Posted on 08/18/2012 6:54:12 PM PDT by mykroar
Looking for a little prepper guidance, specifically around long-term food (MRS vs freeze-dried) and maybe where to obtain. Also interested in a good site to obtain ammunition (or would the next local gun show be the way to go). Picked up a Mossberg 12 gauge & a Hi-point .45ACP Carbine a few months back.
I am currently in an apartment, so space is an issue to a degree. Thanks ahead of time - last weekly prepper thread was a month ago.
It’s not a popular opinion among preppers, but IMO most stored food should be canned goods.
The only real advantage of freeze-dried foods and even wheat, beans and rice, relative to canned goods, is weight. And unless you plan to be moving that just doesn’t matter. And if you are planning to be on the move you won’t be able to carry much.
Most types of foods other than canned goods require cooking, for which fuel may not be readily available. With canned goods you can always just eat them cold. Also their not needing water is an advantage, IMO.
Obviously shelf life is an issue and your stock should be rotated, but most canned goods can if necessary be safely eaten long after their posted expiration date.
Perhaps most importantly, if purchased in bulk and/or on sale, cost is MUCH lower than most alternatives.
They will send you a free sample - something like a 4 person dehydrated entree.
I ordered one but haven't tried it yet.
Here is the link:
Something to consider if you plan to rely on wild plants and animals for food:
In a true, widespread SHTF scenario, when you are out looking for dandelion greens and other edible plants there will be millions of others doing the same thing.
When you are out hunting for birds, squirrels and varmits to cook up there will millions of others with the same idea.
People living alone miles from nowhere probably won’t have a big problem running into scavengers, but people living in suburbs and towns will have a lot of competition for any wild edibles in the local area.
What kind of vehicle do you have? Can you pack out your gear? What have you got to make trades with? Do you have anything to store water? What about purify water. Think about prepping in terms of loss:
Loss of clean air (gas mask / seal up apartment)
Loss of clean water (hand pump water filter)
Loss of clean food (check out emergency essentials)
Loss of electricity / heat / cooking (charcoal, rocket stove, ?)
Loss of fuel / gas (transportation ???)
Loss of access to medical (first aid)
Loss of police protection (sounds like you got that already)
Get a pressure cooker and learn how to can.
If you do a good job, most canned food is good for 10+ years.
walmart has winchester 100 round value packs of 45acp reasonable.
Local gun show is good. Usually there are some who have survival food and emergency medical supplies.
http://bulkammo.com is good website
As far as bulk food, I suggest start with what you already eat and just get more. That is how I started. Get whatever canned food is on sale but more. I budgeted $10 a week when I started out. That is I bought $10 extra food each week.
While my stored food has a very large proportion of cans, I don't agree with your advice, at least not for all preppers. I have nearly unlimited fuel and water, live well outside the nearest city, and am not young enough to compete on a level playing field in the woods. I'm not bugging out. For me, freeze-dried and dehydrated are not worth the extra cost to save weight, since I won't be carrying large amounts of food. Others, particularly young and urban, will have different priorities.
I think every human on the planet is experiencing an “angst”. Something big is imminent.
I even sense it in my gov’t worshipping libinlaws, though they react with ANGER when they see that I’m taking steps to prepare my family for a rough time where their precious social contract ceases to function.
Give the guy a break, he’s probably done more to help people prep than anyone else in the country.
As to what he said about missing flights, I had to do a double take also. I’m sure what he meant is something to the effect that if an average of 10 people are no-shows for a typical flight, there are statistics to show an average of maybe 18 people are no-shows for the flights that crash...just not worded too clearly.
I strongly suspect that, for most people, attempting to travel any distance in SHTF conditions will be vastly more dangerous than holing up wherever they are.
Sure there will be exceptions, but I think it is a good general rule. When holed-up canned food that does not require water or cooking is IMO much more practical.
I am greatly amused by those who apparently think they will be able to survive in the woods by “living off the land,” eating the deer and such. In conditions likely to make such a method necessary, those woods will be flooded with millions of people all trying to do the same thing.
In a quite short period of time, the only edible game left will be walking on two legs.
If you’re in an apartment, then I’m “assuming” you’re in the city wehre you must rely upon someone else to provide the water and electricty. In that case, even with limited storage space, I’d go with regular grocery store canned goods rather than dehydrated foods. Canned goods don’t require water and the liquid they’re packed will suppliment your water needs. Be creative in your storage. Under the bed, under the couch and under and behind the dresser. Buy furniture that already has drawers or cabinets. Rather than an acrylic coffee table, get a trunk. Those end tables with just a top and legs are a waste - get ones with drawers and cabinets. Pull the bed a foot or so away from the wall and build a shelf unit behind it to place a lamp, a book and your glasses. Under that shelf is a ton of storage.
The plastic milk crates that are a 12” cubes are stackable and will hold 32 (yes, 32!) regular 15 oz cans. They can be covered with fabric and used as seating or as that coffee table or stacked several tall and used as a plant stand with no one the wiser.
People just don't realize how rare commercial crashes are.
Since 1950 there have only been roughly 1000, or about 20 per year. That is of course for the whole world, and rates in the third world are a big multiple of those here. Crashes are so rare that terrorism is one of the major causes.
In most recent years we don't have a US crash, and sometimes we go several years between them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft
For purposes of discussion, let's allow for six crashes per decade.
There are upwards of 10M US flights per year, or 100M per decade.
Comparing the mean missing a flight from 100M completed flights to those from six crashes cannot statistically be computed, I suspect. I'm not a statistician, but work around statistics enough to have a "feel" for them.
This is, BTW, ignoring the obvious fact that crashes are often associated with bad weather, which may also have a major impact on number of people missing a flight, because they can't get to the airport on time or because their connection gets in late, etc.
IOW, any such statistic may not have actual statistical validity, and even if it does, there are alternative explanations other than the survivors having a "feeling" that leads them to intentionally miss the flight.
I won’t argue that, maybe the stats aren’t there. I just don’t like people beating up on Karto.
Depression era grand parents, parents that were small children in the same era as well as the rationing of WWII. They understood a harvest and thrift as well as depending on no one for providing for them and theirs.
We learned the lessons they lived. I prep for all situations that could impact our sources of food, shelter and fiscal and personal security.
It could be a long term illness that doesn’t allow me to work and provide. It can be a bad economy that also forces unemployment to rise. A natural or man made disaster that disrupts this nations productivity .
Creating different layers of food sources with everything from bulk storage in the pantry from the big box stores to our own gardens, local farmers markets and hunting and fishing harvest stored each year.
It’s a lifestyle, not a bad feeling. Learn from history and don’t allow such to repeat itself on your children . Dependence on others be it friends or goobermint is insanity.
Don’t be a burden. Don’t endanger you family by ignoring your responsibility to provide. All this will remove that bad feeling that keeps you awake at night and provide time to think and work to defeat the socialist trash trying to impose such fears upon the voters.
Obama says vote for me and I will provide endless unemployment funds, food stamps, and medical care as his department of interior fines tourists for feeding the wildlife as it will make animals dependent on a human and not let them learn to fend for themselves...... Go figure.
My opinion.... No bad feeling about the basics of life here. As to prepping and survival .
Bad feelings were something they should have had politically in November of 2008. It’s here folks. It’s upon our nation now. We are treading water in a monster rip tide of trouble.
Vote with your time and dollars between elections to starve the beast.
As stated just my opinion....
Where I live, if vehicular traffic stops or significantly decreases, the raccoon population is going to explode.
A small closet can be made to store a surprising amount of food, even apartment dweller.
As it happens, made a freeze-dried meal last night, for the heck of it. Major label “beef stew”. Worse than I remembered from previous repasts. Yeah it’s edible, just barely. Let it soak for a half hour (ready in “ten minutes” means crunchy, half-reconstituted bits)
The meal would have benefited greatly from a half hour simmering, or maybe more - my impression was that the initial stew itself was not cooked thoroughly to begin with. It would be salvageable with a lot of extra cooking time, ingredients like onion and such, butter, broth.
Some freeze dried items are better than others, but I’m just not seeing the advantages unless one is planning on hiking or climbing. Canned goods are a lot cheaper and taste much better.
Not if starving people are eating the coons.
You haven’t seen the raccoon road-kill rate around here.
Having been a no show for a flight that ended up not leaving my airport because it crashed before getting there, I can think of a logical explanation for this (if the claimed statistics exist). I was a no show due to ice. The plane crashed due to bad weather and ice on the wings. It seems entirely logical that we would have more no shows in the weather conditions that produce more crashes.
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