Emergency Food Preparedness for the Poor Man

[PatMarlin]

Emergency Food Preparedness for the Poor Man

My purpose of this thread is to list items (common food) that has a long shelf life, but relatively inexpensive, and good to eat from the store.

You see the bug out companies selling MRE's and expensive dehydrated meals for survival and emergency needs, and they have their place but holy cow- getting set up with that stuff will break the bank.

I keep a few MRE's on hand for hunting, and in the trucks as emergency food, but there's so much more you can buy right off the shelf. Stuff you know you like at the store that's better and the cost is way less.

I want to use this thread for my work list, and get ideas from everyone to help compile a- "Emergency Food Preparedness for the Poor Man" food list of convenience food products and to start buying a little at a time.

Some of my favorite items I buy for starters:

Dehydrated mash potatoes from Costco- packets (bout 4-6 servings individually) in the large box

Rosarita refried beans in the can- I say, "If you don't know Rosarita, you don't know beans" ...:mrgreen:

Block Cheese- Walmart Value brand "Easy Melt". Same as Velveeta, for bout' $3.75 per large brick

Herdez Salsas red-green in the glass jars (also at walmart) good stuff. You begging to see I eat like a Mexican?
Herdez Napolitos-
Rosarita Enchilada sauce- my all time favorite

Yuban Dark Roast coffee

Capri Sun 100% Juices in packets by the box- I first found Capri Sun off the autobahn in Germany, back in 1980. The only darn thing you could get cold at a gas station. They had their own little display fridge. Took years for it to finally get to the states.

Mac and Cheese- need I say more?
Pasta-Roni- box parmesan noodles
Rice-a-Roni's-
Crackers-

Krusties mixes/Syrup, Honey-
Spam- turkey and chicken (I'm allergic to Pork)
Corned Beef Hash
Sardines and Kippers

Feel free to chime in with your favorites and I'll compile the lists as it grows... :drinks:


....:redneck:

[Jack Stanley]

Dried tart cherries , I order them from the Cherry stop in Traverse City . Not as cheap as mac-n-cheese but they taste great and tend to keep the gout at bay plus they keep about like raisens do .

Sardines when they are on sale and canned mackerel is good along with a healty supply of crackers/pilot bread .

Jack

[GRUMPA]

OK Pat I think I see a flaw with some logic here. 1 I hope for your sake you will always have power going to your house cause cheese dont like to be warm. IF and I mean IF (for the sake of arguing) SHTF people can and will do some pretty odd things. In other words scent travels and all of a sudden you got company drooling at your door.

ALMOST ANYTHING that is of glass does not like UV's, things spoil rapidly in glass jars. Everything we can must be kept away from the UV's.

Cheap things we have an hand the we use all the time are,
Dried beans of various types in an air tight container for longer storage life.
Rice (very important for us) Available at Wally World 28lb bucket for about $14 (Air tight container)
Hard white wheat (requires grinder)
Powdered milk (In foil packets)
Wheat Gluten (optional for better bread)
Molasses
Pasta in AIR TIGHT CONTAINERS
Cocoa Powder
Sugar
Salt
Corn Starch
Canned Tomatoes
Canned Veggies
Powdered eggs -->Wally World
As a rule we cook from scratch so our needs may differ from yours. And anything we store away we put a date on it so we can rotate the stuff. On a side note this post had me and the other (better as she likes to be called) half looking thru our pantry.

[biker_trash_1340]

I unplugged my refrigerator about 2 years ago, so power outages are not a problem. This is a list of things that I find myself buying and having in the house all the time.

Spam- turkey
Sardines, Kippers and smoked oysters (dollar store)
Crackers
Powdered milk
Jiffy - corn bread mix
Pasta
Coffee
Peanut butter
Ramen Noodles
Canned soup and vegetables
3-4 cases of water
Mountain Dew
V8
Candy - Good and Plenty
Dried fruit / trail mix

[PatMarlin]

Well yes cheese is a problem if you don't have refrigeration, but not every situation is without being able to keep things cold.

The beauty of Velveeta cheese is it can sit for some years until you break it open, and that would be when you have snow, a cooler in a creek and so forth.

My focus is what can stay and keep on the shelf a long time. You can't do that with real fresh cheese and if there's an interruption in the food supply lines, be dang nice to have some.

[PatMarlin]

Also- feel free to include cook from scratch staples by all means here also.

I just started out with non- cook from scratch items on the list.

[FrankG]

To the above I'll add the following that we keep on hand................
Propane for stoves
Rolled oats
Cornmeal
Brown sugar
Baking powder
Baking soda
Garlic(dehydtrated)
Onion(dehydrated)
Red pepper
Crushed red pepper

[Russell James]

Mixed fruit[ sort of like whats in fruit mince pie]
flour, baking soda, salt. long life butter and milk.
For Damper!

[Johnch]

I have acess to bulk dry goods through my Sister in Law's work for very low prices
So we get 50 lb of dryed beans , rice , wheat flour ,corn meal , suger , split peas ,pasta , ECT and break them down to useable amounts like 1 lb
We then seal in Vacume sealed bags

Properly done
The dry goods should be good for years


I know a family that buys corn buy the bushel and grind their own corn meal with a hand grinder

John

[Trey45]

Potato flakes
Powdered eggs
Powdered milk
Rolled oats
Any of a wide variety of dried beans, lentils, barley, etc.
Pasta, another huge selection of dry noodles here.

All of this is assuming you have access to clean water.

[GRUMPA]

Well I keep on thinking (BIG surprise their) about this so don't be surprised if I just keep on adding things to this post.

For the folks on a really tight budget (like me) I went to the local feed store (yep the places that sells animal feed) and bought wheat and rolled corn in 50# sacks for about half the price. And before anyone chimes in on that let me explain the best I can about that.

From what I've read and heard (yeah I know) the process is virtually the same. Meaning the cleaning process is more involved with food for human consumption, and not so picky with animal feed.

The rolled corn was really easy to clean prior to it going in our grain grinder. The wheat took a little longer to clean (small twigs/stalks etc..) but it came out just fine in the end and we survived rather well despite allergy issues within the household.

And if it's ingredients for the lets make it from scratch crowd that's a mighty long list that can go on. Personally I don't have the storage space in my head or in my house for all that. But I will say this, for that type of thing SPICES OF ALMOST ANY KIND for me would be high on my priority list of things to get.

1 more thing about grains from feed stores: bugs for some reason or another seem to thrive in that stuff (grains) and take my advice on this one. Buy them in winter and leave the bags OUTSIDE and let them freeze and I mean really freeze to kill off any eggs/bugs/critters that might be trying to make a home within the grains. Then repackage the grains in air-tight containers.

[Love Life]

Peanut butter
Honey
Snickers bars

[Junior1942]

This is a copy & paste of a post I made in the camping section of Graybeards:

"Have you guys tried the Marie Callenders dry-pac bowl dishes for camping? They're far better tasting than other dry-pac camping foods I've tried. They come in an oblong bowl designed for microwave cooking and contain a "sauce" pak and dried pasta soaked in some kind of oil. The sauce pac actually contains meat. Some months ago I bought several different flavors for an extended camping trip which didn't materialize. Now, I'm eating them sans microwave before the "Best By" date expires. They're good!

Add 1 cup of water and the sauce pac and the pasta to a metal camping or campfire pot or pan, and bring it to a boil. Stir, let sit for five minutes, boil again, let cool a little and eat. I swear, the meatball lasagna actually had marble-sized meatballs in the sauce pac, and the taste was better than some I've eaten in restaurants.

Best I remember, the cost was circa $2.50 at Wal-Mart. One pac/bowl was more than plenty for one, and with an added side would be more than plenty for two. It's good stuff, guys!!"

I've yet to eat anything from a can which tasted even close to Marie Callenders dry-pac products. They're about 1/2 to 2/3 cheaper than normal dry-pac camping/backpack foods, too.

[Trey45]

Junior, what's the shelf life of those, any ideas? Sounds like a dandy idea.

[MT Gianni]

As a sourdough cooker i would add baking soda and a good sifter. Sourdough and whole wheat can have problems as sharp edges on ground flour cut the dough as it is rising breaking it down rather than inducing a rise. Sifting whole wheat cuts that down a lot.
Cooking methods, on a dare last year I prepared a roast chicken by cleaning, spicing it up and wrapping it in foil. I then dug a pit, built a fire and let it burn a while. When I had good cols, I moved the fire off of the pit, put in the bird wrapped in an old pair or Wranglers that had soaked in water for a few hours and put 3" of soil on the coals. I then put the bird on the dirt, three more inches of dirt on top and built another fire. When that burned out in an hour I let it rest for 3 hours and built another fire for one hour. Pulled the jeans out and we ate the bird. The foil wasn't needed, IMO, but some present said they weren't eating food on a cooking system that had touched my butt. The jeans could have been reused.

[Junior1942]

Trey45, I don't remember. I'd guess at least a year. My last two expired April 2011, and I've had them circa a year--maybe longer as I'm getting CRS.

[DrB]

What's the scenario we're trying to plan for?

One scenario is a week or two without power? This just happened to our home when the tornadoes took out the main lines to TVAs Browns Ferry nuclear plant, + 30 some substations in the cascade failure that followed. A word to the wise -- remember most (nearly all) gas stations won't be able to pump without power. Yes, they could run a generator -- but here not one in twenty had or came up with any such improvisation when our grid went down. Also, we had some concern for a while that water would run out after a few days as our water is fed from towers filled by electric pump (didn't know why it took them so long to get portable generators powering the pumping stations, but it took several days). However, once we got a generator running for refrigeration and charging portable electronics, we actually kind of enjoyed camping out at home. I filled the bathtubs and have a camping purification pump, plus provisions for boiling... but if your situation is anything like ours, if you had to haul water when water towers ran empty you'd be in a bad way.

Anyway, to answer Pat's question, I've got flour, assorted dried beans, lots of canned stuff like: beans, tomatoes of various sorts, peas, pineapples, peaches, green and red peppers, artichoke hearts, asparagus, corn, soups, etc.

Several pounds of pasta. A few pounds of rice.

I've got a case of MREs squirreled away.

About thirty pounds of venison jerky made with various marinades. Keep going back to the teriyaki and honey jerkies... some of the salt vinegar with pepper (or other flavoring) varieties just end up being too salty when dried for my taste.

I've several pounds of venison summer sausage from a local processor, still. The jalapeno cheese summer sausage is awesome.

I also can, so I've got dozens of jars of peach, blueberry, and blackberry jams. In the pressure canned category, broths, soup mixes, tomatoes, fish (wahoo, bream, tuna).

I've also got pickled fish, including some pickled shrimp. That's actually one of the best, and is shelf stable for a LONG time (I didn't plan on testing that out other than a couple of weeks, but a friend I gifted some to ate them about a year and a half after I gave them to him :shock:, and they were reported better than newly canned). It makes sense since there is a lot of vinegar in the marinade, and the shrimp are pretty porous and really easily pickle by taking it up... but like I said, I never had any intention of someone testing out a jar for so long.

I've also got a non-electric pressure canner, hot water canner, and many dozens of jars and replacement lids... so if I had an unexpected bounty in the zombie war, I'd be able to save it. :)

The other thing I've got is probably thirty pounds of salt in various forms. Essential for preserving most any kind of meat in a lot of scenarios, but it probably wouldn't be long before I'd run low. Rock salt is cheap... wouldn't be a bad idea to have a big barrel of it lying around somewhere if you were really worried about it.

Anyway, fun post, Pat. :popcorn:

[Stick_man]

In addition to the items mentioned above, I'd add a gallon of Clorox Bleach (for water purification) and even a couple water filters like are offered for camping. I think it would be a good idea to store some stick matches as well in waterproof containers (or dip them in some melted parrafin to seal them up) or other items for firestarters.

The potato flakes, although usually very tasty, generally have a pretty short shelf life usually less than a year or two.

If you store water, don't store them in old milk jugs. It is best to store water in 2-liter soda bottles. The plastic will last a lot longer.

One last item, as a sweetener, honey is very difficult to beat. It literally lasts forever. It is the one food item that is known to never go bad. They have found honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that is still good even after several hundred years.

[Lloyd Smale]

talked to my doctor once at a party about this. He said a many can just about live on only peanut butter. He told me theres not anoher food that comes close to prividing the nutrition alog with easy storing and the fact that it can be stored long term. He said if he had to pick a seond choise it would be hard but hed probably pick canned refried beans.

[PatMarlin]

Thanks for all the input everyone!

My main focus I believe is to start thinking about stocking up on food, and food that will keep a long time and that's not the high priced preparedness stuff. Food I like to eat.

If I had my way, I would expand the size of our kitchen and pantry, put in a root cellar, bottle and can everything which I know how to do by the way, but I don't have the time.

I don't see any downside to it. Prices are going up daily.

[PatMarlin]

"Have you guys tried the Marie Callenders dry-pac bowl dishes for camping? They're far better tasting than other dry-pac camping foods I've tried. They come in an oblong bowl designed for microwave cooking and contain a "sauce" pak and dried pasta soaked in some kind of oil. The sauce pac actually contains meat. Some months ago I bought several different flavors for an extended camping trip which didn't materialize. Now, I'm eating them sans microwave before the "Best By" date expires. They're good!


I've never seen those JR. Got to look for them. Sounds good.

In high school, my sweet heart had a job at Marie Calendars. I got pie(s).

[Shooter6br]

Link to article on water purification http://www.efoodsdirect.com/Blog/basic-survival-skills-101-9-water/:-P check Blog catagory. Lots of good info

[PatMarlin]

Here's what we have used daily, on the counter for 12 years-

http://www.directive21.com/british-berkefeld.html

[DrB]

pat, sauerkraut is easy to make, and doesn't take much time. It also provides a shelf stable form of vitamin c over winter.

[nanuk]

good idea on the feed stock. if you are worried about bugs, buy Seed grain. nicely cleaned, weed and bug free for the most part, but easy to clean by hand.

Heck, save some good bags and buy a bag off a farmer. Probably cost you a box of donuts, or less.

I can buy organic wheat for about $6.00 for a 5gal pail. on the bulk store that would cost about $100.

[Johnch]

good idea on the feed stock. if you are worried about bugs, buy Seed grain. nicely cleaned, weed and bug free for the most part, but easy to clean by hand.



Better check and make sure the seed isn't treated

As even some/much of the certified organic seed is treated with a all natural products to stop the bugs from eating it

Some seed treatments are blue or red
But others are almost clear

Besides seed costs $$
I paid $100 a bag for seed corn this spring

Not sure what corn will be at harvest , but it will be way cheaper

John

John

[19112TAP]

We use a Berkey for our water.
We grow a big garden and can as much as possible along with canning meat to.
We store wheat berrys and popcorn to make cornmeal it's easier to store and stay drier along with varoius dried beans.
I also have my own chickens and a milk cow right now along with a couple of milk goats.
And don't forget ammo and guns HAHA like this bunch would forget that.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive made out for a couple years. Theres a guy localy that delivers care package to the elderly. Every month they deliver a box of food that contains cerial, oatmeal, rice, beans, canned veggys and fruit. canned fish or meat, pasta and a block of cheese. Every month he ends up with 5 or 6 extra because people arent home and hes not allowed to just leave them. He gives them to my buddy who splits them with his daughter and me. Ive got a pretty good stash of the stuff now. Only thing that depletes it is one old timer that lives up the street. Ive given him permission to take what he needs from it. Combine that with the crop damage deer shooting we do at the potatoe farm and ive got plenty of canned meat and potatoes.