Posted on 12/03/2015 2:38:11 PM PST by Drango
If it's the future, and the end of the world is nigh, it's probably safe to assume that things are looking grim. If all you have to eat is the survivalist food you bought from televangelist Jim Bakker in 2015, then your situation may be considerably worse.
Jim Bakker and his first wife, Tammy Faye, in 1986. Bakker now sells an array of food products on the television show he co-hosts with his second wife, Lori Bakker.i
You might recall Bakker's fall from grace in the '80s after a sex scandal and four-year stint in federal prison for time-share fraud. His wife at the time, Tammy Faye, was known in part for her dramatic eye makeup that frequently streaked her face during emotional TV episodes. (The Bakkers later divorced; Tammy Faye died in 2007.)
Jim Bakker is back, with a television ministry in Missouri and a wife named Lori. He's also selling food. Among the freeze-dried products available on his website is a 50-day "Survival Food" sampler bucket containing 154 meals. It will cost you $135, but the idea is that you'll be prepared when food shortages hit.
"Imagine — the world is dying and you're having a breakfast for kings," the ad for the the food proclaims.
We got our hands on a version of this bucket, which contains a variety of hearty dishes, including buttermilk pancakes, vegetable chicken soup, creamy stroganoff, black bean burgers, fettucine alfredo and mashed potatoes.
If you're an outdoor aficionado, you're probably familiar with freeze-dried food. That's what this stuff is, except all the packages have an expiration date of 2035. In addition to ample preservatives, each item is either nitrogen flushed or contains oxygen absorbers, reputedly to keep the food fresh.
Religious rhetoric around "the beginning of the end" is a common theme on The Jim Bakker Show. In October, three hourlong segments were devoted to Bakker's assertion that we are the generation that will experience Rapture. Followers must be prepared to survive and continue preaching the Gospel, he says.
And why not, as Bakker urges, buy food today so that you can "have parties when the world's coming apart?"
After tasting it myself, I'm going to have to say no thanks.
Lunchtime At NPR
Here at NPR, we tried the creamy potato soup, macaroni elbows and cheese powder and the chicken noodle soup. And of course we had to test the chocolate pudding for dessert.
Save for the pudding, the dishes were extremely salty and had odd, lingering aftertastes. We couldn't agree on which was worse — the thick potato soup that felt like eating wet cement, the strong chemical overtones in the chocolate pudding or the disturbing radioactive orange of the macaroni and cheese.
(Pro tip: Do not make the mistake we made of adding more cheese than the recipe calls for.)
To be fair, our resources in the NPR kitchen are limited — we had no stove to cook the dishes, only an electric tea kettle to boil water. If you try this yourself, I'd recommend letting everything simmer. That might get rid of the lumps, and the taste might improve, too.
Even then, this most likely isn't what you'll want to be eating for your apocalypse meal. But don't just take our word for it.
A Chef's Review
"It's awful. It's trash," Greg Lauro, a chef who lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y., tells The Salt.
In a November video for Food & Wine's website, Lauro cooks and taste-tests several dishes from Bakker's survivalist bucket: Italian marinara, the potato soup, black bean burgers, stroganoff and chocolate pudding.
They taste, he says, like, "paper-mache," "a bathroom at a bar at the end of the night in a college town," and, simply, "one of the worst things I've ever eaten in my life."
Frank Davis is the founder of Food For Health International — one of the two companies that manufacture the food The Jim Bakker Show sells. He takes issue with Lauro's brutal critique of survivalist food.
According to Davis, these dishes are actually quite tasty, especially when you consider they could last up to 40 years when stored in ideal, basement-like conditions.
"It's crucial not to use anything that can go rancid, like animal fats. Even though animal fats make a cheaper and more flavorful base, there's just no way that will work. We use a vegetarian base," Davis says.
Not all products are vegetarian — many, like the instant potatoes, have rendered chicken fat. The creamy stroganoff ingredients list a "vegetarian beef base" — salt, hydrolyzed soy protein, maltodextrin, sugar, cornstarch, caramel color, onion powder, natural flavors, citric acid and silicon dioxide.
The impressive shelf life aside, Lauro says he objects to how the product is marketed.
"It's off-putting that [Bakker] is trying to sell this stuff on the taste, when it doesn't look or taste like anything he advertises," Lauro says. In the photos provided on the front of the bucket and online, for example, the soup has a completely different consistency — brothlike — than the solid, chunky mixture Lauro prepared in his video.
It's hard to know how popular Bakker's food line has been so far. When The Salt contacted The Jim Bakker Show, a spokesman said the show could not release sales data.
Lauro and the video production team at Sploid who helped him make the video, meanwhile, found other flaws in the notion that this food might one day save your life.
"If water is even safe to drink in this so-called apocalypse, you'd have to ration it. But when we used the exact amounts we were told, it looked very different from the smooth soup he shows — in a 5-gallon paint jug," Lauro says. The recipe on the package apparently doesn't call for enough water for an ideal consistency.
Want to try evangelical survivalist food? Suit yourself. If the 50-day bucket seems insufficient, you can opt for the Year For Two Tasty Food Offer, a bundle priced at $1,100, or the Peace of Mind Final Countdown Offer with 31,000 servings of food for $4,500.
Or you could focus on other contingency plans for feeding the planet in the future — like the doomsday seed vault designed to protect the genetic diversity of our seeds, or promoting alternative sources of protein like insects.
Tell them to go without food for a week and then taste it.
L
Anyone that buys anything, or donates to, Jim Faker is an idiot.
Yeah, if you get hungry enough I’m sure it’s divine.
Seriously the taste is last of the concerns when you’re starving.
+1
We had quite a bit of turkey and mashed potatos after thanksgiving. I made a killer turkey chili, then poured it out over parchment paper on my dehydrator trays and dried it out, sealed it, and threw it in the freezer where it'll remain for a few weeks. Same with the mashed potatos. I've tested them both by rehydrating, and I'm damned proud of myself. Lol. Excellent food!
Amen.
He’s a salesman who doesn’t care what he’s selling as long as he’s selling something.
The one bright side of a grid-down scenario or nuclear attack will be the certain knowledge that these arrogant paid-government propagandist NPR pricks will all be huddling in the dark starving to death.
A Chef’s Review
“It’s awful. It’s trash,” Greg Lauro, a chef who lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y., tells The Salt.
Idiot. Fine, you starve faggot and I will eat the survival food.
NPR pricks
Even if they had stores of food the gibmedats roaming the cities would take it away from them.
How much does a dehydrator run?
As long as I'm drying food! :D
I use one similar to the Cabela's commercial style which, according to Google, runs $299 - $500 or thereabout. You want the convection style, for certain. That crappy Ronco stuff works, but it takes much longer. I dried several pounds of chilli overnight with this thing. I was lucky. My mother gave me mine, after it was hers for quite a few years. I love it, and it has paid for itself over and over.
Thanks!
I’ve got a couple buckets of freeze dried food laying around (not JB’s brand)... shooting to have 6 buckets worth before I start to cycle it... Also carry 10 days worth in a go bag in my truck during the winter (and that little trick has been VERY helpful on occasion)... It isn’t there as a main staple... It’s there in case I can’t get to my shelves, or if I lose my house or my pantry... or if I have to bug out for any reason.
Easy enough to throw 6 buckets in the truck and beat feet. And nice to know those buckets are there to get me on my feet (especially if it is winter). I don’t care what it tastes like. I care that it is easy food to give me the time and energy I will need to evolve more permanent options. That, an outfitter’s tent, a small wood stove to heat with, and a few other things make all the difference between hell and a reasonably comfortable landing. After that, I can rely on skill and planning as a woodsman.
Folks can mock it all they want - but it is just an extension of what Americans used to do by their nature - be ready.
Once a con man, always a con man.
That's my next trick - I have yet to perfect my garden and garden processing skills - to get free of the freezer,,, But after that, I want a good bit stored up that is free of the canning jars too - Canning is great, but susceptible to freezing temps, and pretty hard to move if you need to.
I've tested them both by rehydrating, and I'm damned proud of myself. Lol. Excellent food!
As well you should be! Congrats! You are way ahead of me!
I’m missing something here. I thought one dehydrated in lieu of freezing. If you have a freezer, why dehydrate in the first place?
For my next trick, I intend to try cold pack canning some of these dehydrated foods. Our local neighborhood grocer is always putting mass amounts of vegetables on sale/clearance (like a bag of 4 bell peppers for .99 cents, bananas @ .35cents/lb, etc.). Any time we hit the store, I check for these discounted, but perfectly fine vegetables (they would go bad within a couple days if left) and, if they have enough, I'll buy them out, take it all home, chop it up and stick it in the dehydrator. I find freezing after drying gives somewhat a freeze dry effect, although not perfect.
It's my understanding that I can then take the dried stuff, stick it in a canning jar with a bigger sized desiccant packs and store them for long periods. From what I've read, the desiccant pack will suck the remaining oxygen from the jar, sealing it. Supposedly these jars can then last upwards of 10 years. Most of my previously dehydrated items get put together with restaurant condiment packets from the Sam's Club for excellent bug out bag/MRE's. I've used them quite a bit over the last few years while camping and hunting, and I've been really hard pressed to find anything better tasting. plus, I cooked it/dried it, etc. and know what's in it!
154 meals for $135?! That's less than $1 per meal. That's really cheap insurance.
The snark from the article aside, they do have a really good idea to actually *prepare* one of your survival meals now, when the grid is still up.
You'd learn what you like, maybe some preparation or spice tricks, time+effort required, water+heat required, etc.
Survival meals aren't meant for luxury. The article is probably right to castigate Bakker for advertising the food as being gourmet delicious. He should know better. That's not the point!
Maybe you have a slow hunting week off the grid...you dig into your long-shelf-life survival kit for a bit. Problem solved (for the moment)!
The lousy taste will give you some incentive to become a better hunter, trapper, and gardener. Hey, everyone needs proper motivation!
Store some bulk salt and black pepper. You can make anything caught, shot, or foraged taste acceptable over a fire with salt & pepper (not the band!).
Hard to get cheaper than $135 for 154 meals. Maybe bulk pinto/red beans or bulk rice.
These things are mean for your low points during an emergency...like in the next 12 months when Obama has a nuclear war going worldwide.
Can you get water and fuel for heat such as wood?
From what I understand, and what I've experienced, freezing for a short period (2 weeks-ish) after drying gets you closer to an actual freeze dried product. Not perfect, but it "pushes out" any remaining liquid, or that's the idea. You don't NEED to freeze it after - otherwise it WOULDN'T make sense to dry, but I do it to get the best, most usable product possible.
Thanks. I knew I was missing something.
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