10 replies to this topic

[CrabGrassAcres]

I store grains, dried beans, dried potatoes, sugar, etc enough for 7 yrs. This is not a complete diet and need fats and proteins BUT it keeps well, is fairly cheap to acquire now, doesn't require a lot of space to store, and provides needed calories. (I store more dried potatoes than most folks because it is something daughter can eat and it is hard to keep seed potatoes from one yr to the next in this climate.)

Why 7 yrs? Probably because it is Biblical that famines would sometimes last 7 yrs. Also, I know that I will not be able to grow all that myself, especially since I have no help. Even with help, there is no guarantee that conditions will be right to grow much if there is a very bad stretch of either drought, excessive rainfall, heat or in some areas, freezing. I should be able to scratch enough wild greens together, maybe gather some acorns, might be able to have a garden too.

I remember reading about the Irish potato famine and how hard it was to get basic calories. There were green things a plenty, but while they provide vitamins, there are not enough calories to sustain life.

Read about people in Bosnia who had to take extreme risks daily to try to find food and many were killed while looking for something to eat. That lasted about a yr, but things weren't a lot better after. I understand it is still hard.

We think it couldn't happen here. The stores will be resupplied shortly if there is a disaster. We only need a few days/weeks of groceries and then we can buy more. Believing this is foolishness. What makes America so special that we can't have a widespread disaster? Resources have been stretched to the limit with the storm in the east, the fires in the west and drought thru much of the country. Last yr there was NO corn harvest in Texas. I went from paying less than $5/50# for corn to paying 10.98. It is still up and the rest of the country doesn't look like having a corn harvest this yr. Other crops are also affected, but when a nation uses corn like we do, that loss is going to adversely affect all food prices.

Contrary to what many seem to believe, the gov cannot control the weather.

If I didn't store anything else, we wouldn't starve.

However, I also have 4+ yrs of home canned meat stored. We rotate thru this regularly, adding to it and eating the older jars, which taste as good as when I canned them.

I try to keep 2+ yrs of dried fruits and veggies on hand. I do usually have a garden, but this yr I am not well enough and some yrs it doesn't do much. Probably 3-4 yrs would be more prudent. Some yrs you don't get a good crop. Other yrs you get a bumper of one or more items. Whenever I do get a bumper, I am sure to can or dry as much as possible. I dried a LOT of yellow squash last yr. I canned winter squash. Still have peas and corn in the freezer (cause I like them better frozen than canned and am willing to risk the loss). Also have lots of dried onions, bell peppers, hot peppers, celery, etc. And plenty of herbs for seasoning.

I have at least 2 more yrs of lard in the freezer as well as butter. Fat is important, but I get most of my fat calories from the raw goat milk. If you do not have a dairy animal, you need to store powdered milk for several yrs, especially if you have children.( I have 12 dairy goats. Probably get a couple more pigs next yr and perhaps a calf or two to use the excess milk. I'm not getting a lot right now, milking 6 that are off peak. Bringing in just over a gallon in the morning and feeding the evening milk to the animals. I put some in the freezer and canned a good bit for animal feed since the goats will be dropping more until they are dry.)


Why so much?
Insurance.
I do not know the future, but I can read about the past. Times of prosperity are inevitably followed by times of poverty and want.
I don't like being hungry.
I don't like competing with others for scarce goods.
I don't want to go to a relocation camp so we don't starve.
Things are already getting hard. They aren't going to improve any in the near future. Many, many intelligent people believe things are going to get much, much worse.

Are you ready for it?
Can you feed your family when there is nothing in the store and your pockets are empty?

[jeanettecentaur]

You said it, CGA! Prepping is the best insurance ever!

In our home, we are planning for a minimum 1-2 year food supply. We only have about 7 months of food right now, but it is very diverse, and ranges from Mainstay Bars and Heat'em and Eat'em MRE's to Freeze Dried #10 cans, Homemade Dehydrated meats and Veggies, to canned goods both Store Bought and Home Made. I try to make sure that any time I walk into Sams Club I grab a Mountain of Spam, a Gallon of Peanut Oil or Olive Oil, Salt, Spices, and Toilet Paper without fail.

Whenever we are annoyed with the News or want to stick it to the .gov, we grab some more Ammo...lol!

I know that prepping is serious business, but I have never had a hobby that I enjoy more!

[themartianchick]

We try to have at least 2 years on hand...or at least that is the goal. I sometimes fall off the prepping wagon and allow my supplies to get low. Reight now, we are low. I haven't done a meal inventory in a while. I like to figure out how many servings we have and then divide by four to simulate meals. I know that we're low on fruit juice, cereals and the various incarnations of milk that we stock (evaporated, dry, shelf stable, soy, coconut).

Edited by themartianchick, 18 July 2012 - 09:59 PM.

[dogmom4]

CGA! This is the post I was looking for!

[CrabGrassAcres]

[Ambergris]

I am slowly building back up from just about nothing. Every week, I make one trip to the grocery store without anyone with me to say "We have plenty of that" and pick up beans, barley, rice (white or converted), sugar, salt, or oil. Four pounds of rice, barley, or lentils will tidily fill a two-liter soda bottle, while seven pounds of black eyed peas or garbanzos will fill two bottles. I collect the empty soda bottles after the office's monthly birthday parties. I'm probably the only person in the office with two paper boxes (boxes that the paper comes in) filled with two-liter bottles of food under her desk.

At home, I have just cleaned off three reinforced shelves to put bottles on. These people I live with seem to think they have a say in what I buy. They don't. Life will be easier when they accept this.

[CrabGrassAcres]

Amber, I once had a bunch of people living with me that thought the same. Definitely easier without them.

[Gunplumber]

The key, in my opinion, is to store what you use anyway. Sure there will be some stuff that is for emergencies only, but I look at it as a hedge against inflation. If a can of beans costs 10% more next year, isn't having one already the same as a 10% return on my investment? The difference is, you can't eat a silver coin. Or a stock certificate. So it really doesn't matter if there is a TEOTWAWKI scenario, you're still gonna eat.

Being self-employed, I have periods of feast and famine. When the money is there, I buy staples far in excess of what I need. Should I become injured, or ill, or otherwise unable to work for a period of time, I know I can still eat. This is of great comfort. And should a friend fall on hard times, I can be more generous (with oldest expiration dates of course).

Seems to me, the first thing to go will be power. So I haven't gone with frozen food. But from what I've read of other wars and disasters, lard/cooking oil is one of the highest demand items.

[Deb2of9]

GunPlumber, that sounds alot like how I prepare. I am way down in my preps. For the first time in months I can look at my shelves and see that I have enough for a little while, but no where near enough. I am down on my preps because I was out of work for almost a year. Have been working again for two years now, but every time I get a little ahead, something else seems to happen to go into my stores. In the past two years I have doubled my household size and ended up cutting my income so it seems there is always too much month after the money runs out. I also have two people living with me that don't seem to get the prepping. One of them accepts it but doesn't believe in it. The other believes in it, but doesn't seem to listen when I say to stay out of my staples. He will open a whole can of milk just to put a little milk in his coffee and then let the rest of it go to waste. I am fighting a battle of time, money, space and the people in the house to get my stores built back up. I am not comfortable unless I have at least 3 months. What I want though is more like 2 - 3 years worth of basics. I haven't made it there yet. The best I have accomplished is just about 9 months when I lost my job before. Now I have a job, but they keep cutting my hours. So for now I scrape by with getting a couple extra cans of something every pay day. Some day, if I keep adding to it, I will have what I want put up. In the mean time, I need to find a place to store what I want to put up to keep everyone out of it. Extra of something does not mean you can make more of it. It means that I will have it for later. I am trying to get them to see that. I did win my one brother over to having some water and a couple of months of food on hand by him being out of work and living on his own before I took him in. When I was out of work, my stores supplied both of our houses and he knows it. He just doesn't see any point to more than a couple of months. The other brother does see the point, but he has been homeless for 10 years before moving in with me. He seems to be at the point right now where you have to eat it when you have it because you don't know when you will get it again. In his head he knows that we need to save the extras, but he still has this driving need to eat when it is available and worry about tomorrow when it comes. I am working on him and am making progress...in the mean time I hide away stuff that I want him to stay out of since asking doesn't seem to work. I think sometimes our family can be the biggest obsticle to putting things up for later.

[Gunplumber]

The other believes in it, but doesn't seem to listen when I say to stay out of my staples. He will open a whole can of milk just to put a little milk in his coffee and then let the rest of it go to waste.

Seems like prepping is the least of your concerns. This is a serious character issue. He's saying "screw you" in no uncertain terms.

[Gibbs]

Ideally 2-4yrs. We've worked hard over the last 2yrs to prep and to also gain skills. We have a solid year of calories. We have a solid 4mos of balanced meals. See the difference. I spent some time focusing on rice, beans, oatmeal and dried food to make it all taste good. I've been canning a lot the last year and drying so we've got some fruit to mix it all in. I've got about a years worth there. We've just started preassure canning. We live in an agricultural area. I can usually find fruit and some veg cheap but that doesn't equal adequate caloric intake. I also only store what we eat, we roatate through items. Thankfully I have a husband who gets it. He focuses a lot on the hardware side of thins and I focus on food and first aide.