You’ll need wheat. Hard Red Spring Wheat. And you’ll need a GOOD grinder; preferably one that can be either electrically run OR hand-cranked, ‘cuz the power WILL go out, and who knows for how long.
A single bushel of wheat is good for about 70-75 loaves of fresh bread. Figure you’ll be on a subsistence diet, so bread will be a major staple. That’d mean you’d be allocating about 1/3 loaf per person per day, assuming you’ve got veggies, occasional meat, and maybe seasonal fresh fruit available.
Now, we’ve got to suss out just how long this will need to go on. I’ve good reason to vote for 1335 days, but figure a full five years on the outside, just to allow for contingencies (early onset of duress, or delayed recovery of the supply chain afterward).
All told, then, you’d need enough wheat to bake 610 loaves of bread in order to get you through; dividing by 70 and rounding up (to be conservative) that’s 9 bushels of wheat per person; 540 pounds.
Now, I happen to have priced Hard Red Spring Whate just a few weeks ago, and found that it could be had at retail in manageable 50-pound sacks for under $30 each; $28 to be exact.
Figure each person would need 11 50-pound sacks of what to see them through five years of duress, and that comes out to a little over $300.
At that rate, you can stock up on wheat AND keep most all of your precious metals. Just be sure you store your grain in a DRY location that is impervious to vermin and other pests, because they WILL get into it if they can.
AND...lasty but not leastly...get yer butt ta church on Sunday; open Book, insert face. No use goin’ through all of this trouble to be prepared for upheaval, only to fall short at the end ‘cuz ya missed the main point of it.
You don’t live me do you? :-)
You can run the commisary, I’ve got the arsenal and guard detail. The “hospital” is about five houses up on the left.
It’s posts like yours that make me glad to be a FReeper. Thanks for the great info.
Vote for 1335 days?
So do I Revelation 3.5 years.
Also, we used to get our wheat in large plastic bins (kind of like a large paint barrel) and also you can buy some special tops that go on them that you can replace that snap on lids with. I can't remember the name of the supplier for those barrels or tops. Thanks for any info, feel free to Freepmail if this is not appropriate for the thread.
good point about wheat. How long does dry wheat keep? Would it not be better to get two electric and two hanf crank grinders, just as backups?
Wood burning ovens?
Where do you get it that cheap?