I LOVE FreeRepublic! Thanks to all of you who commented (so far!) on this thread! This stuff is important and it gives us all information and perspective on what is really important. I appreciate each an every comment.
I agree that some of the quantities may seem odd, but they reflect quantities of items that are easily obtained. 50 disposable lighters happens to be the unit of issue of that item at Costco, and is the absolute cheapest source I have found. Anyone who has ever watched “Survivor” knows how important fire is, and that is only one source of fire that I have stocked.
The quantities of applesauce reflect the yield on about 80 pounds of apples, and 25 pounds of Bartlett Pears.
The Dill pickles are homemade, and reflect what is left of canning 25 pounds of pickling cucumbers.
The stewed tomatoes are the result of canning 40 pounds of nice locally grown tomatoes.
Another source of supply that I use is the local restaurant supply. I’ve bought a bunch of really cheap meat this year, which yielded not only that 40 pounds of homemade beef jerky, but a freezer full of meat as well. Providing the power for that freezer is worth a thread all it’s own.
Again, let me stress that this inventory is a work in progress. I have a master list that I update on a regular basis and continually add to the larder. The quantities reflect available package sizes along with what I could score relatively inexpensively.
Another thing I need to stress is the concept of “O.A.R.”
Organize
Acquire
Rotate
The amounts of flour I have are high limits, and we bake bread here weekly for four people. Yes, flour does in fact deteriorate over time, but if you use it and replace it on a regular basis, the amount of nutrients it loses is ameliorated when you replace it. The object is to have the means to produce bread.
Yes, it is far better to have 500 pounds of grain on hand along with the means to grind your own flour. I have not chosen that path yet, and I think we have enough alternates on hand to make up for the loss of nutritional value that the flour loses. We can debate the finer points of that in a different thread, that is not the intent of this thread tonight.
Rotating perishable stocks is essential to any plan, and my intent with this thread is to provide a snapshot of just the dry goods part of our rotating pantry. Our daughter comes and “shops” when she needs to, and that helps keep stuff current as well.
I have made other arrangements for other considerations for survival in place that could be the subject of their own threads. This is intended to be a fairly narrow discussion of what a good start on a “dry pantry” looks like. We haven’t touched on arrangements for cold storage of veggies, gardening, composting, or proper seed storage either.
We haven’t touched on the generator to help preserve a freezer full of meat or the upcoming pemmican production season. Same goes for home dehydration, vacuume packaging, the merits of .22 caliber ammunition for barter, or a debate about gasoline vs natural gas vs propane. Those are all worthy subjects unto themselves.
One useful link to start is for the Oxygen Absorbers. These guys also deal with other Survival Supplies but there are many other sources...
https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/
I also have other arrangements for water, but that too is a subject for a different thread.
This really isn’t a tinfoil hat subject. Considering that the US Coast Guard pulled over 30,000 people off the roofs of their houses in the first 24 hours after Katrina, personal readiness has always been an issue. Those people were not even prepared to properly evacuate even if the mans had been available.
I talked to a woman just last week who had to evacuate in the middle of the night here because of a forest fire that was threatening the house. She told me that she had time to grab some family pictures, and that was it. They were out of the house for 3 days in a mtel, looking at pictures, I guess.
We have a 72 hour evacuation kit ready too, but that is also a subject for another thread....
This list should be a plan to deviate from. I’m presenting it as an example of what we are doing that seems to be working well for us. many people feel intimidated about even trying to attempt something like this because it looks impossible. But you can eat an elephant, one bite at a time.
Remember my friends, the goal here is to stay out of the refugee camp if things turn badly. Yes, if the house burns to the ground we are screwed too, but even if my home were damaged in a major earthquake, I would rather take my chances here, than with 30 or 40 thousand of my neighbors in a refugee camp.
No, I cannot provide for every contingency, but it makes little sense to prepare for no contingency at all.
PROPANE POWER! Two things to consider, and storage is one of them. Secondly, you can get a propane powered fridge/freezer (or just buy an older motor home). Of course, you need to buy LOTS of propane, but it will be there when you need it!
Hi, Bean Counter!
Thanks for the further explanation about your food stores.
Every once in a while I read an account of someone who has a 100 lb. bag of rice and 50 lbs. of pinto beans — and frequently I wonder if they even know how to cook beans & rice, as most people who are familiar with successfully cooking edible palatable dried beans & legumes would normally also have a stash of many more items.
I think you are doing very well on the food angle, so I encourage you to concentrate more on the toilet paper, kleen-ex & cloth hankies, sets of brand new underwear & socks, high grade winter/survival underwear and if you feel you MUST stock up on more food, think about the “quick” items, too, like raman noodles and ready to eat from the can stews & chili.
There’s also a number of things like cornstarch, plain old cocoa from the baking aisle, lard, honey — these are a few of the items that are said to successfully last for decades.
Anyway, I am glad to read this morning that you USE the items that you’ve stored, and that you are constantly in an ongoing process of rotating them.
Do you have generators all ready to go, if needed, for all your refrigerated & frozen food?
Every since I read that the U.S. Army opened up canned goods from LONG ago, I think the stuff was from the 1970s — and discovered that the canned items were FINE and entirely safe to eat, I’ve concentrated on canned food storage, always making sure to not have too many items from any one manufacturer, nor too many items with the same expiration date - indicating they were all produced at the same time.