"What would Jack Burton do?"
Posted on 04/05/2012 4:52:18 PM PDT by Kartographer
I keep hearing statements about how expensive it is to prep. Although it is not cheap it doesn’t have to be that expensive either. You do not need to stock 20 years worth of food to be properly prepared. As a matter of fact I would advise against it. Stockpiling a large food and water supply means you have to stay put and defend it. That may not be your best option in a lot of scenarios which means you would lose that investment. Do you think you really have enough ammo to defend a 20 year food supply for 20 years? The cost of that alone would be staggering.
One big mistake in prepping that most people make including me is waste when you first start out. Either buying the wrong things (toys and gimmicks) or finding out later as you become more experienced that a lot of the things you bought in the beginning you really do not need.
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I did 6 months in Alaska at a frigging Army camp (And I mean camp.... rustic for a zoomie). Cold enough.
I've eaten worms, cooked and raw, but never in uniform. That was just as a commercial cook.
But I can take apart any critter that God put on earth after it is dead, and maybe cook it. And my knives are sharp enough for any spec-op to borrow. I have good knife skills, and years of experience with very sharp ones.
I have no idea what Opla is, but I might well try it. 'Splain me. ;)
/johnny
I had a bumper crop of tomato’s last year. They are easy to grow. Keep the roots damp (not wet). If they’re in a large pot or 5 gallon bucket, make sure the pot stays relatively cool or the plant won’t produce and grow long and leggy. IIRC, we canned over 20 quarts of canned tomato’s and sauce last year.
Opla is Alpo, spelled backwards. During training, it was given to us as a "delicacy" of the indigenous personnel we were trying to win over.
Yeah, at times the training cadre had a sick sense of humor, but it actually wasn't bad.............
The pet food was the first thing I stocked.
Back when I had dogs, I wouldn't feed mine anything I wouldn't eat. Same with my catz. Cat food smells MUCH better than it tastes.
And I've eaten dog (Mexico and Korea) and cat (New Mexico), and most of God's fuzzy little creepy crawlies. And a lot of the slithering little barstids, too. Many of the feathered ones, and some of the skittering quadrapeds.
But I got that attitude from a) culinary school b) travel c) a mis-spent youth with friends in 'that crowd'. Not from the military.
Tactical skills are great and required, but even army guys can learn those.
Logistics... that's where things get won and lost.
/johnny
If we have a roman or byzantium style collapse, they are food that I will eat.
I'll cry. Grown man hiccup bawling. But I will eat them after I get over it.
/johnny
You need to date all cans with a magic marker .. Use First in First out. FIFO.
You need to use your stuff and replace to keep it rotated.
Stocking up and losing it to spoilage is money wasted.
As a Marine, I’ve eaten my far share of ‘bizarre’, but I have not, and would never eat my pets.
That’s why you prepare. Lived on the Gulf Coast my whole life, Hurricanes ect...
My dogs and cats (yep got both) get along, and will eat with each other, eat the same food if they have too.
Plus, my cats are almost good at watching for strangers as the dogs.
But, each will do what they think they have to.
“Latin translator??”
I believe it means, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Ouch! I have a lot of those now, thankfully, they’re fairly new yet. Been considering dehydrating them - now it seems that it may be necessary to do so.
“I came, I saw, I conquered.” Ah, U.S. Army Sniper School.
Thank-you for your service.
I'm definitely an Urban Prepper. I have limited space and my "plan" involves getting out of here if at all possible. I do have a place to go outside of town. But I started keeping things stocked up here back in '08 and it has really made a difference. I used to be one of those run-to-the-store-every-day types of people. Now I actually cook more often because I almost always have everything I need to make anything I want. Things like instant milk that I never kept before because I don't drink milk. Now if I need one cup for a recipe, I have it and I don't worry about wasting money on a bottle that goes bad and takes up space in my fridge. I stock up on meats on sale and freeze them, so I always have a selection of whatever I might be in the mood for. It's changed the way I shop and I think I eat better now than I did before.
I also started canning a couple of years ago and as with all my prep plans, it's been a learning process. I canned all sorts of things at first that I never ate. Now I know what I like and when the produce is available and how much I'll go through. So I don't bother with pickles or more than one or two cans of jam because I'll never eat it, but I put away tons of peaches and pears and green beans. (And from now on - tomato paste!)
That sounds like a good idea!
“Put the first 4 or 5 prominently on display will help cut down on the workload.”
Should these 4 or 5 all have DC addresses?
Just exercising the Death Panel clause.
“Do you kill them in cold blood, leave them to die slowly where they lie, or take them in to patch them up, using up your space, food and medical supplies, the keeping of which was pretty much the point behind shooting them in the first place?”
Joshua was told to ‘kill ‘em all’. Had he been obedient, there would not be the middle east problem that we have today. That is not ‘in cold blood’. Follow the instructions to Joshua, and have a backhoe at the ready.
“Two words: Hog Feed”
And allow only hogs to be left for food in the infested portions of Michigan.
Study up on obligate carnivore eaters and binge omnivore eaters.
Catz have to have vitamin K daily, or liver damage results quickly.
Dogs, eat when they can, and can go days without food. Their healthy diets are very different.
And yes, my catz are good at watching for strangers. I'm hard of hearing, but when the cat bails out of my lap and goes under the bed, I'm going to bet that someone knocked at the door, and I didn't hear it. Love 'em for that.
When I had catz and dogs together, they did great after day 3. Everyone had their pecking order. Catz slept on the big retriever in her crate instead of invading my foot space on the bed.
But I will eat them, if needed. And they are way down on the list after the family and the neighbors if things are only mildly harsh.
/johnny
That is very odd. I have never had issues with canned goods unless they got too hot or too cold at some point. Were they seriously out of date? I have opened cans that were truly past their date just to see how they held up and haven’t seen an issue. Rotating is really important as you know- seems we all have things that seem to move themselves to the back of the cupboard to hide though.
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