hurricane
Ike.

We have a very large country, very prone to natural disasters of one
kind or another. Hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, ice
storms, mud slides:  fortunately, the bad effects of at least some of these
disasters can be mitigated by sensible preparations.

Americans have also seen TERRIBLE inflation in food costs for the past
year.  Foods costs across the USA vary a lot by area, but my husband and I
estimate that - in our area - the prices for foods have risen from 30% to
40% *IN THE LAST YEAR*.

These figures are, of course, not reflected in the official
government-issued statistics on inflation; the government removed both food
and energy costs from the inflation statistics a while ago.  But we are
experiencing this terrible inflation in food costs, and we know darned well
what we are experiencing.  We aren’t stupid.

OK, moving right along - what can we do?

Can you scrape together $5 extra each week for about three months (at MOST,
and maybe you will need the extra $5/week for less time than this)?  If you
can, I can suggest a food storage plan for you.  If you cannot, then I
cannot help you with storing food.

I believe that most people can manage $5 extra per week for about three
months (at most - and it should be less time than this, as you will see in
Part Two). This can be in food stamps instead of in actual money;
food stamps will work for this.  If you can get food from a food pantry or
food bank, that will also help.

If you can get more money together, you can accomplish this plan faster.
But if you can only get that little bit extra money together - and not
permanently, only for a while - you can do this plan; you cannot do it
*instantly*, but you can do it.

In what follows, I’m assuming that you live alone. If you live with other
people, you’ll need to increase quantities.

1.  First step:  Set a goal, make a plan, write it down.  Write down what
you need to do each week to accomplish your goal.
The initial goal I suggest is this:

=============================
Initial Goal

To have on hand, at all times, enough water to keep you alive for one
month.

To have on hand, at all times, enough natural and nutritious food -
no junk food - to keep you alive and functioning for one month *without
needing to cook anything*.

This food must not require refrigeration, and it must keep for a fairly
long time.

================================

This - to me - seems like a very reasonable *initial* goal.  When you have
accomplished this initial goal, then you can stop and re-assess the
situation.

You may want to stop there.  You may want to increase the variety of food
that you store.  You may want to get some means of cooking in a power
failure (assuming that your kitchen stove is electric, which is the worst
case).

You will probably cook some of the foods that I suggest *in normal times*.
But you can safely eat these foods without any cooking at all, if
necessary.

If you need to evacuate the area, if you have a car, or a friend or
relative with a car, you can take some of this water and all of this food
with you.

If you need to evacuate the area and you must do it by public
transport, then you can only take what you can carry.  Some things cannot
be helped.  So there’s no point in worrying about them.  I try hard to be
prepared for what I can be prepared for, and to let the rest go without
fretting about it.  I pretty much succeed at this now.

OK, so how are you going to accomplish this initial goal?

First, you must learn and follow the Basic Rule of Food Storage:  Use what
you store, and store what you use.

This means that you must ONLY store what you will actually eat.  You will
*regularly eat all the items you store*.

People with more money can afford to buy other foods for storage.

But people with very little money - like you and like me too - cannot
afford that.  We must USE WHAT WE STORE AND STORE WHAT WE USE.

I am assuming also that you can only get to a regular, normal supermarket.
So I’m going to suggest a plan that can be accomplished completely, totally
at a normal supermarket (as they exist in the USA, the UK, Canada, probably
Australia and all of Europe and so on).

If you have an Aldi’s you can get to, or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, these will
probably have the same foods cheaper, so that would help.  If you can get
to a store that sells bulk foods, you can probably get one particular item
cheaper, so that will help.  But if you cannot - OK, you can do this at a
normal supermarket.

Don’t forget - you are going to set your own goal (which may be the goal I
suggest or may not).  And you are going to write down a plan to accomplish
this goal; week by week.

Then you will start on your Plan.

Here’s what I would suggest for Phase One of your Plan.  Phase One may take
you a week; it shouldn’t take more.

1.  A hand-operated can opener.  I think there are people who only have
electric can openers (I myself have never had an electric can opener). If
you only have an electric can opener, then please buy a hand-operated can
opener the first week.  It can be a cheap one.  You can buy these in normal
supermarkets, although perhaps a Dollar Store will have one cheaper.

2.  If you have a gas stove, make sure that you have matches.  We have a
gas stove; it has electric ignition.  But when the power is off, we can
light the top burners (only) with a match.  We cannot light the oven with a
match, because the burners are sealed in and inaccessible. But we can light
the top. So far as I know, you can light the top burners of ALL gas stoves
with a match.  So buy a box of matches if you don’t already have them.

4.  Do you have a bottle of multi-vitamins on hand?  If not, please buy a
bottle of multi-vitamins.  They don’t need to be expensive ones, the
cheapest ones available will do.  If you can only afford a small bottle,
buy a small bottle now and get a larger bottle later.  We try to keep one
year’s supply of multi-vitamins on hand.  But please get enough for at
least 30 days, that’s important.

3.  Store enough water for a month.  Water should definitely come before
food: people can go without food an awful lot longer than they can without
water.

So far as I know, everyone who has running water in the USA and Canada can
safely drink the water that comes out of their taps.  You cannot afford to
buy water.  So you will store the water right as it comes from the tap. You
are going to store enough water to keep you alive for a month.

This is a minimum of one gallon per day.  You’re not going to drink a whole
gallon of water any day, but you are going to wash your hands at least once
per day and you can splash some water on your face (then catch it in a
dishpan or pot and use it to wash your hands).

So you’ll need 30 gallons for one person, for one month.  What can you keep
it in?

You may already have this much water: if you have a hot water heater in
your home or apartment, see if you can figure out to drain it.  You might
need to slide a dishpan under the drain place, but you can probably do
this.

I don’t want you to do it now; I just want you to know that is a
possible source of water if you need it.  I want you to know how to do it
if you need to.  If you cannot figure it out, ask someone who knows how if
you possibly can.

Large, empty clean soda bottles, with tops, are great for storing water.
Ask everyone you know if they can please give you the empty bottles if they
drink any soda at all.

Empty clean apple juice bottles are equally good - or any fruit juice
bottles.  Ask everyone you know to give you fruit juice bottles.  I drink
V-8 juice occasionally, and it comes in very nice reusable bottles too.

Empty clean whisky or wine bottles are also fine - again, ask everyone you
know.  (Some cheap wine comes in gallon or half-gallon glass jugs - these
are perfect.)

If anyone you know buys bottled water, those bottles are fine too.

If you cannot find ANYTHING else, then you can keep water in clean plastic
milk jugs.  They are not the best container, but they are better than not
keeping any water at all.  Milk jugs will become brittle and break
eventually, but they should be OK for a month. (Meanwhile you can work on
getting better containers.)  Wash milk jugs very carefully and rinse,
rinse, rinse - then fill with water and keep them out of the sun.

If you have any empty 5-gallon buckets, they will be fine too.

I do not recommend drinking water from a bucket UNLESS THAT BUCKET IS FOOD
SAFE; some are, but some aren’t.  Would I drink water from a bucket that is
not food safe IF IT’S THE ONLY WATER AVAILABLE IN AN EMERGENCY?  You bet I
would; it would be an awful lot better than no water at all.

You might be able to get large buckets by asking at a doughnut shop - the
icing for doughnuts comes in buckets.  They are food safe.  You might be
able to get some from a supermarket bakery and again they will be food safe
- also perhaps from a sandwich shop.

If you have a cat, you may have empty cat litter buckets.  I do NOT
recommend drinking water stored in a cat litter bucket - although they are
not dirty: the actual cat has been nowhere near them.  They are not
food-safe plastic.  But if you have no other possible way to store water,
it would be better than having no water at all.  Maybe you have a friend
with a cat who will give you some of these.

You don’t need to treat water in any way if you replace one-third of it
every month.  Just count how many bottles of water you have stored, and
dump out, rinse, and refill one-third of them each month on the first of
the month.  Then none of the water will be more than three months old.

Where to put the water?  Let’s just say this:  if you really want to do
this, you’ll find a place to put the water.

I will also make one more suggestion about water:  for some natural
disasters, people have considerable warning.  Hurricanes do not sneak up on
people; ice storms or blizzards generally don’t either.  We have warning.

I have always seen advice to fill your bathtub with water if you think the
power may go off.  It seems to me that this is terribly bad advice:  I have
always tested the bathtub in every one of the many, many places where I
have lived and every single one of them has a slow leak through the drain.
No bathtub that I ever lived with will store water overnight - in the
morning, it’s all gone.

But what you can do is to put any kind of large container(s) in your
bathtub and then fill the container(s) with water.  I’m thinking here
specifically of the very common 18-gallon Rubbermaid or similar totes used
to store various items. Many people have these around.  But ANY large
container will do for this purpose.

That way, if the container should spring a leak, OK, it’s in the tub
anyhow, no problem.  If the container does not spring a leak, you’ll have
more water.

You can flush the toilet with this water or drink it (in an emergency only)
or wash with it, whatever.  If you have warning, you can also fill any
large pots and pans you have with water, and any 5-gallon or cat-litter
buckets you have too.  Fill any containers you have with water if you have
warning of a hurricane or ice storm.

You should be able to accomplish the initial water storage goal (and the
can opener, matches, and multivitamins, if necessary) within one week.

Next you sit down and think about water.  You might decide to store more
water, or you might decide that this is enough water.  You can work on
getting better containers for the water too, especially if you had to use
milk jugs - they will become brittle and fall apart eventually.

Congratulations on a job well done!  You’ve accomplished Part One now.  Now
we’ll move right along to Part Two.

II.

By the way, I’m calling this the ANYWAY, Very Cheap System of Food Storage,
because you are going to eat these foods *anyway*.  You’re going to eat
them as part of your regular diet.

People with more money can store foods that are different from their
regular diet.  People with very little money cannot do this.  They must
store foods they’ll eat anyway…. problems or (hopefully) no problems!

In Part One, you took care of water storage for a month. You also
determined that you already have - or you bought - a manual can opener, and
matches if you have a gas stove, and at least a month’s supply of
multi-vitamins.

Now we need to think about food.  The initial food goal I suggest is this:

============
To have on hand, at all times, enough natural and nutritious food -
not junk food - to keep you alive for one month *without needing to cook
anything*.

This food must not require refrigeration - and it must keep a long time.

===========

This seems to me a very reasonable *initial* goal; after you have
accomplished this, then you can reassess the situation and decide where you
want to go from there.  You may want to stop there.  You may want to get
more varied foods.  You may want to get some way to cook in an emergency.
You may want to continue to with more of the same foods.

OK, how to accomplish this initial goal, and to spend the minimum necessary
amount?

This is what I suggest; but I caution you:  you are going to be eating
these foods *regularly* and *anyway*.  If you are allergic to any of the
foods I suggest or cannot eat them for some other reason, or you just
cannot stand them, then you need to find a substitute.

The quantities given are for one month for one person.  If you have more
than one person in your household, you will need to increase the
quantities.

The first food that I suggest you buy is rolled oats:  you can buy - in
every supermarket that I have ever seen in the USA or Canada - regular
rolled oats or quick-cooking rolled oats.  (I hope you can eat oats; it is
difficult to find a substitute for them because you can eat them uncooked,
and that is not true of most grains.  I know of two possible substitutes,
but they cost considerably more.  More on that later.)

Please don’t buy instant oats which are generally jammed full of sugar and
artificial flavor and are a rip-off. But regular or quick-cooking rolled
oats are a very valuable food.

You may call these ‘oatmeal’ or (as in the UK) ‘porridge’ or ‘porridge
oats’.  They’re the same thing.

The usual brand I see in supermarkets is Quaker Oats.  Store brands would
be fine, and might well be cheaper.  If you can get to a store that sells
foods in bulk, they might well be cheaper there.

Yesterday, we bought regular rolled oats - in two large plastic bags - at a
little general store here that has a few bulk foods.  We paid $0.71 per
pound - we bought approximately 15 lbs of rolled oats.

I eat these regularly.  My husband also eats ‘porridge’ for his breakfast
regularly - he prefers the quick-cooking oats and he has enough on hand at
present; so we didn’t need to buy any for him yesterday.

We’ll come back to the price per pound in a little bit…..

You can eat these oats in one of three ways - and two of them do not
require any cooking because oats are actually partially cooked before we
buy them, as part of their processing.  This is why we can eat them
uncooked.  I do eat them uncooked, regularly, in homemade muesli.

1.  Cooked, in normal times.  Then you have hot oatmeal for some of your
breakfasts.  This is a very valuable and nutritious food.  Add raisins, or
other fruit, and if you wish, serve with milk.  My father didn’t put milk
on hot cereal (including oatmeal), he dotted it with butter or margarine,
then sprinkled a little cinnamon and brown sugar on it.  Hot cereal is nice
that way too.  You can cook oatmeal either on the stove top or in the
microwave.  Just follow the directions on the box.  If you cook it in the
microwave, it wants to puff up and get all over the place.  Use a VERY
oversized glass cup or casserole dish:  that will prevent this.

2.  Uncooked, and mixed with fruit and yogurt - this is called muesli.  I
eat it for breakfast most days.  Just the uncooked oats, fruit, plus
yogurt. Add raisins and sunflower seeds if you wish, during normal times.
You can soften the oats by mixing them with yogurt (or fruit juice) ahead
of time, or you can do it, and then eat them right away.

3.  As a cold cereal:  in this case (and I eat this too), you put the oats
in a bowl, add raisins if you have them, perhaps a sliced banana if you
have bananas.  Then you pour milk over them and eat them as a cold cereal.
If you have no milk, you could use fruit juice.  If you have no fruit
juice, you could use water.

The nutritional value of rolled oats (with no additions) is as follows:

Rolled oats, dry - 4 oz   Calories - 434
                         Grams of protein - 18

You could eat - IF YOU HAD VERY LITTLE OTHER FOOD AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF SOME
EMERGENCY - 8 oz of oats daily.  That would give you 868 calories and 36
grams of protein.  This is a *very* substantial part of a woman’s calorie
and protein requirements; it’s even a substantial part of a man’s calorie
and protein requirements, for that matter.

So I’m going to recommend that you wind up with 15 lbs of rolled oats *per
person* for storage for emergencies - figuring on eating 8 oz of them per
day.  I do *not* recommend that you eat this many ounces of oats except in
case of dire emergency.

I do recommend that you eat oats for breakfast two or three times per week
*in normal times*.  I do this, I eat about 4 oz of oats for breakfast
(about 1/2 cup), along with fruit and yogurt.  Or if I want a hot
breakfast, then I cook the rolled oats with raisins, then slice a banana on
top, and add milk.  It’s a very substantial and good-tasting breakfast.

How much will this 15 lbs of rolled oats cost?  Well, let’s assume that you
must pay more than the $0.71 we just paid per pound.  Let’s assume you pay
as much as $1.00 per pound.  The 15 lbs of oats will have cost you about
$15.

Once you have managed to save the 15 lbs, then you just keep replacing it;
never let it go much lower than this.  Or you can decide to buy more and
keep 20 pounds on hand, if you prefer.  Or 30 lbs or even 50 lbs.  I
wouldn’t keep much more oats per person on hand than that.  But they do
keep a long time.

Note that you are now buying the oats *as part of your normal breakfast
regime*.  So you don’t need to set aside separate ‘food storage money’ for
oats anymore; you can use your normal food budget for this.  This gives you
more money for other food storage.

If you cannot eat oats for some reason, the only two substitutes that I can
think of *that don’t require cooking, do not require refrigeration, and
keep a long time and are very nutritious* are sunflower seeds or
Scandinavian-style crisp bread, such as Kavli and Wasa Brod.  The crisp
breads are available in normal supermarkets.  The crisp breads are mainly
whole grains; they are nutritious.  I don’t know if sunflower seeds are
available in normal supermarkets or not.  If they are, you want to buy
uncooked, unsalted, sunflower seeds if at all possible.  They won’t keep as
long as oats or crispbread, however.  (Sunflower seeds would be a really
valuable addition to your oats, if you can afford to buy them.  In normal
times, they should be kept refrigerated or frozen.)

Now what other foods do I recommend you start buying for the *bare bones
minimal, cheapest possible, useful food storage*?

I recommend that you buy canned beans too.  Not baked beans, just plain
canned beans.  There are many kinds, they all have approximately the same
food values, and they all cost about the same as far as I know.  If you
live alone I suggest you buy the small cans of beans - approximately 16 oz
per can.  There are black beans, kidney beans, white beans, pinto beans,
many, many varieties.

In normal times, you can base many, many dinners on beans - tacos, chili,
soups, frijoles refritos, salads, beans and rice, etc.

In normal times, you’ll probably want to cook most of the beans (but they
are used in salads and cold plates too).  You don’t *need* to cook them.
You can buy one kind of beans only, or two or three, etc.

I base our dinners on beans *at the very least* two nights per week.  I
recommend that canned beans be rinsed very well with cold water before
eating (in normal, non-emergency times) if you are concerned about sodium.
Even if you aren’t concerned about sodium, I think they taste better if you
rinse them first.

You can find hundreds, probably even thousands, of bean recipes on the Web.
RecipeSource.com is one of my favorite recipe sites; just put ‘beans’ in
the search box and you will be presented with 2008 recipes using beans!
That’s a lot of bean recipes.

Beans are *good food*, and they are a very versatile food.  They are also
good for your health.

I’m looking at a can of black beans; they are probably my favorite kind of
beans.  The can of beans has (the whole can, in total) 315 calories, and
24.5 grams of protein.  If you ate the whole can of beans, which I only
recommend in case of emergency, plus 8 oz of oatmeal, this would give you:
1183 calories, which - together with two other foods I will recommend in a
minute - would be enough for a woman to keep going for quite a while in an
emergency, indefinitely, in fact - unless you are already emaciated BEFORE
the emergency.  You also probably have at least some other food in your
house, which you could add to your diet.

It would also give you 42 grams of protein.  This is not the RDA for a
woman’s protein, but it would certainly keep you going for quite a while,
well more than a month.  You wouldn’t develop malnourishment in a month’s
time if you were eating this much protein each day together with the
calories you would have.  Many women throughout the world live *their
entire lives* with lower daily protein figures.

Other beans have very similar food values.

What does a can of beans cost?  We can get them (or we could get them
anyway, until very recently for about $0.50/can ON SALE ONLY).  But let’s
even say that you need to pay $1.00 a can.  I don’t think you will, but I
don’t know what food costs in other places, after all.

If you plan to store 30 cans of beans (per person), then you would need to
spend $30.  BUT you can also start eating these beans regularly, as part of
your normal food.  And I would recommend that.  Then if you know that you
have eaten two cans of beans in a week, and you are still increasing your
supply of beans, you buy four or six cans.  Simple.

When you get up to 30 cans of beans, then reassess the situation.  You can
maintain that inventory, or buy more beans.  Up to you.

Let’s assume that you want to accumulate the 15 lbs of oats and the 30 cans
of beans before you start eating them…. You have now spent $45.  If you
can only spend $5 per week for food storage, this will have taken you nine
weeks.  If you can spend more, you can do it faster.

But it’s really not fair to consider these costs all as food storage costs;
you are going to put these foods into your regular diet, after all.  Some
of this money can come out of your regular food budget.

Now what other food do I recommend you buy as part of your basic,
bare-bones food storage?

I recommend that you buy cans of tomatoes too; they are very useful when
cooking beans (in non-emergency times as well as in emergencies).  You can
buy stewed tomatoes, or diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes - they are
equally useful.  Perhaps the diced tomatoes are a little more useful.  You
can eat them without cooking them.  They are perfectly safe to eat
uncooked.

These will provide you some vitamins and some more calories (but not many).
They will also make the beans much more palatable.

So for a month’s storage for one person, I suggest you buy - as quickly as
your money will allow - 30 (small - 16-oz) cans of tomatoes. I recommend
that you use them as part of your regular diet also.

When you have 30 cans of tomatoes, you can either maintain that level, or
increase it.  Treat the tomatoes just as you are treating the beans: always
replenish or increase your supply of them.  Rotate them - eat the oldest
ones first.

The last recommendation for a basic, bare bones emergency food storage
supply:  I’d get cans or jars of fruit.  Applesauce is very useful and
nutritious, and most people like it.  If you live alone, get the smaller
jars.  It will make the rolled oats more palatable.  Many people normally
eat applesauce; it can fit into your normal food regime nicely.

I also recommend that you get some other fruit in cans - both my husband
and I like canned pineapple packed in its own juice, so we keep a supply of
that on hand.  If you prefer peaches, then get peaches, or some of each, or
some other fruit altogether.

I’d recommend building up to 30 cans or jars of fruit, just as you did with
the beans and tomatoes.  Treat the fruit just as you treat the rolled oats,
beans, and tomatoes - replenish whatever you use.

At the end of this plan, you’ll have the following on hand, and your supply
of these will not diminish:  you will always replenish them.

15 lbs of rolled oats
30 cans of beans
30 cans of tomatoes
30 cans or jars of fruit

All of these are now being eaten as part of your normal food regime, so all
the money to replace them should now come out of your normal food budget.

NONE OF THESE FOODS IS EXPENSIVE.  And you would have enough to live on for
ONE ENTIRE MONTH.

Don’t forget to take one vitamin pill per day.

Now that you have one entire month’s food supply safely on hand,
congratulate yourself on a job well done!  Then think about what you want
to do next.

The foods I personally would add next would probably be raisins and dry
skim milk. Both would add interest to the rolled oats.  And you can use
both of them in your normal food regime.

The next thing I would probably want to buy is a guaranteed method of
cooking food:  Sterno would do (don’t forget that you need matches to light
it).  You can probably buy it in a normal supermarket or hardware store - I
have often seen it in regular, normal supermarkets.  You can build a little
holder for it from bricks.  Then you put your pot on the bricks, and the
Sterno under the pot.

After that, I would probably want a few herbs and spices - maybe oregano,
cumin, and chili powder for the beans, and cinnamon for the oats.  Some
brown sugar would be nice on the oats as well.  Maybe you already have
these in your kitchen.

I cannot think of any food storage plan that would be cheaper, and yet have
the following features:

1.  The food must all be nutritious.
2.  It must all keep a long time without refrigeration.
3.  You must be able to eat it uncooked if necessary.
4.  It must all fit into a normal diet.

If you do this, I absolutely guarantee that you’ll be glad, and that it
will give you a very good feeling of security.

I hope you will never have an emergency, but even if you don’t, you will
always feel a more secure with (at least) one month’s food on hand. This is
definitely worth the little bit of work and expense it requires.

You may want to continue and gradually build up to a three-month’s supply
or to vary the foods.  You may want to think about non-food items too:
garbage bags, a basic first-aid kit, whatever you would really need in an
emergency.

But always keep that bedrock, bare-bones one month’s supply - always
replenish what you use.

Friday (well, Saturday) Food Storage Quickie: A Bit Late

Sharon October 4th, 2008

Hi Everyone - Sorry for the delay in yesterday’s food storage quickie. 

Let’s look over what we’ve added to food storage so far - we’ve added Popcorn (which can be used for grinding or popped), pasta (which nearly everyone will/can eat, since there are varieties made with almost everything), dried fruit, orange vegetables, legumes, salt and spices.  Right now, whether you’ve been using this as a supplement to your usual food storage, or if you’ve just been getting started, you probably have a reasonably balanced diet.  Still, there are some important gaps.  So let’s focus on two of them, flour and fat.

Most people in the US are accustomed to eating bread quite regularly.  Some of us are accustomed to it because we derive from wheat-based staple cultures, such as large chunks of Europe and the middle east, as well as Northern China.  In cultures not far removed from their staple foods, bread is part of most or all meals.  And most of us who derive from other cultures, but have lived any length of time in the US have also become accustomed to enjoying breads, biscuits, buns, noodles, wheat cereals, etc…. quite regularly.  Even those who can’t eat wheat products often find it hard to do without a non-wheat equivalent.

So the question of how you will get your daily bread becomes a non-trivial one. Add to that the importance of other baked goods in celebratory occasions, and most of us will want to have some source of flour.  There are several ways you can do this.

The simplest is to buy long storing, unbleached wheat flour and store as much as you might want.  White flour lasts pretty much forever if protected from insects and moisture.  So you could buy a lot of 10 or 25lb bags of white flour, packaged them securely and store them as long as you want.

The problem, of course is that white flour really isn’t that good for you - it fact, it is pretty rotten.  And since your family may be relying on this for basic nutrition, there are real issues with this.

The next possibility is that you could go and buy whole wheat flour.  The problem is that once whole grains are ground, they begin to oxidize.  After a certain point - a matter of months - they begin to go rancid.  Rancid oils in grain can both make it taste bad and cause stomach problems and also contain free radicals that can cause cancer.  This is not good - and some people can tell whether grains are rancid, while others can’t.  So generally speaking it is probably not wise to keep whole grain wheat flour for more than 6-12 months.  So you could buy a year’s supply of wheat flour, if you were to be very disciplined about using it or giving it away, but this requires more attention and maintenence than you might ideally want.  You have to make sure you rotate it, you have to pay attention to the timing, you must use it up - and if you are eating less bread now than you imagine you might in tougher times, it can be rough to use it.  You could give it away, of course, but not all of us can afford to donate a large chunk of our yearly staples.

So there’s another choice - this is to get a grain grinder (I’ve done reviews of grinders here: http://sharonastyk.com/2008/03/18/tools-part-ii-grain-mills/) and purchase whole wheat.  Whole wheat, properly stored, stores for 30 years or more.  And fresh ground flour is much, much tastier than anything you will get anywhere else.  The down side is that since you will probably want a grinder that works even if there is no power, you do have to spend some time and a bit of effort to get your flour, and it does take some practice to learn to bake well with all whole grains.  So many of us will probably take a middle course - we will store some whole grain flours, some white flour perhaps to lighten up our bread and make an occasional treat, and some whole wheat as well.

Where do you get these?  Well, white and whole wheat flours can be bought almost everywhere that food is sold - and if you are really struggling economically, often these can be bought at a hefty discount from stores, if you are willing to take broken bags.  Because they are shipped in paper containers, they often leak and break.  So talk to your store managers and ask if you can purchase or take any open flour bags (bring a roll of duct tape and some plastic bags to get them home) - or consider dumpster diving for them. 

Prices on both flours and whole wheat are better on larger quantities.  These can usually be ordered through a coop, health food store, or bulk store.  The new crop is just coming in - in some places, you may be able to get something of a discount if you are willing to buy last year’s crop - talk again to the manager of the store about this.

Ok, the next thing this is missing is fat - and while a lot of us worry about too much fat, in a crisis situation, the concern is too little, particularly if you are doing heavy labor.  Also, if you have young children or infants, they will need more fat than most adults.

There is a fairly large range of choices in fat sources, so I’m going to skim over them, and discuss where to get them.  There are also strong cultural connections - different fats make different foods taste different, and people may have different reasons for preferring them.  But here’s a sense of the range.

Animal fats: Schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) and lard (rendered pork fat) are probably the most commonly used animal fats, but goose fat, beef suet, mutton fat and others are also used in many cultures.  A reliable supply of these probably depends on a good relationship with a local butcher (who often will give fat away or sell it very, very cheaply) or on having livestock.  If you have a cool way of keeping rendered animal fats (do some research on this, I’m not going to cover the techniques here today, but will another time), these are very tasty, provide some saturated fat in your diet (which depending on who you believe may or may not be necessary), and can be quite inexpensive.  Although I keep kosher, I can attest to the fabulousness of lard pie crusts (We were visiting Amish friends, and we ate slices of elderberry pie our friend made.  We rhapsodized about the crust, about how beautiful and wonderfully textured and delicious it was to her, and I told her that I was dying to know how she did it, and well….she told me ;-).  Even though I’m not going to be duplicating her recipe, it was still pretty good ;-).)  and schmaltz cooked potatoes are nothing sort of spectacular.

Fish oils are something else - they are very important for neurological health and development, but they don’t keep well - months, rather than years, so it doesn’t pay to stock up large quantities of these - but if you can afford to add them to your diet, either in the form of codliver oil or as supplements, they are worth it.  Flax and hempseed oils last a bit longer and have some of the same benefits, but also degrade quite quickly.  Generally these are not cooked with, because heat reduces their benefits, but are bought in small quantities as an accent.  I can’t think of any really cheap way to get them, unfortunately - it is probably easier, if budget is tight, to eat canned fish, and buy whole flax or hemp seeds.

 Nut and other seed oils: Other than peanut, mustard and sesame oil, these are generally incredibly expensive, and usually used in very small quantities as a flavoring.  Peanut oil has the advantage of an extremely high smoke point, and is often used in asian cooking and frying.  It is probably cheapest at the asian grocery store.  Sesame oil comes in two forms - toasted and plain.  Plain is often used in middle eastern cooking, while toasted is added late in cooking or at the end as a flavoring for chinese dishes.  Sesame oil is not a great frying or high-heat cooking oil, but it often available at Indian or middle-eastern grocery stores.  Mustard seed oil is a common ingredient in indian cooking, a healthy oil and quite delicious, and also available through Indian grocers.

Dairy fats: If you’ve got a cow, or goats and a cream separator and the patience to use it, you can make your own butter.  If you don’t, you can drink whole milk and get away with using very little fat for other uses.  But this implies you have dairy animals and want to milk.  Even if you don’t, you can make your own butter, if you can find a reasonably priced source of cream. 

Butter will last some months if salted and kept in a cool place.  But it can also be preserved in the form of ghee more or less indefinitely.  To make ghee (clarified butter), you heat butter and skim off the white foam until all you have left is the clear, yellow, clarified butter, without the milk solids.  This can be put in a crock and put in a cool place and will last forever, more or less.  This is unlikely to be cheap, unless you have a dairy animal.

You can also buy butter powder from emergency food storage manufacturers.  I admit, it isn’t something I go out of my way to eat, so I can’t comment on it one way or another.

Vegetable fats: These vary a lot in quality, cost and taste, and I’m honestly not going to spend the time here to sort out nutritional advice and claims.  IMHO, if you are trying to figure out what fats to use it is useful to read a lot of information - to start you might read Marion Nestle’s wonderful _What to Eat_ and Sally Fallon’s _Nourishing Traditions_ which disagree quite profoundly, and rather usefully on this subject.  They will lead you elsewhere.  Some people may want to do a lot of research, others may simply need to find a cheap option.  Other people may be influenced by the desire for familiar tastes, to support local producers of oils, etc…

The one thing that is true is that if you can afford it, buying organic oils is definitely worth the money.  They are pricey, but because most conventional oils are extracted using chemicals and may even be contaminated with heavy metals, organic oils make a big difference.  This is not feasible for everyone, but if you are trying to reduce the chemical burden on your body or the planet, buying organic makes more of a difference here in personal health than in many fruits and vegetables.

 Most oils wills will last 1-3 years in a cool place, including olive, peanut, coconut, canola, soy, corn and other vegetable oils.  My own strong preference is for olive and coconut oil as primary oil sources, but again, this is such a large and controversial subject that I’m going to forgo the details here.

Then there’s shortening, you know, that horrible Crisco stuff.  This stuff is disgusting, bad for you, doesn’t taste good, and generally is bad stuff.  The only reason I mention it is that it will last until the next apocalypse.  This is, of course, because it is hydrogenated and isn’t really a food.  But if you are storing food you might not touch, and if you believe you are more likely to starve than die of heart disease (not even remotely true at this stage in the Western World), you could store it.  And it does have uses - seasoning cast iron pans, and preserving eggs, for example.  But don’t buy it because I said so.  There are a couple of organic, non-trans-fat versions of this stuff, but none of it tastes as good as coconut oil, and the lifespan of most of it is under 2 years, and it isn’t cheap so probably no reason to prefer it over coconut oil.

Best sources for cheap oils?  Well, ideally, if you can avoid it, don’t buy the cheap oils.  If you can’t, don’t worry about it, and try your asian grocer, Sams Club, etc…

 This week’s non-food item is blankets.  Remember, it is always easier to warm your body than it is to warm a room.  A good bit cheaper, too.  If you are not accustomed to “sleeping cold” you may find that with some practice adapting, you like it.  I strongly prefer it over sleeping in a warm room.  The key to doing so quite comfortably (and my bedroom is often 50 degrees or below) is lots of cozy blankets.  And since these end up in landfills and dumps fairly often, buying used is a great thing to do.  So make sure you have plenty - the best blankets are wool (hard to find but very nice - even if you can’t have wool against your skin, it is a useful layer), down, cotton filled comforters (flannel ones are especially nice) and polarfleece.  But honestly, all blankets are good if you are cold and need layers. 

Those of you in hot places can just ignore this one ;-).

Cheers,

 Sharon

Friday Food Storage Quickie: Week 3

Sharon September 26th, 2008

Ok, so far we’ve added pasta, popcorn, orange veggies and dried fruit.  This week, we’re adding legumes and herbs and spices.

I know you already probably have some beans or peas in your food storage, but this week, I encourage you to get something leguminous you like to eat, but don’t store.  It is so easy to just buy one kind of bean or pea at the most - all navy beans or all split peas or something.  But the range of tastes and textures involved is really quite vast and wonderful.  So even if you are primarily relying on one thing, maybe add a little extra for variety - some 16 bean mix, chana dal, anasazi or Jacob’s cattle beans, or even some nice black soybeans.  The more you vary your legumes, the less it feels like “beans and rice…again?!?!” 

 What are the best sources of interesting legumes?  Well, in some areas you may be able to get local beans or peas worth trying - Maine Yellow Eye, Southern Cowpeas….  Indian, caribbean and asian grocery stores are excellent sources of inexpensive legumes, as are coops and supermarket bulk bins.  And if you have a little money to spare and are really adventurous, seedsavers.org has beans available on their sites, showcasing dozens of rare heirlooms.  And don’t forget to pick up some seed to grow some for next year.

Next up, herbs and spices.  You are not going to be happy eating grain and legume meals unless you can vary them using seasonings.  And since asian, indian and caribbean grocers are such great sources of interesting legumes, you might as well take some time to check out their spice offerings while you are there.  They are one of the cheapest sources out there for seasonings - and they often sell whole spices which keep much, much longer than ground ones.

Coops and bulk stores, odd lots stores, drug- and dollar stores are all great sources of inexpensives herbs and spices.  Think quantities here - you aren’t going to flavor a big pot of lentils and pasta with a teaspoon of curry powder - cooking lots of staple foods means using a lot of seasonings.  So if money is tight, look for the ways to get lots of bang for your buck.  Obviously, if you can afford it, buy fair trade and organic when you can.

Of course, many herbs can be harvested in  your garden - or someone else’s.  Seriously, consider asking a neighbor who gardens if they ever have extra herbs - most of us have mints and oreganos that regularly try and take up more space than they are allotted.  You can take rooted cuttings and plant them and any trimmings and dry them for winter.  Plants can be brought inside for winter or the dry season as well. 

Other seasoning plants can often be found in the wild - wild onions and garlic dry beautifully for garlic and onion powder, and many herbs have naturalized into landscapes - wild thyme ranges free here, as do several mints, while other flavoring herbs have also escaped in other regions. Harvest reponsibly, of course.

This week’s extra is not a tool - it is a medical basic - the tetanus shot.  Just like it is wise to keep your flashlights charged and ready, IMHO, anyone living sustainably and playing the dirt needs a current tetanus shot going into the crisis.  I know there are those who don’t vaccinate - personally, I feel strongly that this should be the exception for anyone who works or plays in the dirt, works with tools or does any of the other things that we’re all doing. We vaccinate selectively, but our kids always have a current tetanus shot.

 Keep it updated - tetanus is a horrible disease endemic in the soil.  So if you can’t remember when you last had a tetanus shot, now is the time to get an update - and to check on everyone else in the family.  This is especially the time to push a little for teenagers and young adults who might otherwise just skip it. So please, please consider getting updated - who knows how long we will all be able  to do this.

 Ok, have a great weekend everyone!

 Sharon

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