Posts Tagged Stockpiling food
Stockpiling food for SHTF and teotwawki
While browsing the forum this morning, I came across a thread about stockpiling food. After looking through the thread, and after installing some new can rotation systems, I started thinking about some off the issues with keeping our food stocks rotated.
My opinion, one of the biggest issues facing preppers and survivalist are keeping our food stocks rotated. When my wife and I went through our canned goods and started sorting them, we realized that we had over bought certain foods, and did not buy enough of other foods.
There are 3 things we do not need to buy anymore of – corn, tomato soup, tomatoes for chili and spaghetti, pickles,,,.
Related article – teotwawki survival gear storage
Take honey for example, we have 4 or 5 jars of honey, but 12 – 13 jars of peanut butter.
There are lots of can good rotation systems on the market, such as the Cansolidator storage unit, or use something like a can rotation system designed for 12 ounce soda cans.
My wife and I had been storing a lot of our can goods in the pantry with no real rotation system. Well, a couple of months ago I decided it was time to get with the program and get our can foods organized.
While walking through the local china-mart, my wife and I found some wire racks that are designed for keeping 12 ounce soda cans in the fridge. the racks are designed to hold a 12 pack of 12 ounce cans. Besides soda cans, the wire racks hold all types of soups, pasta, and peanut butter just fine.
US society not prepared
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I went to Sams Club in Beaumont Texas. One of the main things I wanted to pick up was some freeze dried foods in #10 cans. The food is listed on the Sams Club website, so I thought the store would have some in stock. Guess what, the store did not have any freeze dried food in #10 cans. After walking up-and-down the isles, I finally decided to stop and ask an employee. I was told that the store had not got any emergency type food in a couple of years.
For those of you that do not know, Beaumont sits just a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. In the past few years Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Ike have made landfall close to Beaumont. Why wouldn’t a major outlet store sell some kind of emergency food in a Hurricane prone area? I think its a lack of forward thinking, and maybe even a lack of demand.
A couple of nights ago my wife and I went to Lowes in Jasper Texas, we were looking for some kind of can rotation system. Wal-mart in Jasper sells a wire rack for rotating soda cans, but a regular sized chili or soup can will fit in the rack. So my wife and I have been buying the wire-racks and setting up a can rotation system on a set of shelves.
What really surprised me was the Lowes store in Jasper does not carry any type of can rotation system. Why wouldn’t a hardware store that sells cabinets sell some kind of system to keep can goods organized?
Storing survival gear
Its time for a change. My survival gear is spread out all over a spare bedroom, couple of storage boxes and 2 closets. Its time to round everything up and get things organized.
My wife and I have a spare bedroom that my son uses when he comes to visit. Since the room is only used a few times a month, we decided to install some shelves and organize our survival gear stocks.
The shelving unit was bought from a local china-mart. The unit is 6 feet tall, each shelf is 36 inches long, 17 inches wide and there is 15.75 inches between each shelf.
To prevent the shelving unit from being pulled over by the grand kids, the support poles of the unit were zip-tied to a set of bunk beds, and the shelves were screwed to the wall with 2 1/2 inch long screws. With small children around, you have to plan on them climbing on everything.
The plan is to have two shelving units side by side, with each unit holding a certain type of survival gear.
Fishing gear – one shelf is going to be dedicated to storing my fishing gear. Currently my fishing gear is being stored in 2 or 3 different places, in the closet, in a tackle box, in a fishing bucket,,,.
A 5 gallon bucket fits perfectly between the shelves, so I should have no problems storing my extra lures, trotline string, extra spools of monofilament line, extra hooks,,,. I need to buy a couple of wire trays to store the smaller items in, such as the spools of trotline string.
Long term survival food preps
When someone says “survival food preps” or “stockpiling survival food“, what do you think of? Do you think of tons of dried rice and beans stored in mylar bags? How about a basement full of #10 cans, does that come to mind? Or is it a combination of several things?
When I was thinking of writing an article about survival food preps, the first thing that popped into my head was – MREs, canned goods and garden seeds. But where does perishable goods fit into that narrow picture? For the first week or so people are going to be eating stuff out of their freezer. For the sake of discussion, lets move past that first week post SHTF. Something bad has happened, the food in the grocery stores has dried up, people have gone through their immediate perishable food items,,,, now what?
A book about the Roman military I just finished reading contained a quote from an ancient historian – “nothing caused as much stress within the troops as the lack of supplies.” Just like it says, when the supplies started to run low, the stress level went up. 2,000 years later, and nothing has changed.
When people worry about paying their house note, stress goes up.
When people worry about not having the money to pay the rent, stress goes up.
When people worry about having food to eat, stress is “really” going to go up.
People are visual animals – we like to see stuff. There has been test that showed that just the sight of food can relieve stress. When I open an empty cabinet, my stress level instantly goes up. Thats why I think it would be a good idea to have food out where people can see it post SHTF. Maybe not food that can spoil, but leave some cans of chili on the cabinet, leave a few MREs out, leave a bag of rice out,,,, stuff that bugs can not get into, but gives the members of your party something to look at.
Types of survival food preps:
MREs / Pre-Packaged Meals
Examples can include the Just in Case Meals from Prepared.pro, the good ole military Meal Ready to Eat, Eversafe Meals, Sure-Pak MREs, Mainstay meals and everything in between.
One thing that I really like about the pre-packaged meals, they can be handed out members of the group, and eaten when their ready. Communal cooking and eating is good, but not everyone is ready to eat at the same time. Having their own meals allows people to snack or eat their meals when their ready – on top of the communal meals.
A case of MREs contains 12 packaged meals. Because each package contains so much food it in, each MRE might contain 1.25 – 2 servings. Depending on the activity level of the person, they might eat more or less of the MRE. But for the sake of discussion lets say that the average person only eats 75% of everything in the MRE – leaving the desert, beans, cracker, snack bread or peanut butter for later. This means that a case of MREs might feed 1 person for 5 – 7 days.
Stockpiling SHTF food ammo and fishing supplies
Lets talk about stockpiling food, ammo and fishing supplies for SHTF. These are the supplies that will be used to feed and protect your family if, or when, the SHTF. There is no perfect survival plan, and only the fool says otherwise. Its because of this admission that my plans have changed over the years.
My food stockpile has gone from simple stockpiling beans and rice plans, to something a little more complex.
In the ammunition category, my plans have gone from having various rounds stockpiled, to taking inventory, and trying to standardize my SHTF ammo stockpile.
The fishing category is where I am currently having the most fun. I have gone from just stockpiling fishing supplies to running trotlines and testing my fishing plans.
Stockpiling Food:
10 – 15 years ago I was stockpiling beans, rice, MREs, canned goods and some garden seed. My plans were to head to the bug out location, plant a garden, and hunt for fresh meat. It was a simple plan that had a lot of holes.
About 6 or 7 years ago I decided to focus more on gardening, and less on hunting. My family and I started planting fruit trees (peach, pear, apple, plum,,,) and I started stockpiling more garden seed. Then came along the drought of 2010 and 2011. In the past 2 years this part of Texas is at least 3 feet low on rainfall. Lake Sam Rayburn is about 9 feet low as of when this article was written. The long solution to a long term survival plan is having a self-sustaining farm and garden. In the face of global climate change getting a farm and garden up and running from scratch is going to be a little difficult.
About a year ago I decided to change my plans again and add mylar bags, and some homemade superpails to my SHTF food stockpile. So now we have mylar bags, MREs, canned goods, fruit trees and garden seeds. In the mylar bags I stored beans, rice, oats, pancake mix, pasta,,,, and a few other things.
In the face of climate change, my plans have changed yet again.
Instead of relying entirely on hunting for meat, and beans for protein, I decided its time to bite the bullet and start stockpiling #10 cans of freeze dried meats, fruit and certain vegetables.
Stockpiling cheese, butter and canned meats
Looking for some canned meats and canned cheeses? Well, I have a place you should look at, and that is CampingSurvival.com. CampingSurvival.com has a wide selection of Yoders canned meats and bacon.
Yoder’s Canned Beef
Yoder’s Canned Pork Sausage
Yoder’s Canned Hot Dogs – “Grill Delights”
Yoder’s Canned Pork Chunks
Yoder’s Canned Turkey Chunks,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
To only name a few
http://www.campingsurvival.com/camechbu.html
Well rounded survival plans
I think there is a tendency to focus more on preps, and less on being self-sufficient. Who “really” wants to check on the rabbits, goats, chickens and pigs after working 8 – 10 hours? In todays urban sprawl, finding land to have a small farm is rather difficult as well. For a survivalist to be self-sufficient, their not only going to need fruits and vegetables, their also going to need meats, protein, eggs and fat. The problem is, for most people living in the city, having farm animals is not an option. So its a win-lose situation – people move to the city to get a job, but have to leave their farm life behind.
Here in Texas, its estimated that the average people has been removed from farm life for at least 2 – 3 generations. If some kind of long term SHTF situation happens, people will have a lot of learning to do. Those already living on a farm might adjust well, but those used to urban life and instant satisfaction might be a little disappointed.
In the rural areas where I live, its not uncommon to see rows of pecan trees from the first settlers. But now, we are more worried about planting pine trees to sell for timber, then planting fruit trees.
Its not enough to just buy preps, without developing a well rounded long term survival plan. Stockpiling rice, beans, pasta, powered milk and pancake mix in mylar bags is not a long term survival plan, its a temporary survival plan. Buying superpails, making homemade superpails, stockpiling MREs, storing food in mylar bags just prolongs the inevitable, and that is running out of food.
Another weekend has passed away
Have you ever had a weekend that you never wanted to end? Well, that is the weekend that I had this weekend. Things kicked off Friday with getting ready for Relay for Life here in Jasper County. TJ went to Beaumont to pick up my kids from my ex-wife for the weekend, so that saved me a LOT of time. After lunch I washed my truck, hooked up the pit, loaded up some stuff, left home about 5pm, drove to the Jasper County court house square, and setup for the relay.
The thing that I spent a lot of time thinking about Friday was washing my truck. Because it was more then just washing off dirt, it was washing off memories. The majority of the dirt on my truck was from driving to the lease during hunting season. So the dirt had built up like memories, good memories. Like when my son got his deer for the 2010 – 2011 deer season. For the deer hunting story, visit this article – our first deer of the 2010- 2011 season. As I was washing the layers of dirt off, I was also thinking about the memories built around the truck over the past few months.
Around 4pm my wife and my step-daughter show up and start loading stuff into the truck. We loaded up the canopy, ice chest, tables,,,,, and other stuff. they left a little before 5pm to go get ice. I left for the court house around 5.
Got to the court house square, backed the pit into place, and started setting everything up. The event started at 7pm, and within minutes we had a line at our table. We were selling hotlinks – on a bun, stick, or flatbread.
In all, we raised a little over $600, which was donated that night.
I dont think there were as many people at this years relay as last year. The weather was great, so I dont know what the issue was.
Starting with mylar bags
I have a confession to make, this was my first time to seal food in mylar bags. To be perfectly honest, I was a little intimidated by it all. What if I screwed everything up, what if I sealed the food wrong, what if the seals did not hold,,,,,.
Thanks to SafeCastle, Prepared.pro I have a bunch of 1 gallon mylar bags, and 50 02 absorbers. So off a sealing I went.
After work today my wife and I went to the super wal-mart in Jasper and I did a little grocery shopping. While we were getting our usual stuff, I picked up a 10 pound bag of Krusteaz instant pancake mix, all you have to do is add water and your good to go.
Went home, got everything ready, and started sealing the mylar bags.
March 31, 2011 food cache:
20 pounds white rice
10 pounds instant pancake mix
5 pounds pinto beans
1 pound navy beans
5 boxes mac & cheese
2 boxes pasta
2 pounds 4 ounces (2 containers) Quaker instant oats
Worried about a food crisis in 2011
Are you Worried about a food crisis in 2011? I am.
Price of gas has gone up almost 50 cents in the last 2 weeks, and is currently sitting in the $3.47 a gallon range. A couple of years ago when gas touched $3 a gallon, fertilizer for growing food went to $22 – $23 for a 50 pound bag.
The higher cost for fertilizer and fuel pushed food prices up. As the price of fuel came down, the price of food came down.
But now, instead of the price of fuel slowly creeping up, its skyrocketed through the roof. Overnight prices go up 5 – 7 cents. The cost of fuel will sooner or later be passed down to the consumer.
Now that people are talking about shortages of Mountain House #10 cans, panic buying might kick in, and we might be looking at even more food shortages.
A couple of days ago a buddy of mine and I were talking about the current shortages in freeze dried and dehydrated foods. My buddy has the opinion that the current shortages are caused from last years food crops being depleted. That once the crops from 2011 are harvested, that the shortages will fade away.
Lets say for a minute that my buddy is right. Last years crops are depleted, we have nothing in reserves, and once this years crops are harvested everything will be ok. If this theory is correct, we are just 1 season from starvation.
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