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To: William of Barsoom

Great suggestions - being even a little prepared beats the Hell out of not being prepped at all.

I might add that one should either buy or construct (out of tin/steel food cans) a rocket stove. There are many out there for not much money, and dozens of YouTube videos on making one (I did it, so it can’t be that hard - just have tin snips). That, and some fuel - wood, mainly. I have saved up literally thousands of popsicle sticks over the years, plus gotten scrap wood (NOT fiber-board - it has glue that you don’t want to sniff when it is burning) at Home Depot for nothing, plus sticks you can pick up for free courtesy of Nature. Have LOTS of matches (cheap as dirt), and have them in a water-proof container (or several) - any screw-top jar works fine.

What this will do for you is to allow that non-perishable food to be heated, which really expands your options and makes hard living for a couple of weeks much more palatable.

So, for example, you can get a LOT of spaghetti for cheap (don’t forget to store sauce, perhaps including some kind of cheese sauce), and it never goes bad, but unless cooked in water I don’t recommend eating it.

Ditto for lentils - high in fiber and protein, fairly cheap, doesn’t go bad.

Soups - you CAN certainly have them cold, but warm is generally much better. Ditto for stuff like canned sweet potatoes (VERY nutritious and calorie-dense and it’ll really increase the palatability of an otherwise boring meal).

The uber-present and ultra-cheap (but calorie-dense) Ramen noodles can also be cooked with a rocket stove.

FYI, no one looks funny at you if you buy a dozen Ramen noodle packages, 4 boxes of spaghetti, a bunch of tomato sauce (esp. cheap brands on sale), a few pouches of lentils, cans of carrots, peas, baked beans, sweet potatoes, etc.

Oh, and LOTS and LOTS of water. Not just for cooking, but also for sanitation. Buying the cases of bottled water is great for drinking, and very cheap (about $0.10/bottle, sometimes less, from most box stores), but also save all of the empty 2- and 3-liter plastic soda bottles you use. Rinse them well, using dish soap, and put in a couple of drops of household bleach (unscented) before closing. Recycle the water every 6 months or so (use the old stuff for the garden, or for your foundation if you live in a dry area).

Just my $0.02


91 posted on 11/20/2015 5:31:07 PM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Ancesthntr

Your $.02 is GOLD!


97 posted on 11/20/2015 6:20:09 PM PST by MHGinTN (Is it really all relative, Mister Einstein?)
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