Please add me to your ping list.
In particular, I am hunting good ideas for purchased food to go stick in my cellar (dry, 50 degrees year around).
For those who are just starting or are old hands at prepping you may find my Preparedness Manual helpfull. You can download it at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf
NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, a extra couple changes of oil and filters for your car, tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Or as the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
NIV Proverbs 22:3
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger.
Underestimation can be fatal.”
As a food service professional, and a cheap barstid, I suggest just buying more of what you normally buy, when it's on sale. Over the years, I've saved about 20% by buying in bulk on sales items that I'm going to use anyway.
It pays in 2 ways: Original savings on the sale price, and secondary savings over time, because you KNOW the price isn't going to go down on anything in the grocery store.
/johnny
Canned goods will last 25 years in that environment. If you you doubt me I will send you statements from canned foods producers.
canned white potatoes
canned vegetables
canned chicken
canned beef (http://keystonemeats.com) good products
canned corned beef
canned mushrooms
canned soups (ready to eat, not reconstitute)
canned beans (black, refried, etc.)
[airtight containers: ball canning jars are very good]
white rice stored in airtight containers (indefinitely)
oatmeal in airtight containers (very long time)
Dried beans in airtight containers (very long)
Pasta in airtight containers (very long)
Rice noodles in airtight containers (very long)
Pilot crackers (canned - 30 year shelf life)
Peanut butter (several years, easy to rotate)
Juices bottled in *glass* (several years at least)
You would be surprised how cheap 6 months of food will be using these types. Maybe a little boring after a few weeks, but in the crunch you won’t complain.
I guess it depends on how long to keep? when I lived upstate NY I had a “cold cellar” so to speak in the basement and also under the stairs. So we could eat from 50 lb bags of potatoes, apples, onions that we stored in there over the winter.. other dry goods if sealed properly will keep a long time there, flour, sugar, dry beans. and canned goods of course.