Mormon.
My grandmother canned with wire racks stacked in boiling water, over an outdoor wood fire using a large cast iron cauldron, sunbonnet and all. Seems wild now recalling that, sounds so ancient, but she did, right into the late 70’s. Some of my relatives still have some of her fox grape pickles (pickled cucumbers, grape leaves and grapes). Her canned pork sausage was to die for, didn’t look like much in a Mason jar though.
You’re better off just buying an array of nutritious canned goods. Somebody up in Alaska already crammed a salmon into a can and cooked it for your convenience. Just don’t forget your can opener.
You can buy a water bath canner (pot) from Walmart for about $ 20.00. The jars you can also get at Walmart and various grocery stores. You also need lids & rings, those can be purchased separately. The lids you only use once. I’ve done canning all my life, if there’s anything else you need to know, don’t hesitate to contact me.
And if the S really does HTF the last thing you’ll really need is fifteen quarts of sweet pickle chips.
Ask my wife about that. She’s already vacuum-frozen a lot of green beans and okra out of garden, a lot of jars of tomatoes she’s preserved, and there’s a big colander of cukes sitting in the kitchen waiting to be pickled. She’s got the spices and the salt to do it, but I caught hell tonight for forgetting sugar at the market. (I like the bold garlic-dill kosher spears, myself.)
https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-order-form?lang=eng
The LDS (Mormon) Church has food for storage. The big advantage is it mostly has a 20-30 year shelf life. Instead of rotating your cans that have an 18-month “best by” date, you can buy and forget. I still recommend that you cook with the long-term foods occasionally, just so you know how, but it’s easier. Also, their prices are lower than other sources with extended shelf life or even many grocery stores. And you don’t have to be a member to shop there, whether online or in person.
Their cans are not my only stored food, but they are a major part of my emergency preparations. I also have MREs, regular cans that I do rotate, and a couple other options.
I agree with the others - why go through the expense and risk of canning when you’ve still got Sam’s Club well-stocked. By a good supply there (as I’ve done), a bunch of rice and/or noodles, and you’re pretty much set for months, or even years if you want to go that far.
If we ever get to the point where home-canning is the only option left (i.e., a year or two into a crisis where there’s no food), I’m not sure I’d want to stick around to see the social nightmare associated with that.
...and also, store-bought canned foods last a very long time - far beyond their stamped dates. I’ve eaten them 4 or 5 years out without no effect on quality, and I don’t even make an effort to store them properly (i.e., keep them cool). You can find articles talking 20 to even 50 years out.
You can get a lot of what you need off of Craigslist. I’ve been canning for a number of years including meats. It is my favorite way of keeping venison.
The equipment you will need is a pressure canner (http://www.pressurecooker-outlet.com/Mirro-Pressure-Canner-22-Quart.htm), jars and lids. It is not recommended to pressure can above 8000 ft above sea level.
Don’t double cook the food are you will turn it into mush. Put the raw or lightly cooked food into the jar and pressure can it for 70-90 minutes. I can at the shorter time but use 15 PSI. Remove the rings and wash the jars after they have cooled. Store in a cold steady temperature such as a basement and keep it from sun light.
Many mormons (latter day saints) do
Furthermore, some inane Obama era regulation was enacted that prevented non-members (or perhaps anyone?) from food preservation at theses facilities.
Good luck. It's not that hard to figure out on your own.
>>>Can nonbelievers use their facility?<<<
Some facilities allow non members to use them and “canning” at those facilities means tin cans. They have all the equipment for it. For the rest of us, there’s mason jars. Water bath canners are cheap but all you can do are high acid foods. Pickles and tomatoes and even the tomatoes need a little vinegar or citric acid added. A pressure canner is needed for non acidic foods like all your other veggies and meat. I bought a pressure canner from wally world several years ago for $70
Regular store bought canned goods last indefinitely. In 15 years, they’ll still be edible. The texture, color and taste won’t be quite the same but still edible as long as the can doesn’t rust through. For home canning to be cost effective, you really need a garden. However, pressure canning allows you to can stuff that’s not available in stores. All your game meat for one. In fact, meat in general since it’s not all that cheap in the store bought cans.(beef-chicken-pork) I’ve got some brandied apple rings I did a few years back. Blackberry jam I made with wild blackberries me and the kids picked around here.
If your friend is already into cooking, he/she might enjoy canning. Other than that, for preparedness, just buy a little extra from the store each shopping trip, store what you eat and eat what you store aka rotate stock.
Canning can be dangerous - botulism. Don’t use old recipes or recipes from just any old website. There’s plenty of recipes that have been developed in cooking laboratories that are safe so it doesn’t make sense to take a chance.
START HERE - free and tested - general info - techniques and recipes
USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html
Center for Food Preservation - canning, drying, fermenting etc
http://nchfp.uga.edu/
Ball - Ker website - has recipes and Ball has a recipe book they put out regularly called the Blue Book of Canning
http://freshpreserving.com
Jars, lids and bands and the lids are one time use. The best way to buy the lids is in bulk on ebay. Way cheaper. Jars come with one lid and one ring/band and here in the States, figure a buck a piece. Golden Harvest is a cheap brand and they work fine. Ball lids fit the GH jars just fine. Water bath canner are usually available as a kit that gives you the jar lifter, special jar funnel and head space measuring tool. Presto is the cheap, yet well known brand of pressure canner. Looks like Mirro is another and the Cadillac is All American brand which is all stainless steel and machined so well, they don’t need a gasket.
http://everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/
By one Wendy DeWitt - doesn’t look very active any more but hey, there’s a Spanish translation now. It’s sort of a complete canning, prepping meal system including a menu planner. PDF downloads are right up top.
You can do canning in boiling water for high-acid foods, such as pickles and tomatoes, but you’ll need a big pressure cooker for the rest of the menu, including meats. Obviously, that makes water-bath canning a lot cheaper.
The other expense is jars and lids. Canning lids are used once and thrown away, unless you use the old-fashioned glass lids with rubber rings. Buy a lot of jars, in pint and quart sizes.
Be advised you won’t need as many replacement jars if you don’t give anything away. Seriously. If you think your Elderberry Jelly is so good that people will just love it, work on the assumption that only 20 percent of those jars will come home again. The rest are lost forever.
There are other ways to reduce cost, such as making your own pectin (needed for jellymaking) but commercial stuff is much better quality.
Do you have a big pot? You have all of the equipment you need.
LDS. They were awesome. The gave me their canner. Took it home. I had an assembly line of folks canning sugar flour beans and rice. Then i returned it. Laws changed. Now they only sell cans to you. Reasonably priced. This was plant city florida.
Found wherever canning supplies are found.
We grow and preserve much of our food. It is a great joy to eat your own veggies, soups, etc (not to mention our homemade wine and beer).
HAPPY PREPPING!
What state do you live in ? Some state Ag boards run canning rooms during growing season.
For a lot of fruits and vegetables I recommended dehydrating your own and then vacuum seal in either jars or mylar bags. For Meat canning is the only way. And protein in meat is very important for long term survival.
As far as those who even jokingly talk about how they have no need to prepare or store as they will just use a gun to rob and kill their way to survive, well they are dead already even if they do survive then what awaits them when they go to judgement will be far worse than what they inflicted on their victims.
Words mean something and speaking them gives them more meaning. That’s why the Bible holds you accountable for what you say and the words that come from your mouth.
There’s good advice in this quote from the movie ‘Open’ Range: “Most time, a man will tell you his bad intentions if you listen, let yourself hear.”
A man who speaks evil even in jest has evil in his heart and certainly isn’t a man to trust or associate with.
Getting right with God is the first chore for a preparer needs to do to truly survive.
It is your choice you either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
So listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
Will or can something occur and then you just deal with it then? Maybe, but most times people won’t realize that things just got real until it happens and most time not only do they realize it, but everyone else does too.
Selco covers this in this article many times people just can not except that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
I also posted this advice the other day, but it bears repeating:
If you watch this thread you will see that even on FR there are those who hate and scoff at those who would be prepared to take care of their own should a shtf event occur. They like to claim they are not worried,because nothing is going to happen, some even say things like if it happens I just rob the preppers for my needs. When called on their words they claim they are only joking, but in my experience people who try to mask their words by claiming that they are only joking are only trying to cover the slip of the real them that came out in their words.
When push comes to shove you would surprised what people who claim they don’t care will do to cling to life. One of the most dangerous groups that preppers will have to deal with are the anti-preppers, because they will not only covet what preppers have they will feel the need to punish preppers for having prepared and will feel morally justified in punishing preppers as in their twisted minds they will see the reason that the SHTF event occurred was because they dared prep for it. Their envy and indignation will be like that of leftist have for people who strikes out works hard and makes a good living or even gets well off and not sharing with them.
Just getting started or an old hand you might find my Preparedness Manual helpful. You can download the manual 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, paper goods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change places to make what purchases you can will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), 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.’
Again I like to recommend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
http://shtfschool.com/
There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.
You don’t need to go to the mormons for food canning prep for SHTF.
Learn how to package bulk foods (rice, millet, beans, wheat etc) in 5 gallon mylar bags and home depot buckets w/lids.
Store canned good are good well beyond their “best by” date
Learn how to dehydrate foods.
Much cheaper in the long run.