Posted: 6/4/2010 6:17:47 AM EDT
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If you were to add to the following food stores, where would you look to increase?
1. MREs A little over 35 cases, or about 7 man-months worth. These are real military MREs, sorted by date, and I do have a rotation system that works. The oldest ones are only about halfway through their shelf life and should be rotated with brand new ones this fall. They are easily totable, and two a day provides over 2k calories (most military MREs average about 1250 calories if you eat everything). 2. Mountain House #10 Cans A little over 60 cans, or about 4 man-months worth, of a variety of stuff. They are good for really long-term storage and are probably the most compact for what you get, but do generally demand more prep. These are sorted by date as well, and they get rotated and eaten but on a much slower/rarer basis than the MREs. My oldest cans still have 10 years on them. 3. Conventional Canned Food About 250 cans of a wide variety of stuff. I'm guessing that is maybe 1-1/2 man-months. They have the shortest shelf life, but are rotated by date and eaten on a regular basis. They are portable, but heavy and probably take the most space for what they offer. I do have staples as well, but frankly I'm not much of a cooker now due to time constraints and travel. Stocking up on more flour, salt etc will do almost nothing for me now, and would violate the eat-what-you-store, store-what-you-eat principle I try to follow. Each type of what I mentioned has its' strengths and weaknesses. So what is the gang's opinion of where I should expand? |
| Sounds like you have a good system that works for you. I would reconsider the storage of certain staples, especially salt. Don't look at it solely from the stand point of cooking or food additive. Salt has a multitude of uses that would prove beneficial when things go south, most importantly, IMHO, is as a food preservative. Additionally, I also subscribe to the "eat what you store" principle, except for some staples. Storing a few hundred pounds of rice, pinto beans and wheat berries doesn't cost that much and they will store for 20+ years, which is a nice bit of insurance that you can essentially forget about unless needed. |
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Quoted:
Storing a few hundred pounds of rice, pinto beans and wheat berries doesn't cost that much and they will store for 20+ years, which is a nice bit of insurance that you can essentially forget about unless needed. That's what I'm working on, and you can store it and forget it. |
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some more staples would be warranted......rice can stretch everything you spoke of by months.
throw some dried beans into the mix and you have extended your stores considerably. Don't forget the spices....properly packaged and stored...they can go way beyond their "shelf life" as mentioned above....salt....lots of it.....sams has the large restaurant boxes...4lbs per box....gallon Ziploc and a drypac....good to go. We got some of the 15lb bags and then decided to go with the smaller boxes....it's cheap. bottles of soy sauce....hot sauce.....etc...help make it more palatable......blan food sucks. you're on the right track......become one with the ant.....screw the grasshopper. |
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How far are you from your goal as far as how many people you would like to feed for how long? If you just want another month or two pick out whatever you like to eat the most and add more, if you want to add years worth of food for a large family it probably makes sense to look into the rice/beans/wheat long term storage items. |
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I've got tons of salt and sugar and spices and such already, too.
I do think the addition of more bulk rice and beans is probably a good thing. It really doesn't fit into my eat/rotate plan, but they are cheap enough that it probably won't matter. I see some 5gallon buckets with mylar in my future. Thanks! |
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depends. what is your strategy? Bug in or Bug out? if bug out do you have a tractor trailer to move all those cases of MRE's? if your bugging in after tshtf your busy work schedule won't be a hinderance to your cooking anymore. i'm not trying to be a douche but the answers you are looking for will greatly depend on what your strategy is.
if bugging out i would suggest more staples at your bug out location (if its secure, and space willing). if bugging in i would again suggest the staples, but make sure to also keep those MRE's stacked deep (variety being the spice of life and all that...) in both cases i would think about more mountain house. if your at a static location, or going to one, the prep time should be a non issue since you'll have the time available. |
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I have an alternate BOL, but this is at my primary BIL which is suitable for sustainable use. I have no intentions of hauling all this- less than 1/2 of this food would fit into my fullsize truck, and that's without any of the other preps.
Actually, my experiences and observations make me think quite the opposite in terms of available time after a major crisis. Everywhere I've been offgrid or in total 3rd world locations, the duties of security/maintenance/healthcare/hygeine/food production/food prep INCREASE in terms of how much time they take, not decrease. |
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I have found that when I look at trying to increase food stores I don't just increase one area. All areas tend to increase and while one might increase more than the others they all wind up needing to increase in many cases. The mre stuff would be limited by what I wanted to rotate and that would be based on the fact I hate just giving things away when they get to expiration date so I would eat them to rotate them. The freeze dried stuff I actually like but I have not messed with the big cans of it so I don't know what I would think about having to rotate them, but with their lifespan I think I could work it out since part of me eating what needs to be rotated is me learning to deal with my food stores. And if something happens I am going to be needing to learn how to deal with my food stores, so no biggy there. As far as the pantry goes I am kind of looking at canning my own stuff so I can get around to learning to can stuff but I also am getting tired of the store bought stuff in many cases and want to can what I want to eat when it comes to soups or stews and what not. I am a fan of rice and beans but I admit I might go overboard on how much I store when it comes to me rotating it all. Rice and beans are cheap and store for a nice long time and I expect to be helping out a lot of folks and I don't have any other way to feed a lot of people other than doing it on the cheap with rice and beans. Things like salt don't go bad if you keep it from getting wet or getting bugs in it or whatever. So I am planning to put up a bit of salt way beyond what I would rotate since in my opinion it does not need to be rotated if stored properly. Short version, add in some more mre cases and some more freeze dried stuff but I would probably work on the pantry the most. |
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Quoted:
If you were to add to the following food stores, where would you look to increase? 1. MREs A little over 35 cases, or about 7 man-months worth. These are real military MREs, sorted by date, and I do have a rotation system that works. The oldest ones are only about halfway through their shelf life and should be rotated with brand new ones this fall. They are easily totable, and two a day provides over 2k calories (most military MREs average about 1250 calories if you eat everything). 2. Mountain House #10 Cans A little over 60 cans, or about 4 man-months worth, of a variety of stuff. They are good for really long-term storage and are probably the most compact for what you get, but do generally demand more prep. These are sorted by date as well, and they get rotated and eaten but on a much slower/rarer basis than the MREs. My oldest cans still have 10 years on them. 3. Conventional Canned Food About 250 cans of a wide variety of stuff. I'm guessing that is maybe 1-1/2 man-months. They have the shortest shelf life, but are rotated by date and eaten on a regular basis. They are portable, but heavy and probably take the most space for what they offer. I do have staples as well, but frankly I'm not much of a cooker now due to time constraints and travel. Stocking up on more flour, salt etc will do almost nothing for me now, and would violate the eat-what-you-store, store-what-you-eat principle I try to follow. Each type of what I mentioned has its' strengths and weaknesses. So what is the gang's opinion of where I should expand? You are gonna have all kinds of time to cook after SHTF, it will likely be the high point of your day. Start stocking up on staples like rice, beans, potatos etc. You might find a combination of canned and freeze dried that provides enough calories and vitamins to live on, just realize that it's not enough to keep you from being hungry. The purpose of a larder as large as yours is to get you thru your first harvest and/or for society to correct itself. No point in being miserable all the way there. |
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I am working on some bucket storage for Rice and beans in Mylar
I plan to add some Salt, Pepper, Bouillon Powered and other spices to the mix Cook one small portion of rice with out ANY spices and you'll see why I am adding them I had been forgetting to add a touch of salt to my Grits Makes a HUGH difference |
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You are gonna have all kinds of time to cook after SHTF, it will likely be the high point of your day.
I am REALLY surprised at how many people keep saying things like this. The time and work spent on a garden/crop system to provide sustainable food supplies is IMMENSE. The time to cook using something other than our modern appliances is IMMENSE. The time to clean up and preserve food using other than our modern appliances is IMMENSE. Travel around the world, or do primitive living here in the US, and it becomes obvious real quick that there aren't enough hours in the day to do what most of us would want to be doing. The larder is exactly what others have said- it is designed as an insurance policy to get through to harvest and through disruptions of the sustainable plans. But the time to execute those plans is WAY more than is spent now. |