Prepare: Getting Started Part Four Food Part Three

A final word on food. If you are a new to "prepping" for emergencies, having a food strategy should be your first priority. Even if you are a on a strict budget and watch every penny, you can still purchase and store extra food for very little money.

Earlier, we talked about two food buying strategies as well as food storage plans. Today, we are going to talk about really long term food strategies.

If you have read other preparedness forums and blogs, you will often hear participants talking about "wheat", "wheat grinders" or something similar. There is a reason for this.
Wheat is one of the oldest foods know to man and one which has been harvested for thousands of years. Wheat, when store properly, can remain fresh for use for years. There have been wheat kernels found in Egytian tombs which could be sprouted for instance.

Wheat is the basic component for bread and cereal. Also, most wheat has nutrients and minerals neccessary for sustaining life. Wheat, rather than its' processed form, flour, is desirable because it retains the nutritional content that flour loses far too soon after it is processed.

Wheat also is good for you. The high fiber content is good for digestion and has far more benefits than that bag of chemically induced Wonder Bread.

There are several varieties of wheat and each is good for certain things. Like hard red winter wheat is good for bread while soft wheat is good for pastry and pie shells. Know your wheat before you buy!

Buying whole kernel wheat requires something to grind it with to reduce it to soluable form like to a cereal or fine for bread flour. A wheat grinder is needed and there are several types to consider. For normal times, having an electric grinder is convinient, whereas in a post-power situation, a manual grinder is needed. Buy quality. Some grinders are well priced, but are not suitable for long term use. Read reviews and ask others.

Wheat can be stored in plastic buckets with bag liners like rice.

Cooking oil is another long term storage food to stock up on. Oil provides fats which are critical to health. Vegetable and olive oil, when stored in sealed containers, can last for years with out going rancid.

Powdered milk is also stored by many long term preppers. Milk is rich in calcium of course, and is neccessary for strong bones and teeth.

Finally, a sweetener like sugar or honey should be stored as well.

Many preppers store these four basic food products, along with mulitple vitamins for long term storage. Basically, one could live off just these four foods for a very long time. The odds are even better if one can supplement these foods with a garden and some occasional fresh meat (i.e. game, chickens, etc).

However, gettting started, first store foods you know and will eat.

In the next segment, we will take a look at water - how to store it, collect it, find it and purify it.

Mountain House Freeze-Dried Food

Prepare: Getting Started Part Three Food Part Two

Are the titles of these posts getting confusing? I hope not. This is a continuation of a "getting started" series for new preppers. Like you, I am no expert. I learned what I know about preparedness on the job and from websites like mine. I hope you find it useful.

My last post dove in to the subject of food, namely, building a practical long term food supply. If you have some liquid income, feel free to skip the hard work and make a purchase of LTS food from Mountain House or one of my other advertisers. My better half will appreciate it!

Otherwise, if you are pinching pennies and watching every buck, but want to have a preparedness plan in place, please read on.

As I mentioned yesterday, a food plan does not have to be so disconcerting. There are two easy methods to building a food supply -

One - Buy Two! That is when buying one item, double the purchase. Please limit this to dry, canned and shelf stable foods. Instead of two cans of tuna, get four. Five pounds of sugar on the list? Get ten. Take the extra and store it away.

Two - Buy Bulk. Get a membership to a warehouse club or search out an ethnic grocery store. Both carry extra large sizes of certain commodity foods like rice, pasta, flour, sugar and so on. Instead of purchasing a one pound bag of rice, get a twenty five pound bag. Place in proper storage and add to the storage until there is a one year supply for the number of people in the house. 

Both of these food buying plans demand the right storage. Putting a plastic bag of rice on the shelf may result in a bag of bug infestation at a future date. Food storage is mandatory. 

I store my dry bulk goods in 5 and 6 gallon buckets. I place the food item in a sealable plastic bag with an anti-moisture packet, place in the bucket, seal tightly and stack in a cool, dark closet inside the house. 

Don't store food - 

- in cloth or burlap bags. 

- outside in damp, temperature extreme sheds. 

- in hot attics

- only in original packaging.

- on ground or dirt floors susceptible to flooding, bugs or accessible by larger vermin such as rats or mice. 

I picked up my buckets at a restaurant supply store. I have also used the sealable buckets from the hardware store and they work well for me. Some of my buckets are five years old and I have had no problem with them. 

Here's a good video about storing food: 

There will be one more part on food before we move on to the other topics. In the meantime..

- Buy Two - buy double and store the extra.
- Buy Bulk - buy big sizes and store
- Store properly

Get your supply of storable food at eFoodsDirect.com!

Prepare: Bulk Foods For Storage

Everyone should store food. Bulk foods should be stored due to rising food prices and possible food shortages. Put together a bulk food storage plan today.

Food has been on my mind a lot lately because of a number of reasons. First, I have been on my new Prepper Diet for the past few weeks and it has changed the way I shop and eat. Second, because of the economy, I have become more aware of the need to have insurance in place when money is really tight. Insurance like some spare gasoline for the car, cash tucked away in the shoebox for rainy days and extra food when the grocery store is too expensive to visit.

With paydays disappearing, having food stored is a neccessity.

Here are my bulk foods I have been storing and glad to have on hand.

Rice - always. We make 2-3 cups a day and eat it at lunch and dinner.

Beans - I go through two big bags of dried beans a week.

Flour - I make a batch of quick Bible bread each night. My kids take it to school with sandwiches, the baby eats it for lunch, and I eat it with rice and beans.

Honey - we use this on oatmeal, in tea, everywhere.

Oil - Cooking oil such as vegetable and olive. We use both liberally when cooking.

Oatmeal - the whole family had this on Friday for breakfast.

Yeast - To make bread of course. I buy the one pound bag and store in the freezer.

Dried fruit, nuts, etc - we make the kids trail mix to take to school for snack time. We buy these in big bags and store in the fridge.

Pasta - we buy regular spaghetti and other types. We make pasta several times a week for dinner.

Canned vegetables, fruits, stock - we buy this by the case only. There is no reason to buy one or two cans when you can by 12 or 24 and stock them in the pantry, cupboard or in a closet.

We also buy meat of course, and milk, fresh produce and so forth. But this what we get at the warehouse store and keep in five gallon buckets or the pantry.

That is my food insurance.

Prepare: Prepper for President of the US

How many times have you said "If I were president, I would..."? Usually, it is reaction to something on tv which further exhibits the idiocy of our appointed leaders.

And usually our reaction is to something which makes our blood boil like taxes, mistreatment of our military or the UN.

However, from time to time, I give it real thought of solutions and how I could bring them into being if I were President.

Lately, I have been very concerned about famine, starvation, and the price of commodity foods in the world. With weather, fuel prices, and environmental lunacy looming which will adversely affect the ability of this country to grow enough food to feed ourselves (and a good hunk of the rest of the world), food production and storage are first and foremost on my mind.

If I were president, I would embark on the following plan - Project Egypt or Joseph - I can't decide yet. If you are a student of the Bible, you remember the account from the Book of Genesis where Joseph, favored son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers and ended up in a position of authority in Egypt. During this time, Joseph interpreted the pharaoh's dream that a famine was about to fall upon the land.

Because of the dream interpretation, Egypt went on a crash course of famine prevention. They laid in a store of grain for seven years and when the famine came, they kept their population fed and solidified their power over their neighbors.

If President, I would start a famine prevention plan as well. I would rebuild the grain silos across the country, but specifically in regards to where the population is currently. I would buy excess grain, oats, rice, and wheat from farmers. There would be no more agricultural subsidies not to grow food. The excess production would be stored until there was at least a seven year supply of food, both human and silage, in storage.

Next, I would rebuild the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Politicians seem to think it is a piggy bank for lowering the price of gasoline at the pumps, it's not. It is an emergency source of fuel to power the US in the event of a crisis. I would do the same with coal, natural gas and uranium.

I would rebuild the nation's emergency medicine stockpiles and again, they would be distributed throughout the nation so they would be accessible to all areas with minimal travel.

So why do this? Because, it is a matter of time until we have a nuclear attack, EMP burst, biological attack or something similar which will show the weakest parts of our defenses. The ability to feed, fuel and treat ourselves if production were halted or brought down to a lower level.

But there are no offers to sit in the White House so we get to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Prepare: Food Storage FAQ

This question has come up before and with winter full on, food storage for tough times is on everyone's mind.

First, go read Allen Hagen's definitive work on food storage - Food Storage FAQ.
There is no reason for me to attempt to do this subject justice as Allen has before with authority. Best of all, Hagen has shared this information with the world for free. That's a life save these days.

Yes, there are good books online for sale like Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living and Talmidge's Making the Best of Basics. But if yot are just getting started, research on the internet first before spending money which can be spent on food later.

Before starting a food storage program, look at what you eat. The old "Store what you eat, eat what you store" rule applies, but there is more to it.

For instance, what do you normally eat for lunch or dinner? Let's say its a piece of meat or maybe chicken, some sort of carb like potatoes or rice, vegtable or two, some bread and maybe a piece of cake or pie for dessert.

In the post-SHTF world, that probably won't be on the menu. You may be able to cook, but power will be out or on short availability. Forget running the electric oven or microwave.

Also meat will be a treat served in a different manner than an eight ounce slab on a plate. Meat will be used to flavor a larger dish like stew or soup. Or maybe cooked to make a gravy to go over rice or noodles. Vegtables will be fresh in the summer and pickled in the winter.

The staple for most meals will be a filling carbohydrate like rice, pasta, grain or bread. A gravy, soup or stew will be poured over it. Bread, baked in multiple loves a couple of times a week, will be the scrape/dunk tool to eat with meals. Fruit will be rare and served as a dessert or treat.

Besides the information from Allen Hagens' site, you should stock up on some things he does not mention. For instance..

Canned goods - Get plenty of the canned foods you do like to eat. Watch the dates! Some expire in one year, while others in more than three.

Dried pasta - Spaghetti, noodles, all of it. Watch the per pound price at the store.

Canning supplies - when the garden comes in, you can't eat everything and you don't want to waste it. Remember, a case of jars is only 12 and that won't last very long. Try and pick up as many jars and rings, rings, rings as you can. And salt and sugar for preseving.

Dried goods - which brings up another. Yes, Hagen recommends whole wheat grains, but I always suggest that food storage means getting regular flour as well. And get the aforementioned sugar, salt, baking soda, powder, yeast and other dried goods needed.

The thought of your family going hungry should bother any parent or spouse. Start a food storage program today and don't wait for hunger to set in to get you motivated.