What's on your menu?

[Guest]

As a newbie just getting started in the food storage realm, I've found various lists that recommend different amounts of each food that one should store per person, per year.

I'd like to get started, but it all seems quite overwhelming to try and do it "right".

What foods do you store/recommend, and how much of each?

[MustangGal]

The standard answers are "store what you eat, and eat what you store". And, "it depends on your family and your preferences".

As frustrating as they seem, at first. They really are the correct answers. One size does not fit all. I could tell you to store 500 lbs of hard red wheat, 200 lbs of this, 50 lbs of that, but what if you or someone in your family can't tolerate gluten or has allergies?

I am new to this as well and I have ordered some hard red wheat berries from a local health food store (first time the wholesaler sent flour :( ). I also have some rice, pasta, and a few other things I am planning to pack in mylar w/ 02. Waiting to get my wheat in, so I can do several things at once.

I also buy a few extra of items I would regularly buy from the store. So, far I have a few cases of veggies and some canned meat stuff.

Right now we are working on being able to supply our own milk, eggs, and rabbit meat. The start up has been costly, but it will allow us to provide for many of our food needs long term. So, some of our food storage is "on the hoof".

I think as far as "doing it right", don't try to skimp on using O2 and mylar. And certainly don't put some crap like sheet rock in with your food, 'cause some internet yahoo says it is a grand idea.

[goatlady]

THE basic premise of food storage, both short and long term is "Store what you eat, eat what you store." In other words, just start buying extra on your usual grocery shopping trips and date and tuck away in the pantry. Most folks find it easiest to work on food storage on a time basis, i.e. an extra weeks worth then a months worth, etc. At the same time start storing water, water, and more water. Rinse out those 2 liter pop bottles and fill with water and tuck away in the dark somewhere. IF you are using private well water add a drop or 2 of bleach for preservative and rotate the water every 3 to 6 months, i.e. use it up then refill with fresh. Food storage and general prepping is not just something to do, it's a way of life which for many is extremely satisfying. Leads to learning to garden and preserve your harvests, leads to new skills being learned and perfected, and many times saves lots of $$ over time.

[Javin]

Unfortunately, talking the soon-to-be fiance into a life change like that isn't going to be an easy feat. She's okay with me stuffing away a good emergency room so long as it's out of sight and out of mind. She's even on board with getting a place with enough land to start my own garden and beekeeping. She's not okay with growing our own meat (yet) but she's starting to see the inevitability of some sort of collapse happening sooner than later. Personally, I think we could see a SHTF situation in as little as two years, so wanted to get an idea of some bulk stuff I could stuff away now "just in case." Once I've got a decent basic stock put away, we can look at the lifestyle change. I'm going to go with the assumption that we will have access to water (I know how to build a series of different water filters. If the water's irradiated, we have bigger problems than the water. But according to my math, there's a 98% chance that in a SHTF situation, water will still be available via ponds/lakes/streams/wells without significant contamination). So that being said, I'm trying to target stuff that will get us by in a pinch, maybe not living "well" but enough that we can easily SURVIVE until we figure out what's going on. I've already squirreled away enough fuel that I can run my stove for about 500 hours straight (Can be used to cook, or heat a small room) so between filtering and boiling, we should be okay on water. (Barring the 2% where the water is contaminated with non-filterable particulate. In which case, I have the know-how and equipment to make a quick and functional distillery.)

So I'm thinking along the lines of beans, rice, peas, etc. Which we eat very little of right now. In a SHTF situation, we'll definitely be eating considerably MORE of these staples. So the "store what you eat" idea simply doesn't work. I've also got a background in medical research and have done significant studies on nutrition. Living on stuff that can survive long-term storage is never going to be "healthy" for you. But it'll get you by for a year or three. So I'm still looking for numbers, and some ideas. I mean, I could calculate simply enough the approximate amounts of each item that I would consume in a day to keep the caloric intake at the right levels, but I hadn't even considered keeping dried peas handy until I read this board. I was focused on beans, rice, various seeds for planting, salt, pepper, other dried spices, sugar (in case the bees die) and had just started considering how one would go about long-term storing lard. So I'm looking for more ideas of foods that can expand my menu, but can also survive long term storage, and approximations (just so I don't have to figure out the math) of what you guys store per person per year.

[claymore]

I would go with the advice already given. Start stocking up on the stuff you use now. Back in Apr I think, Barfife came up with a site for the Mormons (LDS Preparedness Manuel, free download), really comprehensive list with amounts. I would go tomorrow and get a case of the three items you most go through. Get three cases of whatever she likes the most. As long as you two agree, win-win. See if you can get some free (or reasonable) buckets with gasketed lids from a local bakery. I've stored rice in plastic coffee cans lined with a gal. plastic bag and a couple of bay leaves for years at a time. I hope we have two years b4 the SHTF.

[barfife]

Javin
Glad to see you are starting to prep.

A couple of things:

LDS Preparedness Manuel, free download that gives you guidelines on how much food to store per person is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20859980/LDS...s%20Manual.pdf There are tons of great manuals on this site if you look. Download, print out those that interest you and make you a preparedness library.

To help peak your lady's interest, you might get her a copy of "One Second After" to read. Helped with mine. Now my wife is wide open on prepping.

If you are going cook and heat inside with your stove, be sure to to get a good carbon monoxide detector with extra batteries.

Get you a good water filter system....now!

A good supply of rice, beans and water will go a long ways toward keeping you alive.

Start learning skills and gathering handtools to utilize your new skill sets.

Remember, it is better to be prepared two years early than 5 minutes too late.

Good luck.

[goatlady]

Do keep in mind that if you do an extreme dietary switch because of "whatever" you will more than likely suffer digestive UPSETS!!! That is why most preppers DO store what they eat and eat what they store, so their body and digestive system, i.e. emzynes are prepared to handle the higher fiber and carbs that beans and rice, etc. provide. When you are trying to get through really hard situations a belly ache or the cramps and runs or vice versa is something you will not have time to deal with potentially. Plus you need to know how to prepare those storage foods to be appetizing for you and you need to know how long it takes to prepare them and what spices are needed to perk up the flavors for your taste buds. Just like with gardening, you cannot expect to till a plot, throw out seed, and reap a harvest - you have to practice and know what you are doing. IF you plan on having any type of bread products, you will be storing wheat berries and or corn kernels AND you will need a grinder and you will need the ingredients to mix with those flours and you will need the proper pans to cook it in and you will need an oven or a Dutch oven and the skill to turn out an edible product over an open fire if you do not have an oven available with or without a thermostat! Some way, some how you 2 need to really get on the same page and practice the skills together may potentially need or are YOU planning on doing everything yourself? Also ASSUMING access to water may kill you in the long run. You should know at least 2 or 3 sources of potable water, where it is and how you can transport it safely to your place of residence cause a human can only last 3 days without water before death. I think it is safe to say that most serious preppers are prepping long-term food storage as a supplement to what they can produce on their own and to get them from harvest to harvest if necessaey , to basically get them through that first long year of TSHTF while they get their other necessary plans up and running. Just thoughts from a 30+ years prepper who finally is in a position to be able to feed herself for a good loooong while with what is on hand and can be produced at the homestead.

But for your original question - wheat berries, salt, rice, various beans, spices, dried fruits of some sort, vitamins, dried veggies, some canned meats and fish, some sort of fat product be it olive oil or lard which are the best to store long term without going rancid. Drink of choice be it coffee, tea or a juice powder/concentrate. Makes any water palatable.

[Bill Foster]

LDS Manual

Barfife,
Thanks for the link to the LDS manual. I have heard of it, but I have not seen it before. Been prepping since 98.

Bill

[Javin]

To help peak your lady's interest, you might get her a copy of "One Second After" to read. Helped with mine. Now my wife is wide open on prepping.

Okay, from all I've read on this site, THIS was the one thing that I found both the most helpful, and the most disturbing. I've done the math. Starvation, war, economic collapse, I had ENOUGH things to worry about, but that book is downright life-altering scary. Thanks for giving me ANOTHER thing to worry about. :)

That said, PilloTox (forgive me for using her online name) has not only read the book in 2 days, but she's now COMPLETELY on board, to the extent of being up for the idea of keeping chickens (which before, keeping animals for slaughter was a total no-go). THANK YOU for that reference. It's yet another thing that makes me feel slightly better to realize that I'm NOT the only "paranoid" that is willing to prep to keep the worst of that reality from happening.

[Javin]

Do keep in mind that if you do an extreme dietary switch because of "whatever" you will more than likely suffer digestive UPSETS!!! That is why most preppers DO store what they eat and eat what they store, so their body and digestive system, i.e. emzynes are prepared to handle the higher fiber and carbs that beans and rice, etc. provide.

Goatlady: I appreciate your sentiment, I honestly do, but as someone who has done significant research into the dietary and nutrition patterns of the U.S. populace, I am so firmly convinced that this idea is almost as damaging as no prepping at all. Let me explain.

I'll try not to go into too much detail, but there's a glycemic load vs. radicals vs. antioxidant balance that the human body over 10 million years of evolution has been designed for. The "eat what you prep, prep what you eat" mentality results in a diet that's *extremely* low in proper antioxidants and *extremely* high in sugars. If anyone's interested, I'm currently working on a dissertation that will explain this reality down to a chemical and biological level. Long story short, we ALREADY consume far too little fat/cholesterol and far too much sugar (milled grain, corn syrup, etc.) And I don't mean like we consume twice as much sugar as we should (we consume about 100x as much) or that we consume half as much fat/cholesterol as we should (we're again closer to 100x). Our diets are a train wreck. My soon-to-be mother-in-law has advanced Multiple Sclerosis. In one month of following my "theoretical" diet, she has gone from using a walker, and being unable to speak clearly to speaking normally, and "cleaning her house" (her own words) without her walker.

Now, my theories and dietary recommendations come from years of research, but I also realize that anything I were to say on this forum (or anywhere online) would be met with a "tin foil hat" amount of skepticism, and I fully appreciate that.

This said, I can assure you that living on the self same foods that are specifically designed for long-term storage *will* damage your system and *will* ultimately weaken you should a PAW, SHTF, or any other scenario come about. Long term storage should NOT be a "way of life" wherein you eat these foods that have vital nutrients (despite what the packaging says) stripped from them, which ultimately puts you at a DISADVANTAGE when your veins, and nervous system are already suffering the effects of this diet. You WILL see an increased heart attack, stroke, etc. rate among those that have subsisted on this diet. I would FAR RATHER switch to an emergency diet and deal with the dehydration that follows vs. risking death for myself and my family in the meantime.

If you want more information on my studies and the results, feel free to E-mail me at Javin at Javin hyphen INC dot com. (Sorry for the annoyance of the attempted spam dodge.)

Storing what you eat and eating what you store sounds good on the surface, but the fact is, it will weaken you SEVERELY should this situation arise. When it DOES arise, you will already be too weakened to handle the additional onslaught of disease that is inevitable. Better to have a gastrointestinal adjustment than already have a weakened system when that happens.

[kappydell]

The 'store what you eat' concept is sound IF you practice ahead of time eating prep foods. It will take some tweaking to figure out what you like and will eat. An idea that has merit was the one of serving one meal week made totally out of prep foods. That way you can figure out how to cook them, if you LIKE them, if you have a reaction to them, and how much you will need for a meal. No chart can tell you that. (Lets face it, folks, no matter what is on the list, if you don't like it, you probably ain't gonna eat is no matter how hungry you get. ) Dont forget to store a variety of foods to prevent appetite fatigue, and get the widest amount of nutrition from the blend.

But if you just gotta know, my menues include lots of beans, small amts of meat, grains in variety, lots of dried milk dishes (nobody but me can tolerate drinking the stuff), coupled with canned fruits & veggies and foraged/sprouted fresh stuff.

[becky3086]

I just don't see why storing what you eat would be a bad thing. I don't store wheat, because I don't eat it and don't plan to. I store what I actually eat so I don't think that there would be a traumatic change in diet if anything happened. I also think it would be ridiculous to think that you would have to just live off of what you have in storage. I think most people who have storage know better than that. You have to be more well rounded than that. I have chickens, quail and pheasant, I have traps, he has a gun and a bow, I have a garden (small though it is), fruit trees, nut trees. We wouldn't be eating just beans, rice and wheat. (Rice is fine, I have no wheat stored and very little beans).
We don't eat a lot of sugar but I have some stored. We probably eat too much fat but I do know you can make a perfectly good meal from the meat of the chicken leg and a few vegetables. I also know some wild greens and fruit around here that can (and has) been eaten by us.
We grew up seriously poor. I have seen my father make a meal out of a red cabbage and some frog legs. We ate biscuit and scorch flour gravy 3 days a week for weeks on end. We were thin (very) but we were healthy. Meat consisted of a pound of hamburg scrambled and split 6 ways.
I think we would all lose weight if anything every happened but I think it would be unlikely that we would get sick unless we got desperate and ate something we shouldn't.
Just my opinion, doesn't have to be anyone elses. Here we'll be eating poultry, cabbage, kraut, carrots, rice, lots of eggs, a little chickweed, fish from the lake and whatever else we can kill or catch and lots more I'm sure. Some of it we will be used to and some of it we won't.

[Grinnan Barrett]

It may sound trite but the old adage is Buy what you eat and eat what you buy. The best thing you can do for yourself and your budget is to buy things you eat. I have a good friend who bought cases of green beans and he hates green beans. He also bought the cheapest stuff he could find.

Stock up on things you and your family eat. Rotate that food by eating the first thing in and replacing it as you go. When you go to the store buy three of each if you eat one. You can overkill the programs of what is best in calorie counts. You need some freeze dried foods for your supplies and you may have things like MREs but they do not make up the bulk of what you live off. I like Rice and Beans so it is no problem for me to go that way as a regular but not every meal.

I really mean it also to try any food you are going to store. I love Mountain House but hate Wise Foods. I do not do well with TVP in most foods. I can stand it but not my favorite. Test your food storage. Work with the foods you store to prepare meals so that when the time comes you at least have some idea of how to make meals with it. GB

[Bull]

Javin - as far as storing what you eat, and eating what you store, you can just start experimenting with some of the stuff you were talking about storing, like rice and beans, and at least try to just eat it a little more often than you do now. During the course of that, you may find a certain spice or seasoning that you realize you want to stock up on, just to make the rice and beans more enjoyable if you do have to suddenly go into the mode of eating only that. Even if you can survive on it, it helps moral to enjoy what you are eating. I guess I'm a freak, but I love rice and beans, so it really works out well for me, because they are great to store. But you could also store vitamins, and probably a variety of supplements from GNC or wherever, in order to help make up for what you aren't getting in a SHTF scenario. I really haven't looked into LTS of supplements, but I'm guessing you could do it. You can get a variety of canned meats and other things to round it all out. I have a pretty good stock of different seasonings because that can go a long way in changing up the taste of the same meals, so you have some variety taste wise. I don't know about other folks, but I think honey is a great thing to store as well.
If your lady is getting onboard with chickens, you may also look into rabbits. They reproduce fast, and are meal sized, so that you don't have the problems of preserving meat. Chickens are much the same, but my understanding is that it is easier to feed rabbits than chickens. Even if they are free range, you can only have so many, because there are only so many bugs. It would kind of suck to have to put out too much of the stuff you could eat, in order to maintain other animals you want to eat. I'm not in a position to raise any animals because of my work schedule, so hopefully some folks will chime in and correct any misinformation I'm giving. Definitely look into it further.
Water is definitely a major priority. It isn't just for drinking, especially if you plan to be cooking rice and beans. You'll burn through it quick. You can find some decent water filters for relatively cheap, and incorporate a couple treatment methods to ensure safe drinking quality. It's nice to be able to get away from having to use any energy to boil or distill it. You may look into sovereign silver. Just google it and see what you find. But you can treat water with it to kill many things, and it has been known for centuries to have medicinal qualities. I have a silver generator with a bunch of the wire I need to make my own, but that is kind of pricey. You can find bottles of it though, and get at least some if you're interested. I work with some guys who swear by it from everything from a stomach ache, to ear ache, cuts, and many other things. Plus, it isn't going to go bad.

Another great source of info that may help with your woman, and give you some additional ideas, is to look for "the patriot nurse" on youtube. She has a lot of good info, and my gal seemed to be more open to hearing some of this stuff from a lady.

here is a good article: https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/i...od_storage.htm

and here: http://www.backyardfoodproduction.com/

and here: https://www.survivalandpreparednessf...ood+production

I tried the last one a couple times and I couldn't see the link to the shows, but my internet connection sucks right now, so it might work for you. Scroll down to firefox's post and he used to have links so that you can hear her interview. It is really informative, and another one that may help with the lady.

And don't be overwhelmed. That's what a lot of folks on here told me a while ago when I got started, and now I feel pretty good about my situation. I'm not nearly as bad off as I was. Everyone says, just go steady, and before you know it, you will be much better off, and feel much better. So good luck, and I hope I was able to help.

[Bull]

Don't get me wrong. I think you need a lot more than rice and beans, and I have a lot more variety. But I'm trying to find a suggestion to help, as you say that the buy what you eat and eat what you store thing won't work right now. Maybe you can at least improve on the rice and beans thing, and that is definitely better than nothing. Also, pasta and noodles may be something you want to add into the mix. I don't know if like the Lipton brand soups, but they are cheap, easy to store, last for at least a while, and they're quick and easy to make, and enjoyable to eat. You could try to stock up on some stuff like that also.