A guide to
self reliant living
1. Basic Food Storage
By
Miles Stair
Many people
are now considering the need of food and related preparation as
an antidote for avoiding starvation. You might find this statement
astounding, given the abundance of food to be purchased in our
prosperous times, but I will put a question to you: Where will
you buy food when you refuse the Mark of the Beast? When irrational
weather changes caused by anomalies of the sun bring severe drought
and famine stalks the land, will you be prepared? When hyperinflation
shrinks the value of the dollar to pennies, will you have a "turnip
winter," or survive well with your own resources?
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These
are legitimate concerns for all, especially the persons on fixed
incomes or those existing on already overstretched wages. God
helps those who help themselves. You can and should prepare, no
matter how powerless you might feel considering the magnitude
of what looms before us. Even those with little storage space
or living in an apartment can prepare! And be prepared for
incredible increases in the price of basic foods - a real
food shock, as the stockpiles of
grains are now at record lows.
[In the context
of food preparations, in this article I will essentially only
cover purchased foodstuffs, not what you can grow yourself.
Conventional gardening is covered in
another section, as is greenhouse
gardening and a number of articles linked to those pages.
Growing your own food supplies takes a lot of work and time.
For example, it took me two years to make a sandwich that
was completely my own. The first year I grew white wheat
from seed which I purchased. The second year I was able to
grow wheat from my own surplus seed stock and grind it for flour.
The mayonnaise had to be made with eggs from chickens I raised.
The "hamburger" had to be ground from surplus male dairy goat
meat, and the cheese made from twice daily milking of those Alpine
dairy goats. That takes more time and effort than most
people have right now. So buying food stocks is the only
viable alternative.]
Let
us see what can be done with a preparation budget of $300.00.
Beginning
preparations of food storage should start with inexpensive, yet
nourishing, bulk foods: rice, beans and wheat. These grains are
inexpensive and can be safely stored for decades in 5 gallon buckets.
Standard white pastry filling buckets may be found (used, but
clean) for free or a nominal cost at bakeries and restaurants,
but they are actually more like 4 gallon capacity. The strongest
storage buckets are the green or blue pickle or relish versions,
and these are taller and hold about 5 gallons. Even washed thoroughly,
the vinegar aroma is still present, but will dissipate over a
year and does no harm.
Rice
may be purchased in 20 pound sacks for about $8.00 each, and pinto
beans (p. vulgaris) are available in 25 pound sacks for about
$12.50 per sack. Whole feed wheat sells for about $7.50 per 50
pound sack. To properly
store
grains in buckets, they must be completely filled.
Three sacks of rice will fill two white pastry buckets, while
2 sacks of beans will fill 3 buckets. Two 50 pound sacks of wheat
will fill 3 buckets. So buying enough rice, beans or wheat in
the quantities required for filled buckets will make life a lot
easier - segmented buying, as it were - convenient for phased
stockpiling.
For
example, begin with rice. It is available in 20 pound sacks at
large grocery stores, as are large sacks of beans. For wheat,
order from a nearby "Feed & Seed" country store.
If you cannot lift the weight of the sacks, try to find a friend
who will help you. Both rice and wheat can be stored in
buckets for decades! Beans last only about three years, so
rotate your stock!
At
this point we have used less than $65 of our $300 budget, and
have 7 buckets full of more than 200 pounds of nutritious food.
To this basic starch/filler food supply may be added cases of
corn, cut green beans and peas. These may often be found on sale
for 24 cents per can, or $6.00 per case of 24 each. To prevent
rusting of the cans and therefore prolong shelf life,
the
cans should be waxed.
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Those
who have a food dehydrator can store the same quantities
for about the same price, but using far less space and weight.
Packages of frozen corn or peas may be dumped on dryer trays,
and in about 6 hours (depending upon the dehydrator model) are
dried to perfection. These can be stored in Zip Lock bags, which
themselves are stored in 5 gallon buckets. Parsley, carrots and
celery may also be chopped up and dried in a similar manner, then
used in soups and stews.
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Now
we need to add some protein to the storage foods. Cans of tuna
or corned beef are nutritious and tasty. The tuna may often be
found on sale for about 50 cents a can, the corned beef for about
$1.50 per can.
Three dozen cans of tuna and a dozen cans of corn
beef consume approximately $35, so our total for food items is
still less than $120.00. These cans should be
coated in wax
to prevent rust, and will last in storage for 5 to 7 years at
least.
The food listed above will keep the average family alive and
healthy for months. The variety is not great, but that can be
remedied by additions to the storage supply over the course of
months.
But what do you do with those bulk grains? The pinto beans and
rice may be cooked as is, but the wheat needs to be ground or
cracked. A cereal identical to "ZOOM" can be made by grinding the
wheat kernels in a grain grinder (mill) with the burrs not quite
touching. Set the burrs closer, so they barely touch when turned
"dry," and you can produce flour - and thence bread. Dry corn may
be ground for corn meal, mush or muffins. [
www.NorthernTool.com
sometimes sells an Chinese version of the grinder shown below, their item
number 168670, for $22.99. If they are out,
Lehman's Hardware has mill
#37250 which is
made in Mexico.] This grinder has steel burrs, so
it can grind corn and beans as well as wheat. Stone burrs
get clogged when grinding corn or beans, but do provide a finer
wheat flour.
Of
our budget of $300.00 we have used less than $120, so there is
still enough left for the purchase of a grain grinder, a kerosene
stove with which to cook, some kerosene lanterns (and wicks),
and kerosene. You can do it!
ADDITIONAL
FOOD PRESERVATION PAGE LINKS
Those
who do not wish to store whole grains and purchase a grain grinder
can
store
flour, but it does not last as long in storage
as whole grains. Corn meal may be purchased in boxes, but for
long term storage the
boxes
should be waxed.
As
an alternative to storing sugar, it is better to
store
honey.
Ultimately,
when electricity, and therefore refrigeration, is no longer reliable,
it is possible to preserve meat the old fashioned way, by making
pemmican, jerky, and smoking, covered here under Survival Meat
Preserving. Part 1 covers
Pemmican.
Part 2 has instructions for making
jerky.
Part 3 show how to build and use a
smoke
house.
Meat
and vegetables may also be canned using a kerosene or wood stove
as the heat source. Canning requires attention to detail,
particularly knowing the correct length of time needed to properly
process various foods: low acid vegetables and meat can take a
long time to be done properly. Over the years, the USDA and
canning jar makers have changed their recommendations for both the
duration of time and the methods used in canning, as the "nanny"
government and product liability lawyers have become involved in
those recommendations. Canning requires that you pay
attention, and that you have some guidelines to follow. The
links below are to .pdf files from a 1948 Kerr canning book.
I take no responsibility for any of the recommendations given for
canning. UPDATE NOVEMBER 24, 2007. To save disk space
on my server I had to eliminate the following canning
guidelines from this web site. The information is still on
my EndTimesReport CD in Adobe 7.0.
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The photo
above shows my kerosene stove canning system using a water
bath canner (right) and a bottling tank for canning apple
juice. Barely visible on the left is another kerosene stove.
Click on the photo. |
Those interested
in home canning the old fashioned way are welcome in an egroup
devoted to that particular topic -
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/southernsmallholder/?yguid=238877007
.
A shopping list will help with a planned, systematic food
preparation program, so that all the food groups are included.
Ultimately,
as your preparations progress, you will want to compare what you
have with the
"How
Much to Store?" lists of recommended quantities.
USDA Home
and Garden Bulletins which can be downloaded for free.
Your tax dollars paid for them! Tons of information.
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