Deep Food Storage

Blessings, Darlings!

So, as I was saying yesterday, I have 'pantry' storage of various foods.  Enough for a few weeks of eating, if we ate only that.  But that's the little bitty tip of my food storage iceberg.  In fact, it's aimed to only supplement the deeper food storage.

Yes, I aim to have a lot of cans of four types of meat - 13 cans each of ham, beef (or beef stew), and chicken, and a fish (tuna, salmon, mackeral) assortment weighing in at about the same amount.  Note the number 13?  I'm not using that figure to be witchy or pagan - that's 4 types of meat, 13 'servings' for our family of each type.  That would be one serving of meat per week for a year.

Yes.  I aim to have enough food stored for a year.  It's not that hard, or that expensive, if you ... well, #1 if you don't have food allergies/issues or diabetes or such.  Let's get those facts out there early.

Anyway - it's not that expensive if you focus on calories, basic boring vegetable proteins, a good multivitamin, and limiting yourself to just one tablespoon of fat a day.  These are the basics.

Most of y'all already know the basic complete protein formula for humans - one part bean to 3 or 4 parts grain, preferably whole grain.  So that's what I try to bulk buy. 

Not JUST in bulk, but at feed stores.  Cuz you and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals.  And feed stores sell wheat for feed (and without added minerals or anything) cheap.  Like at $13 for 50 pounds.  That's 25 cents a pound.  Whole grain.  Stores for ever if stored well.  And, as you know from making spaghetti - cooked wheat expands into these HUGE SERVINGS.   Yes, you might want to make noises like you're feeding it to some domestic animal, if you want to cover for the fact that you're eating it yourself.  That's your call.  One pound a day will give you basic calories to avoid starvation, so get 400 pounds for  a year.  The 'extra' 35 pounds you can sprout.  That's just over $100 for a years supply of wheat for one person.

Yes, you'll probably want to 'clean' the wheat berries.  I'm sure that General Mills uses blowers to blow out the chaff.  Boomers - do you remember cleaning the seeds from our cheap marijuana in the 70's?  Yeah, you already have this skill down.  Only now you keep the seeds and get rid of the leafy stuff.

This wheat will come with some amount of bug eggs.  The wheat ground into the flour you buy would have them, too.  I just put the content of each bag of wheat into containers and freeze them for 3 days to kill the eggs, then put it all in buckets with good lids to store.  Alternatively, you can dump then contents into buckets then add some dry ice to suffocate the eggs.  It's all good.

It's pretty easy to get beans in bulk at coops.  Big bags of lentils and whatever for not too much money.  And they aren't outrageously expensive at Aldi's.  I'd be buying cracked soy beans at a feed store, but I don't like the taste of soy beans except as tofu.  I might add one 50 pound bag of that to my stores, but that would be it.  You want at least 100 pounds of beans for every 400 pounds of wheat.  That's going to be at least another $100, depending on what mix of beans you get, and where.  It could easily be $200.

Storing beans is just like storing wheat ... except beans don't store forever.  After a few years, to cook them thoroughly (which you need to do) you will need either a pressure cooker or to grind them to flour first.

We can talk about grinders some other day.

Instead, let's talk essential fatty acids.  They, like minimum wage workers right at this second working at those restaurants doing carry out, are essential and not respected.  Like minimum wage workers, they have high turnover (they can go rancid).  Unlike minimum wage workers, they are expensive.  You NEED about a table spoon of fat a day in your diet.  More than that is useful if you ever want to fry food - like to fry felafel from stored chickpeas.

Your basic cooking oils - corn, soy, canola - keep about 1 year. Six half gallon bottles per person would be a year supply.  This would cost $13 or so at Aldi.  Olive oil costs way more, but lasts two years.  So does coconut oil, at an even higher price.

Now, throw in a big bottle of good vitamins - your basic survival needs are covered.

Can you use corn instead of wheat?  Yes, it's cheaper, but far lower in protein.  You might need to store more of it.  But, oh MY - corn bread made from just-ground corn meal is AMAZING.

Can you use rice instead of wheat?  Not exactly.  White rice stores well, but, again, not good for protein.  Brown rice goes rancid due to relatively high fat content pretty, after about 6 months. 

Yes, you'll need seasonings, and salt, etc.  These foods can be seriously boring.  Salt stores forever.  Alas, herbs and spices don't.  You'll need to rotate them well.

That's the basics of survival food storage.  About $400 a person, more when you count storage containers (if you ask, I can go into that) and grinders and such.

Frondly, Fern