7 Mistakes of Food Storage

Discussion in 'Back to Basics' started by melbo, Sep 14, 2005.


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  1. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    January/February 1999 Backwoods Home Magazine

    SELF-RELIANCE
    By Vicki Tate

    7 Mistakes of Food Storage

    If you are going to store food, make sure that the food you store is adequate for the need you and your family anticipate. This may not be as easy as to achieve as many people think, because the facts are that most people make serious errors when storing food—errors that will come back to haunt them when the food they’ve stored is the only thing that stands between them and their empty, dissatisfied, bellies. There are seven common mistakes people make when storing food. They are:

    1. Variety
    Most people don’t have enough variety in their storage. 95% of the people I’ve worked with have only stored four basic items: wheat, milk, honey, and salt. Statistics show most of us won’t survive on such a diet for several reasons.

    a) Many people are allergic to wheat and may not be aware of it until they are eating it meal after meal.

    b) Wheat is too harsh for young children. They can tolerate it in small amounts but not as their main staple.

    c) We get tired of eating the same foods over and over and many times prefer to not eat, then to sample that particular food again. This is called appetite fatigue. Young children and older people are particularly susceptible to it. Store less wheat than is generally suggested and put the difference into a variety of other grains, particularly ones your family likes to eat. Also store a variety of beans, as this will add color, texture, and flavor. Variety is the key to a successful storage program. It is essential that you store flavorings such as tomato, bouillon, cheese, and onion. Also, include a good supply of the spices you like to cook with. These flavorings and spices allow you to do many creative things with your grains and beans. Without them you are severely limited. One of the best suggestions I can give you is buy a good food storage cookbook, go through it, and see what your family would really eat. Notice the ingredients as you do it. This will help you more than anything else to know what items to store.

    2. Extended staples
    Never put all your eggs in one basket. Store dehydrated and/or freeze dried foods as well as home canned and “store bought” canned goods. Make sure you add cooking oil, shortening, baking powder, soda, yeast, and powdered eggs. You can’t cook even the most basic recipes without these items.

    3. Vitamins
    Vitamins are important, especially if you have children, since children do not store body reserves of nutrients as adults do. A good quality multi-vitamin and vitamin C are the most vital. Others might be added as your budget permits.

    4. Quick and easy and “psychological foods”
    Quick and easy foods help you through times when you are psychologically or physically unable to prepare your basic storage items. “No cook” foods such as freeze-dried are wonderful since they require little preparation, MREs (Meal Ready to Eat), such as many preparedness outlets carry, canned goods, etc. are also very good. “Psychological foods” are the goodies—Jello, pudding, candy, etc.—you should add to your storage. These may sound frivolous, but through the years I've talked with many people who have lived entirely on their storage for extended periods of time. Nearly all of them say these were the most helpful items in their storage to “normalize” their situations and make it more bearable. These are especially important if you have children.

    5. Balance
    Time and time again I’ve seen families buy all of their wheat, then buy all of another item and so on. Don’t do that. It’s important to keep well-balanced as you build your storage. Buy several items, rather than a large quantity of one item. If something happens and you have to live on your present storage, you’ll fare much better having a one month supply of a variety of items than a year’s supply of two or three items.

    6. Containers
    Always store your bulk foods in food storage containers. I have seen literally tons and tons of food thrown away because they were left in sacks, where they became highly susceptible to moisture, insects, and rodents. If you are using plastic buckets make sure they are lined with a food grade plastic liner available from companies that carry packaging supplies. Never use trash can liners as these are treated with pesticides. Don’t stack them too high. In an earthquake they may topple, the lids pop open, or they may crack. A better container is the #10 tin can which most preparedness companies use when they package their foods.

    7. Use your storage
    In all the years I’ve worked with preparedness one of the biggest problems I’ve seen is people storing food and not knowing what to do with it. It’s vital that you and your family become familiar with the things you are storing. You need to know how to prepare these foods. This is not something you want to have to learn under stress. Your family needs to be used to eating these foods. A stressful period is not a good time to totally change your diet. Get a good food storage cookbook and learn to use these foods! It’s better to find out the mistakes you’ll make now while there’s still time to make corrections. It’s easy to take basic food storage and add the essentials that make it tasty, and it needs to be done. As I did the research for my cookbook, Cooking with Home Storage, I wanted to include recipes that gave help to families no matter what they had stored. As I put the material together it was fascinating to discover what the pioneers ate compared to the types of things we store. If you have stored only the basics, there’s very little you can do with it. By adding even just a few things, it greatly increases your options, and the prospect of your family surviving on it. As I studied how the pioneers lived and ate, my whole feeling for food storage changed. I realized our storage is what most of the world has always lived on. If it’s put together the right way we are returning to good basic food with a few goodies thrown in.

    (Vicki Tate is the author of the popular book, Cooking With Home Storage, available through Backwoods Home Magazine. Vicki also lectures on preparedness subjects. You can reach her by calling (435) 835-8283.)

    January/February 1999 Backwoods Home Magazine
     
  2. E.L.

    E.L. Moderator of Lead Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Good info! Variety means a lot. Ever get tired of eating the same ol' thing? Supresses the appetite.
     
  3. meyah

    meyah Monkey+++

    Appetite, starvation are not the same.

    Appetite suppression might be a good thing in hard times. In fact,that's probably why the symtom evolved. What matters is are you getting enough NUTRIENTs, not whether or not you LIKE it.
     
  4. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    Yes, nutrients as the most important...but with planning, one can eliminate the challenge of eating the same bland and nasty rice and beans for weeks. The point is, if you plan ahead, one can avoid some of the problems associated with subsistance living and have a few things to make you feel more like "home".
     
  5. meyah

    meyah Monkey+++

    maybe, but I wouldn't count on it.

    Most likely, you'll have to abandon much of your food, etc, anyway, cause you have to leave a given area,and can't haul it. I'd rather look into wild edible plants, gardening, etc, and just have some basic stuff cached. With a cow jerked and the meat stashed, some grain, and some non-hybrid seeds, some knowledge of plants, and the occasional rabbit, fish, etc, one can muddle thru, and not be constrained to staying where it's not tenable to stay.

    Millions lived because they fled, millions died or were enslaved because they stayed. Remember that history, all over the world, going back thousands of years. Skill at remaining undetected is priceless. The food, etc, is kid stuff.
     
  6. E.L.

    E.L. Moderator of Lead Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    That's right, you enjoy living in your hole while we enjoy our preparations. I plan on being as comfortable as possible.
     
  7. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I'm a fool for living in a stick house while you live in a cave, but then you are going to give your position away by growing a garden.......hmmmm
     
  8. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    [applaud] Deep thought was missing, it seems.
     
  9. meyah

    meyah Monkey+++

    stupid, aint ya?

    99+% will be DEAD, a year after shtf, THAT'S when the gardening starts. Small, scattered, hidden plots. The fact that such things never even OCCUR to you proves my point. You guys think on the level of a 12 year old. you want "comfort", when people are dying by the milliions every day, you are an idiot. They will be perfectly willing to die trying to take your "comforts", and you won't have a clue how to prevent it.
     
  10. E.L.

    E.L. Moderator of Lead Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I am really impressed by your knowledge of just what % of people will be left. What about those that are gardening now? So the only ones left alive will be those like yourself living in a hole with only your .22 for company. Personally, I think you are already living in a hole, by yourself.
     
  11. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    And you don't think the remaining 1% won't be savy to your intelligent ways? Just for your information I've well thought out the gardening gig for quite a few years. First off, I have flown the counter drug program and know exactly how to spot retards trying to hide cultivated plants, so you just think me an idiot. You are not very smart yourself, you have a very ignorant knack for underestimating your enemy. Trust me, if I want your grub, I'll take it after I wipe that stupid know it all grin off your mug. By the way, I have asked you to present your credentials several times and you refuse, just shows you don't know what you talk about. Know what I do for a living? I teach combat survival. By the way, I teach the study of psychology of the enemy and know how to play a mark. You my friend are a very easy mark. You wouldn't last but a few days in a SHTF survival situation, you think you know what you are doing, but you don't have a clue how to out think your enemy.
     
  12. E.L.

    E.L. Moderator of Lead Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I don't think he has any friends that will be willing to protect him either.
     
  13. meyah

    meyah Monkey+++

    hell,50 million will die within a month of the power going

    off. The dead bodies will be everywhere, leading to dogs eating them, diseases, etc. That many are UTTERLY dependent upon vehicles, refrigerated food and meds, air conditioning, electrically powered heat, light, etc. That many are illl, injured, elderly, etc. It took WW2 5 years to kill 50 mill, scattered all over the world. 50 mllion in a month means that they can't even gather the dead,much less burn or bury them, even with bulll dozers in mass graves. they'll be getting shot at while they try such things, most likely.
     
  14. magnus392

    magnus392 Field Marshall Mags Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Re: hell,50 million will die within a month of the power goi

    Yeah, you mall ninjas are bad about doing shit like that.
     
  15. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    So, by living in your hole, that will make you immune from the disease infestation?

    By the way, I gave you my credentials, I'm still waiting for yours? Why won't you just give your credentials? Or are you that fat assed couch potatoe smoker you accused Magnus of being? You probably have to carry an AR because you couldn't heft a 7.62 if your life depended on it. Come on, credentials.
     
  16. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Re: stupid, aint ya?

    Well, if there is only 1% of the world's population left on earth, then there is probably a good reason that mankind has nearly become extinct and this does not sound like an environment that I would care to dwell within, probably full of disease and no food or water.
     
  17. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Not to mention that if there were only 1% of the population left then there would be nothing more to worry about as there would be so much more resources laying around from the dead than people left to use them that no one needs to take what you have they can just pick it up off the ground like gravel on a country road.
     
  18. sniper-66

    sniper-66 Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    The problem is that you have to live in your hidey hole for a year to be one of those 1% types. Sorry, I think I will stick to the "food for the ravenous dogs" Hey, just a thought here. If there is only going to be 1% of the humans, couldn't you then surmise that there will only be 1% of the animals also? Hmmm
     
  19. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Hell I'ld go with the pups too, Im not opposed to Asian dishes and if theres that many of the pooches running around munching on that many bodies then they should be nice and plump and all I would need to do is set back a little ways from a few corpses and have 'puppy chow'. [LMAO]
     
  20. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    We are definitaly going to have an explosion of the coyote population. I think we are going to have a coyote problem after 287 million people die in the United States....leaving about 4 million inhabitants in this great country. Well, if that is how it is going to work out, then I have to believe we are living in the time of the great apocolypse so it really won't matter.
     
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