[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

Sure thing. Did you know birch trees can be used for making beer and vinegar too? theres a lot of help standing right outside our doors...

[StormBringer]

the reason I ask is, the hanging unrefrigerated hams i've seen in the groc. store and would like to know how long they last. I know there exp. date but not knowing how long they have already been their and that as we all know isn't always the throw out date. I have a dry storage in my basement and didnt know if it was an apporp place to hang them or what prep i would have to make. And If their was anything the avg person (who lives in a dramatically changing seasonal temp ) could do to make them last longer in emergency situation, (without electricity) becouse in the possable future it is my belief that basic services as elect. will be at best hard to get. I dint aim to start a large ordeal and i certainly appologize for any thing that lead to a confrontation.

[StormBringer]

I am also very interested in the birch tree to vinegar thing...Any links on how to do would be appreciated.

[yesplease]

Where are y'all getting the $1/lb for rice and beans? I can get both for 50c/lb or less shopping around, which at ~1500 Calories of bean and ~1000 calories of rice per day is maybe $290 or probably less. Spend $10 on some multi-vitamins as was stated and spend another $100 on oil, canned tomatoes sauce (25c/each on sale), canned veggies (25-33c/each on sale), chicken bullion, salt, pepper, lard, and onions so you can make something palatable. There's $400/year for a 2500+ Calorie diet that won't bore ya, as much.

[Fishman]

My searching at the stores has found jack mackerel the cheapest source of omega 3s. Should be low in mercury since they are small fish. I've eaten them straight from the can on fishing trips, as I use the mackerel mixed with other stuff as chum. A pressure cooker goes a long way converting those dried beans and rice to edible products, and uses a fraction of the electricity or gas to cook. Cornmeal is cheap, makes tortillas, cheap cornbread, and polenta (corn meal mush). Bon apetite

[cephalotus]

I store around 3-4 weeks of my "standard" food in advance, so I can eat whatever I like, milk, eggs, bread, chocolate, fresh vegetables and fruits, meat, fish, cheese, beer, wine, fruit juices, ice cream, etc, pp.

After that I could probably survive for 3 months on rice, pasta, oil, sugar, vitamin pills, 10kg of body fat and stuff like that.

If the stores will stop selling stuff within the next minute I wouldn't eat all the "nice stuff" within the first weeks of course.

I also have a 500m² garden within the city (and seed and biological fertilizer), but I doubt that it would be helpful in such a scenario, because I can not guard it.

So in the worst imaginable cases I will have enough food to survive 4 months (IF I can get enough water of course), after that I will have to live on a way to small garden, hunt(?), steal, rob or eat corpses.

On the other hand after those 4 months without -any- chance to get some food 90% of the people would be dead anyway...

4 months is also a very long time to decide what should be done next to survive.

I believe the most likely risk is not getting enough food (nice to have some at home when there is a natural disaster or a truckers strike, 2 weeks black out, etc...), but not to have enough money to pay your bills.
So I do "store" money (some cash, most at the bank and maybe a very small amount of gold in the future), I try to keep my job, I try too improve my skills that can be helpful to keep the job or get a new one.
I also believe that energy will get very costly soon again, so I try to reduce my dependence on energy and buy the most efficient electric home appliances, move to an apartment that can be heated with coal and wood (store 1-2 years of it in advance, that will last 3 years in emergency) and I don't have (and need) a car.
Maybe I will make/buy an electric bike in 2009.

That's my advice:

1. Buy food that you like for 1 month instead of food for 1 year that you would throw away in the best case (with millions of people starving that's not a solution, that's becoming part of the problem imho)

2. Try to consume much less energy. Try to store some energy, if possible. A huge inefficient refrigerator consuming 1000kWh/a full of meat could not be so intelligent: 1. you are wasting energy (-> peak oil + global warming), 2. if there is zero option to buy food how likely is it that you will have electricity every day?
I believe that the chance is much higher (in comparison!) that you have to live without electricity for 4 weeks than that you have to live without food in the store for 4 weeks.

3. Keep your job, store money, store some cash. If there is a food supply problem on the horizon, buy what you need...

[oowolf]

You can't do it (get enough calories to live on) on $300 or even $500 NOW unless you're in a really good co-op. 1200-1800 kcal/day is standing starvation for most people. If you're in a post carbon world where you're gonna hafta farm and gather firewood, etc you're gonna need 2500-3500 kcal/day minimum.
Right now, livestock feed-grade grains is all you can afford on your budget. (Were talking about SURVIVAL now, not avoiding GMO's, transfats, etc.)
Yes, Crisco will go rancid--inside your body within a few minutes--and within a few years once the can is opened. Buy your cooking oil is small containers--it will keep for years as long as its sealed & in a cool dark place.
You can make a storage bin out of 5 sheets of plywood that will hold 1 cord (128 cu. ft.) of dry food like wheat berries and barley--that's around 5000 pounds.
If you've waited until now to buy powdered milk/eggs--I hope you are rich.
The absolute best price I now know of is through the local Mennonites who buy by the truckload. I got in good with them by bartering my homegrown garlic and fruit (all orgainc of course) for their products, so they let me order with them at no added cost.

Everyone should have some "Insta Cure" (Prague Powder: salt + potassium nitrate) for quick curing meat--a 5 lb bucket will cure a ton of meat. Yeah, I know this stuff is deadly poison but so is salt--before the time the nitrates get you, you'll be dead from bird flu or a traumatic injury, or something you never thought of. Remember, without modern medical treatment, and all the labor saving conveniences, life expectancy will decline to around 25 years--the average lifespan during the pre-carbon agricultural era.

If you're on a tight budget, you're better off to store basic calories, learn to FORAGE vitamins and minerals (they're everywhere--just get a grass juicer) and stock up on basic hunting and/or fishing equipment.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', 'Y')ou can't do it (get enough calories to live on) on $300 or even $500 NOW unless you're in a really good co-op. 1200-1800 kcal/day is standing starvation for most people.

[yesplease]

Yup yup yup, probably Sam's too. For anyone who is going to eat and/or store that much rice it'd be worthwhile to pay $50 once in order to not pay a couple hundred more later.

[patience]

Quote:Its 48lbs of rice, packaged in a storable bucket, for $55.95, meaning you can get about 8 pails within the $500 budget.

Seahorse said 50 lbs. of rice costs about $40 in a bag, I think.

So, that comes to about $80 to $$112/100 lbs. for rice. I bought wheat, straight from the combine here for $6.50/bushel (=60 lbs/bu), which is $10.83/100 lbs. For $400 you can buy about 3,700 lbs. of wheat, and have $100 left to buy barrels to store it in. My Googling the matter of calories/lb. was inconclusive, but the grains are somewhere near par, probably rice has a few more calories, as it is primarily starch. No matter, The wheat, or corn for that matter, is SO much cheaper that it is worth buying the grinding mill I posted earlier.

$400 = 3,700 lbs. wheat or corn (storable in about 12 barrels x $5)
$400 = 500 lbs. rice

When you consider that the rice has had the husk fiber removed, and the germ (?), what is left is "empty" calories--carbs, and not much else. The wheat and corn is "as is", the way God made it, and has its' oily seed germ full of nutrients.

I read somewhere that the Mongolian Chinese are significantly taller/larger than the lowland Chinese, which that author attributed to the Mongolian diet being based on wheat rather than rice.

[frankthetank]

What? Why would you want that much rice? That crap is TOXIC. Its filler. Nothing good about white rice, nothing. Its empty calories. You might as well order that Pizza Hut combo deal i see advertised on this site lately. I've got two bags of rice in the basement i bought when i though the zombies were coming. They probably are full of bugs by now! Maybe i'll drop them off at the food pantry or throw them at the homeless...tell them to get a job while they are at it (i'm being sarcastic...)...

I still say stockpile meat and fat. If your going to stockpile carbs, go with organic wheat berries, millet, barley... Kidney beans are good too.

Fear is a powerful thing.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', ' ')Its empty calories.

[cephalotus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', ' ')If you're in a post carbon world where you're gonna hafta farm and gather firewood, etc you're gonna need 2500-3500 kcal/day minimum.

[seahorse2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', ' ')Its empty calories.

[StormBringer]

I do believe the barter system will be very important in the near future. The ability to have surplus stored for such things could make a big difference in the outcome of not only yourself but others.

[emeraldg40]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', '
')Through the winter here, keeping meat frozen solid takes no energy of course. Besides that, this meat is already smoked and also vacuum sealed, its as good as canned really. On ice, I am quite sure they would last a year and even at room temperature if the vacuum seal isn't broken I'd bet on 6 months.

[PrairieMule]

Not sure if it was mentioned this yet, but a few big canisters of whey powder might be a good thing to add to your list. One scoop equals 20 grams of protein.

Figure a 25 cents for half a days worth of protein.

[StormBringer]

Something else to consider is body builder shakes. Prot, Cal, Vit, all in one drink. Very easily stored and fair shelf life.

[MidwesternMom]

I guess you said to keep it simple, but i have been couponing for about 10 months and scored a lot of free items with coupons and sales. Tin foil included, lol! You can actually get coupons on ebay in multiples for a 'handling' fee. For example, I was able to get 30 18 oz canisters of quaker oats for approximately 3.90 + tax plus 2.00 for coupons from ebay. The coupons were .50/1 and the store doubled the coupon and the oats were on sale for 1.00 making them free at one store (I got 20) and earlier I bought 10 w/coupon at another store making them .39 each.

Staples i would have: beans, rice, flour, oil, yeast, salt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, peanut butter, nuts, bread-can be frozen if you have power. Most these things I acquire with coupons and I keep my budget about 350$/month for all food/eating out/household/toiletry products. Since i have been doing this a while, My budget has plummeted, I have only spent about 150$ this month so far for december, we are eating up some of our stock as we are going out of town for the most of january, so trying to eat up perishables. In stead of vitamens, i would probably go for some low sugar boxed cereal. w/couponing you could get a lot of it pretty cheap, about .50 a box.

I would also have seeds for a garden on hand, although last summer was my first year gardening and didn't much from it, I hope to be more successful this coming up year.

300 for one person can be done, i haven't done it yet, but working on it, there are 2 adults/1 toddler so aiming for 750$ worth of food in the stockpile for next year is probably a good idea. I will be using my extra budget to work on that when we get back from India.

[the48thronin]

So today a friend of mine stopped in Kingman Az and found a new product for sale. ( It was selling like hot cakes too!)

I have a couple boxes coming to me in his cab because he picked them up for me. In the mean time I have contacted the truckers conference telephone room and now several ( soon to be dozens LOL I am listening to the continuing discussion of this as I type this) of drivers are making plans to stop all over the country to see if these items are becoming part of Wally worlds regular sale items.

To go on, near the jams and jellies section was a new 12 foot section of ....... Survival Food.

I got my friend to take me one picture with his cell phone, and many more with his digital camera that he cant send me until he gets past the lousy digital area ( Az on I 40 is 1rx not edvo).

To describe it the section contained many canned versions of dehydrated long term storage foods. His reading of the labels ( many of the items sold out in less than an hour from the time they were stocked) included pineapple chunks, blue berries and apple slices, but also blue berry pancake mix, and complete meals. I had him buy for me the last available 200 dinner meal pack, and one of two left boxes of breakfast lunch 200 meal count boxes. 34 year shelf life, 1 year after opening shelf life.

The other pictures will be added when I get them, but they represent the condition of the shelf section after less than 1 hour from the time they were stocked.
Here is the one cell phone picture of the 200 meal count dinner box. It is pictured over the label from the complete egg canned goods that were sold out at 29$ The actual wal-mart price of the 200 dinner pack was 65$, the 200 count breakfast box you an just barely make out on the left in the picture cost me 63$



The DC for Kingman is the same DC as Las Vegas Nv I believe. So with some luck in finding the shelf stocked, it might be possible to avoid the cactus tea thing for a while if the second dip is as many believe about to happen, and JIT fails completely when/if organized transport dissolves into the bankruptcy the government is dissolving into. Anyone depending on local developing warlords to force food distribution knows nothing of the reality of transport...LOL