The everything about food thread.

[jerrymrc]

When thinking of being prepared food is always a fun topic. Being prepared for a couple of months is no more than keeping more of what you already have on hand.

For many members this is a good idea and is not difficult to achieve. Having a bunch of stuff that nobody in the household will eat is no fun. So look at your canned goods. What is it you use, what could you expand on?

Couple of thoughts about canned goods. Always check the dates when you buy. I have seen the same item on the shelf with a 10 month difference in expiration dates. Always rotate your stock. When I buy canned goods they first go to the downstairs pantry. As the small pantry in the kitchen needs stocked I pull from the front of the stock and then replenish downstairs. I also use a sharpie to date the cans on the label to see the date at a glance. Do not forget about keeping some canned meats on hand as well. A few canned hams and some chicken and beef will help allot.

Speaking of expiration dates. Canned goods will last many moons past the date. 30 years ago there were no dates on most canned goods. As long as they are stored correctly there is no need to just pitch something because the date has passed. I will try and find a chart that I used to have from the various manufactures stating how long after the expiration date THEY recommend.

Dry goods. Always a good idea to have a good stock of pasta and rice on hand. Having some instant potatoes is also good but you have to use it and rotate it out. Rice transferred to a more suitable container is good for a couple of years. Long term storage is another topic for another day. Those pouches of instant potatoes are kind of nice as well.
Gravy's and sauces. I keep both in bulk on hand. Couple them with some of the items above and easy one-dish meals. A bag of salt, a bag of sugar and spices. I keep lot's of spices on hand.

MRE's. Having lived off of them for up to 7 months at a time I have a love/hate relationship. Yes they are long term. Many around here have them as I do but they are a little pricey but they can be stretched and added to to make a meal. Having a few on hand is never a bad thing and I also use them in the car/truck kits we keep.

Perishables. I keep powdered milk on hand. This might be one item that buying a #10 can of from a vendor might be a good thing along with some butter powder unless you use it all the time. Eggs. The Ova-easy powdered eggs are nice to have a can on hand as well. All the above you can get from the links above. bread. You do bake right? If not learn. keeping 25 lbs of flour on hand is cheap. 25lbs will make 30 loaves of bread. Keeping a jar of yeast in the freezer is cheap as well and each 4oz jar is good for 16 loaves.

Everything I have touched on is aimed at getting one started for being prepared for the short term. going a month or two without supplies can be cheap and easy and everyone has to start somewhere.

Enjoy.

[theGinsue]

Good points Jerry. I often forget about the powdered milk, butter, and eggs!

[AP-4Guy]

Very good suggestions to add to the standard fare of canned veggies, fruits and meats.

Along this line, how much food do you think you need to store? Six months, a year? Longer? What I am wondering is how long do you need to survive to outlast 90% of the population? It's like the old joke about how fast do you need to be in order to outrun a bear?

I think a year would be sufficient. This would allow a few things to take place. The population would shrink dramatically, and also, this would be enough time for other food sources to be developed.

Maybe this isn't enough time. How long is enough??

[SA Friday]

Learning how to make bread is literally a chemistry lab experiment. You are going to botch a few learning how to do it. Don't buy a bread maker and a big mixing machine. Learn how to make bread in an oven and hand mixed. Expect to make a couple of very large hockey pucks when learning, especially at altitude. You have to adjust your mixtures to get the bread right at altitudes over about 3500 feet. Start out with a basic receipe, nothing fancy. I recommend a baking stone instead of a cookie sheet to cook on in the oven. It seems to cook more evenly for me.

Once you get the basic receipe down, then start to experiment with alternative receipes with different ingredients and expand your understanding of the process. For example, some breads can be made with baking soda and baking powder instead of yeast. Mixing and cooking with baking soda and powder is a different ball game compared to yeast, but may be easier to find if things go bad. Then give unleaven breads a shot after you get a good handle on baking sodas and powders.

Of all the potential foods you might be able to make if things go bad, bread requires very few ingredients and can feed an army as long as you have the grain to grind.

A few hints if you are going to give this a shot; you must keep the yeast in the bread warm and moist to get it to rise. I boil water in the microwave and then put the dough in the microwave with it covered with a hot wet cloth for rising. I repeatedly reheat the water during the two rising cycles to keep it warm and moist. 80-110 degrees F is the target zone. This is the hardest part of making loaven bread. Baking soda and baking powder is very different. Heat and moisture don't matter as much, but I add them very late in the mixture as they react very fast in the mixture. If you take too long after mixing to get it into the oven and set, it will fall.

[jerrymrc]

Once ya get it down it is very easy. My home made dinner rolls.

[MarkCO]

Hard wheat, honey, salt, powdered milk.

About 50% of the nutrition of wheat is lost in 2-3 weeks after it is made into flour. So you need a non-electric way to grind it. A 5 gallon bucket will hold enough of the fab 4 to keep a family of 4 going for about a week or so. Add canned meat, fruit and veggies and you can stretch it to a month easily. Add a one a day multi-vitamin and you can survive, in good health, for years.

Try making some campfire biscuits using the fab 4 BEFORE you may need to for real. They actually taste pretty good.

If you have a dog, make sure to keep a month worth of food for them.

[Troublco]

There are outfits online where you can order whole menus of dried canned goods. You can get weeks, months, or years worth of assorted items to make a well balanced diet. If you have that, and can supplement with garden grown veggies and some meat, you could make it for quite a while.

That's one thing I haven't heard anyone mention. If you're planning on growing some of your food in a garden, you might want to stock up on seeds. You can vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer to extend their usefulness. If you have a certain variety of stuff you like, you could just exchange them each spring when you went to do your planting.

[jerrymrc]

There are outfits online where you can order whole menus of dried canned goods. You can get weeks, months, or years worth of assorted items to make a well balanced diet. If you have that, and can supplement with garden grown veggies and some meat, you could make it for quite a while.

That's one thing I haven't heard anyone mention. If you're planning on growing some of your food in a garden, you might want to stock up on seeds. You can vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer to extend their usefulness. If you have a certain variety of stuff you like, you could just exchange them each spring when you went to do your planting.

Ya mean like this stack of #10 cans in the boxes? I also have a bunch of seeds put away. The garden last year did OK but here in CO it can be hit or miss and that is just the hail storms.

One thing I want to point out is not to put all your eggs in one basket. I started this thread small hoping to build on it. Soon we will get to putting your own stuff up in Mylar for long term storage along with those #10 cans. A few teasers.

[sniper7]

looks like I need to practice making bread sometime in the near future!

[AP-4Guy]

Does wheat really lose that much nutritional value after it has been ground? I have a fair amount of flour stored, but have not stored wheat yet because then it would involve buying a mill. I guess I should do some research, but it looks like I need to bite the bullet and buy a mill and some hard wheat.