or just google: survival water purification systems and take your pick. I would recommend to start off with a backpacker style pump, then figure out how much water you will actually require.
Posted on 05/12/2012 2:48:24 PM PDT by blam
Do you have any bean (or other survival food) recipes that you could share?
I have a slow cooker recipe that I’ve used for my beans which I like, but I could use some stove top or survival-type cooking recipes (those that will not require electricity?)
Thanks so much.
Go away. Don't prep. We get your position. You hate us for being prepared because it rocks your world view, and you have to ascribe hateful malice to those that would prep, and because we think those that don't may be emotionally or mentally challenged.
/johnny
When the SHTF, we’re going to be in deep doo-doo. Living in Palm Beach County is great during normal times, but should a natural or a man-made disaster hit us, we’re stuck. The main arteries north will be like parking lots. Both my wife and I are dependent on prescription meds and can’t ever get any more than a 90-day supply. I guess I can go to COSTCO every couple of weeks for a large package of TP, fill up old milk jugs with filtered water, buy a couple of cans of Spam and canned pineapples every time I go to Publix. I have a couple of handguns with some ammo; guess I ought to buy a box or two every month. If we head west, we’ll get wet in the ‘Glades and probably get suffocated by one of the many Burmese pythons that the idiots released there, if the gators don’t get us first. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen.
Here is the draft of an article that I'm working on about poverty food:
Poverty food
Poverty food
Like oriental food? Like Italian? Mexican or Tex-mex? Cajun? Scandanavian food? What do all these foods have in common? They are poverty foods. The ones that everyone eats everyday.
Take Oriental food... It's cheap stuff. Local. Cooked simple. And good. And some of it takes time.
Same with all the rest.
The traditional food of the people is the cheap stuff that is available prepared with care and whatever time it takes.
What does that mean for preparedness? You may not be able to get stuff you eat normally. But you can eat well with local stuff, or people wouldn't be living where you live. And don't give me that excuse about living in the city. Pigeon is edible. And good, done well. Baby pigeons can fetch $28 a plate done well enough in the right restaurant.
And those weeds you walk by every day? Your great-grandparents waited for them to show up in spring.
All this pre-supposes that you have the knowledge to use the available resources and the training to turn those resources into mouthwatering meals. And that means you have to study.
Techniques.
What makes food good, instead of just something to eat to keep from dying? Flavor, texure, smell, familiarity and perceived value.
Start with good, fresh, local ingredients. Learn to identify them, and how to cook them, and when they are in season. I can't help you with details since I don't live where you do.
Take a little time now to add some traditional spices to your landscaping. I can get cilantro, cumin, basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic (volunteer and cultivated), onions (native and cultivated), and several types of local herbs and peppers within a two minute walk from my back door. Those spices and herbs can go a long way to making your food taste better and seem more familiar. Squirrel pot pie tastes a lot like chicken pot pie if you have the same spices in it.
Learn how to cook. Learn the basics of frying, sauteing, braising, roasting and baking. Some of that requires a mentor to teach you. Find one. Commercial cooks like to show off and talk about food and techniques.
One thing I see a lot with home cooks is a fear of 'burning' something that is just getting some color and flavor. Black doesn't mean burned. Scorched flavor means burned.
When I make a stock for soup, I sweat the onions, carrots, and garlic for flavor. If I want a 'blanc' stock, I don't let them get much color, but for things like game, and a 'brun' stock, I saute them pretty hard, well past what most home cooks are comfortable with. It's ok if they have some black spots on them, if they don't tasted scorched or burned. And the depth of flavor they add can make a dish work.
And it's ok to screw up when you practice. Burn it? Toss it and try again. Failure is part of the learning process.
None of this requires expensive equipment. I've cooked over an open wood fire on 50 year old pans for 300 GIs. And they like the rations that they got, with some additions from local sources. Even GI spaghetti in a can is palatable if you can enhance it a little with techniques and a few local additions.
Menu Fatigue.
Audience. The people you are cooking for have regional tastes.
It's a work in progress. I'll eventually finish it and post it on it's own thread someday.
/johnny
You don't get to just drop little bombs like that and not get called on it.
And that's ignoring the larger point that the article is clearly coming from a writer who is writing out of anger and vindictiveness. Here's another little snippet:
"I have gotten into arguments over this and had cretins call me a fool because I put away food, water, and supplies."
This guy sounds like a kicked dog and the rest of the piece sounds like a big get-even. It's one thing to start a thread with practical tips about how long to soak your beans or whatever, it's another to start it with an airing of grievances like you did this time.
Again, you need to understand that when you post obnoxious stuff on an open forum, there's a good chance you're going to get some criticism.
Do you have some suggestions on your home roasting green coffee? I would absolutely love to know the ins and outs on the best way to do just that!
/johnny
After I posted, I realized that if she does any fiber work: knitting/weaving/felting, she likely uses the dryer to *full* the finished product. This is a final stage in all the fiber fabric crafts and it causes the wool to *bloom* (ie: get softer and have a nice final hand), plus it adds just a bit more shrinkage to any felting. Even on low heat, there would be lint. But you’re right about the angora and even the alpaca and llama: they just are attracted to all other fabric.
Cat hair is smooth (no little barbs,and it doesn’t shrink like wool) and so does not felt. It does matt, as any cat parent knows. So, if you bought some felting needles (fine ones), you could place your mat on a thick piece of dense foam (to absorb the needle strikes—those needles can be deadly) and just keep needling the accumulated cat hair into the mat. The thing is that needled felt isn’t as well fixed as wet felt, even when everything is wool. Your cat could just pull the hair off the mat by kneading or even rolling around on it. I have seen some cat hair needle felted onto sculptures. The synthetic felt available commercially and most industrial felt filters are needle felt, but that is done by machines made to tangle the fiber completely and then needle it to itself. I have read that needled human hair was/is(?) used for peanut butter production filters.
Best I can think of would be to 1) needle the shed hair into the mat and 2) then lay a thin fresh layer of any wool on top, needle in place, then wet with hot water (opens the fiber), roll up as you observed (provides compression) and then roll the place mat package around (provides pressure/agitation) until everything is adhered. You need to periodically unroll and check the process. I use mosquito netting and those rubber shelf liners for boats instead of a bamboo mat because you can see through the netting and only have to unroll the shelf liner a bit to check. Or ask your fiber friend to add the layers. She’ll know how.
You have called me on it. Go elsewhere.
/johnny
/johnny
Johnny:
Have you ever done thermos cooking or used a haybox or Wonder Box (http://community.tasteofhome.com/community_forums/f/25/t/730768.aspx or any other device to hold the heat in for a long time w/o added fuel?
These are on my list of things to try. Doubt you could cook for 300 this way, but probably for 8-10.
or just google: survival water purification systems and take your pick. I would recommend to start off with a backpacker style pump, then figure out how much water you will actually require.
* The (NP) that has no food will either have to find food or be ready to beg for food or worse, like sacrificing their bodies or other horrible acts or things to get a bite of food.
* The (NP) will have to go through the worst, most rancid conditions of garbage to just maybe find what they should have stored up.
* The (NP) will go through panic and near if not total psychosis looking for any water source right before their bodies begin shutting down during advanced stages of dehydration.
* The (NP) will go through unbearable trauma when their children and other people around them are crying, screaming, and suffering with intense hunger pains in their stomachs.
_____________
And all because mom and dad didn't spring for private school?
Phillips Academy looks pretty good compared to dying, starving, dehydrated and psychotic.
Though if it means going to St. Paul's, I'll take my chances dying in the gutter with unbearable trauma.
Oh, sure you would! Do it every 6 months if you think it is really thick and you’ll see how it matts down.
Cat hair and even wool compresses a lot when wet. You needle first just to tack it down if using a fresh layer of wool. That compresses with better results than a manual press. The cat hair would 1) stick to the top plate and 2) rebound after being pressed. Needle also holds in place, while just applying pressure doesn’t. Combining wet method w/needle method is easier on the arm/elbow/shoulder, too. Doing a lot of needle felting results in joint strain from overuse.
My hot pads start out about 2” thick and when finished are barely 1/2” thick. I forgot to add that you should unroll, check for holes (needle over w/fresh fiber if necessary) and then roll in an opposite direction. so, you roll lengthwise, widthwise and then diagonally for the best even result.
Felting machines that use fixed plates have the ability to vibrate slightly over rollers to actually produce felt and even those aren’t as controllable as the hand method.
I do regularly use a gigantic Igloo cooler that is big enough for commercial half pans to move stuff for catering events. Generally it finishes cooking in the Igloos, and stays plenty warm.
/johnny
I bought an 1100 gallon black polypropylene agricultural tank 3 years ago and put it under the rather large deck we were building at the time. Piped a couple of gutter downspouts into it and use it for irrigation water, with the idea that with a good filter I could use it for drinking water in an emergency. We were in a declared drought at the time, so outdoor water use was severely curtailed, and I wanted to make sure I had water available for all the new back yard plantings associated with the project. That Fall, the skies opened up, the lakes filled, the drought ended, along with the outdoor water use restrictions. Still glad I have the tank, it saves me a little money on irrigation, and there’s the prepper aspect to having it there.
I wish I had gotten the 1500 gallon one that was the same diameter but a tad taller. We were having a little trouble getting it on the trailer I had rented, but I think we could have with a little finagling. It would have still worked with my deck height and the horizontal piping fall (one of the downspouts is about 45’ away).
My flippant answer was going to be “Well, someone has to be the one who ends up as zombie-chow”, but the truth is that “preppers” have one distinct disadvantage that the “unprepared” don’t: They’re anchored to the one spot where they’ve cached their supplies.
If you have 10 tons of supplies in the basement, then you’re incapable of straying from that basement. There’s also another word for that big pile of goodies: bait. You will eventually be overrun by those seeking to steal all those supplies you carefully put away.
To be truly prepared for that SHTF day, you have to be capable of finding food, water, and shelter anywhere. You need to have a treasure trove stashed away between your ears, not in the basement! Yes, you need some stuff stashed away, but not more than you can carry. Someone with half a Wal-mart in their basement is going to die surrounded by all that junk. The guy who can pick up and run like hell is the one who’s going to survive.
However, since I'm prepping for tornados and severe wind events, and not hordes of zombies, I think I'll keep on doing what I'm doing, if you don't mind too much.
After all, having all those supplies and the skills to use them kept me fed after the market crash in 2008.
/johnny
Look on the bright side: you’re not pregnant!
/johnny
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