Posted on 10/01/2012 12:20:57 PM PDT by djf
As food prices continue to skyrocket, having a bulk supply of food is a great investment. But it also provides security and peace of mind against potential emergencies.
By now most people should be aware that grocery stores only have about 3 days of food in stock when crises strike. So if anything was to disrupt the food supply chain for an extended period of time, there would be untold chaos in most communities.
Any number of events could trigger mass disruption to a fragile food system, many of which are well documented and even predicted. Even NASA has warned its staff to prepare for potential disasters with survival foods and other precautions with their "Family Preparedness Program."
Prepping for disasters can seem overwhelming with so many aspects to be considered. However, for those just beginning to recognize how perilous these times are and are new to prepping, you can find many great survival foods at your local grocery store.
There are many fancy freeze-dried food companies offering light-weight storable meals. These are cost effective and great for new preppers. But if you don't have $1000 laying around to by a large supply, it may be better to pick up a few key items each week at the supermarket to build up your food bank gradually. And by buying base foods at the store, you'll ultimately save money.
It's best to keep your survival food list simple, and concentrate on storing foods with the highest amount of calories and the longest shelf life. This list is geared toward foods that will help you survive a crisis that lasts for extended periods of time.
Here are the ten best and cheapest survival rations available at any store:
Rice: Every time you go to the store you should buy one 10-lb bag of rice. You can find them for around $5 at most supermarkets. Rice will stay in good condition for 10 years or more if stored properly. It offers high carbohydrates which is especially important if you are exerting a lot of physical energy during a crisis.
Beans: Beans are known to be one of the best all-round survival foods. They're high in protein, and if sealed in food-grade buckets with a small amount of dried ice, they'll stay for up to ten years. Make sure to store them in a cool, dry, dark location. Buy a 4-5 lb bags of dried beans every time you go to the store. All dry beans are good to store; black beans, red beans, pinto beans, lentils, etc.
Cornmeal: All-purpose flours are good to store, but cornmeal may be the best overall. Cornmeal is packed with dense carbohydrates and contains oils that helps extend its shelf life. Additionally, if the power grid is down during a mega disaster, it is much easier to make good corn breads and tortillas with cornmeal in a simple skillet or solar oven, where refined flour will need yeast and oil to make decent bread or biscuits. Get a 5-lb bag of cornmeal ($10-$15) at each grocery visit. Seal and store the same way as beans (buckets, salt and dry ice), and it will safely keep 8 months to 2 years.
Lard: If you're a health-conscious reader, hydrogenated lard does not sound very appetizing, but in a survival situation you can't afford to be picky. Animal lard or vegetable shortening both offer much-needed calories during times of crisis, cooking oil for multiple uses, and it will keep longer than cooking oils because of the hydrogenation. Buy a 6-lb can ($12) and store in a cool, dry, and dark place and it will stay good for 2-3 years or longer.
Salt: Salt is one of the most useful survival food items. It's used for storing food, curing beef, and flavoring most meals. Salt will stay forever, so always buy extra when you're shopping.
Canned Fruit & Vegetables: These are another obvious survival food, but not as practical as many would think. They're heavy and somewhat costly for the calories they deliver. Additionally, acidic fruits and any cans with tomatoes will not keep as long as most people think. But most canned food is good for 5+ years. Buy green vegetables and fruits like peaches and pears for long-term storage, but more importantly, buy what you already eat in case you need to rotate them into your diet before they go bad.
Canned Meat: Canned meats like ham, tuna, and chicken are excellent to store. They typically will keep for 6-10 years and they're an excellent source of protein. However, if the grid is down for a long time (apocalyptic), hunting and fishing will likely provide most meats. Therefore, it may be sufficient to buy extra canned meats every other time you go shopping.
Sugar: Brown and white sugar will add much-needed flavor and calories to a survival diet and they'll keep for ten years or more if stored properly. Honey is also excellent as it will store forever. Make sure to buy extra every other time you go grocery shopping. You won't need too much, but they'll be well worth having if a crisis strikes.
Pasta: Pasta is a good light-weight storable food that is also a great source of carbohydrates. Pasta will not keep as long as rice, but it can stay for around 5 years in good conditions. Pasta is also very inexpensive and extra should be bought at each trip to the store. It will take up more space in your food bank that rice, beans and cornmeal, so plan your space the best you can.
Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a terrific source of protein, fat, and calories. Plus, it's just a great treat to have on hand. Peanut butter can last up to five years in root cellar conditions. Stock up whenever there are good deals at your grocery store. You'll be happy you did if the SHTF.
If you consistently buy these items 3-4 times per month, you'll quickly acquire a year's supply of survival rations for your whole family.
How to store it?
A really basic way to store the rice, beans, cornmeal, sugar and pastas is to buy several 5-gallon seal-able paint buckets or food-grade buckets from your local hardware store. Put a cup or so of salt into a sandwich baggie (opened) at the bottom of the buckets. Then fill it with food stuffs and add a couple of ounces of dried ice (found at large grocery stores) which will remove the oxygen from the bucket after it's sealed. Finally, label each bucket with its contents and the date, and place it in your cellar.
Please let us know what other food items you think will be useful for new preppers....
Cooking with lard is not the same as crisco.
Lard/tallow has always been safe as long as it smells like lard. It takes on a very nasty odor rather quickly if infected by anerobic bacteria, you can’t miss it!
Aside from SHTF, the plan is to be able to become self sufficient as possible since we anticipate inflation to make food totally unaffordable on our fixed income.
Our new hobby is gardening, and experimenting with ways of preserving foods that will still be available to us if SHTF.Collect some how to books that describe old time methods of preserving food, making hand tools etc. It's very interesting and could come in handy someday.
Depending on your climate, you could plant peanuts, and olive trees for example.(I have even grown lemons, tomatoes,lettuce, and spinach indoors in front of the patio door during the winter, which means when it snows I don't have to go to the store for fresh produce LOL).
Learn to make your own peanut butter and press the olives to make your own oil. Whatever else you love or need the most.We have been having a lot of fun, and so have the grandkids.
>> “Not as fast as Dysentery, Cholera, Typhoid fever, Giardiasis or any other of two dozen diseases I can name would.” <<
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SSKI is the choice to control those issues, and it is always safe. (and permanent, while Cl2 will be destroyed by light fairly quickly, leaving your water subject to future recontamination)
No, don’t use the canned veggie liquid to soak beans. You don’t want to waste those vitamins. Use the veggie liquid in cooking or in soups. Whenever I have room in the freezer, I keep a large container to dump that liquid into and use it in the winter as veggie stock for soup.
The reason to soak beans is to get rid of the dirt and to cut down on cooking times. Both things you want to do in hards times. Use potable water to soak them but afterward, it’s no longer potable so use it for watering the garden or something else.
http://missvickie.com/howto/beans/howtosoak.html
Lard is rendered fat from animals, Crisco is vegetable shortening.
A Big Berkey will remove all that. It is a water “purifier” not just a filter.
Sugar is a ‘poison’ to those that have some form of diabetes. It is a useful food in moderation to others.
Avoiding type 2 diabetes is the chief reason to avoid manufactured oils like crisco and margarine, as well as the polyunsaturated oils of inedible seeds such as safflower and Rape (Canola).
That's why I always bought uprights. Still, foods can get lost but not as easily as in chest freezers. I used to designate beef on one shelf, chicken on another, etc. but to save on things getting lost and freezer burned, I now do shelves by date. Older stuff goes on the top shelf and working down to new stuff on the bottom shelf. The basket is the same with older on the top. Every few months, I check dates again since things get shoved in where ever there's a hole.
Doesn't hurt to cook up freezer burned foods for the dogs.
Olive Oil shelf life is two years it does go bad. Check yourself do some research.
Hey, didn’t you used to have a ping list for ghost stories? I miss those. It is Halloween time...
Peanuts are ridiculously easy to grow in dry sandy soil. We had peanut fields when I was growing up. Throw some peanuts into a food processor and, presto changeo, peanut butter. Do the same with any other nut (yes, peanuts are legumes). Pecan butter is gooood! When the kiddos were in preschool, they put raw peanuts in a stryofoam cup to watch them grow. They brought home four little plants so we put them in the garden and had peanuts out the wazoo!
Thanks for that tip.
I get almost all my information from the LDS and the University of Utah. There is hardly anyone I know that has done as much research and study of the shelf life of foods as the LDS has.
Yes there are foods that are bad for you, but man wiping a skillet with a bit of Crisco to fried some scrambled eggs and potatoes isn’t going to make you fall over dead, but whiping it with rancid oil will.
But telling people to store stuff with limited shelf life will kill people very quickly.
Light and heat can make OO rancid, but it has been typically stored in steel tins for about 170 years, and in those unopened tins it will easily keep for 5 years if kept below 65 degrees.
It is you that are missing the points.
Crisco and margarine are not “foods.” They are manufactured products that are definitely harmful in any quantity, and especially so if normal food oils are not present in the diet.
There is no legitimate reason to use them. Lard works better, and keeps well, and is a real, useful food that will counter the effects of non-foods like crisco, because the body will use the real oils over the fake ones if it can.
Learning what to store and how to store it is one of the most beneficial things that one can do.
BTW, LDS say that coffee is harmful, but no evidence of that has ever been discovered, even after 100 years or more of study. Yes, excessive use of coffee can do harm, but that can be said for most things.
Yes, but the Berkey is big and will not always be with you.
A bottle of SSKI is about the size of a mini tootsie roll, and can be with you everywhere.
I want something to replace ham hocks in hocks and beans.
Have you ever tryed Orrington Farms Broth Based Seasoning-ham flavored? Sometimes I have used a spoonful of that and some canned turkey or seasoning when I didn’t have ham hocks.
Animal fats are the ideal cooking oils for human animals.
They contribute to the proper formation of your cell membranes, while the manufactured vegetable shortening (IOW artificially hydrogenated) will cause abnormal cell membranes that prevent the metabolization of blood glucose.
Blood glucose happens to be the digested remains of all starchy vegetables, and is a normal ingredient in the blood. If you cannot metabolize it, the blood becomes acidic, and you end up with numerous degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and alzheimers.
Seems like a simple choice.
I’m staying home, however one section of the Berkey will go inside the other for portability. I also have three Katadyn siphon filters that are really small compared to the Berkey, and they are highly portable. I’d still take the Berkey purifier in its smallest configuration if I had to leave.
Thank you for proving my point! Yes LDS say coffee is harmful, and there are any number of studies that agree and just as many that disagree.
Personally I am going to follow Johnny’s exampable and just let it go, but your Michelle Obama food storage mentality is just not going to cut itduring shtf.
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