Best foodstuff to stockpile?

[Marianne]

I've been trying to start a similar binder here! Most of it's currently recipes tho lol

I agree! Anyway we could convince you for some wisdom from those pages?.?

hahahahaha
I have 5 binders of varying thickness at this point, most with recipes. I just grabbed one that has:

All kinds of cleaning recipes, including ones that I don't use now. You never know what you're going to have available if the worst-case scenario hits or you are doing the eco friendly/minimalist/no buy kind of lifestyle.

Treatment for cats and dogs: Ear mites, yeast infections, hot spots, fleas, homemade cat food, etc.

Various recipes for outdoor plants and critters: Insecticidal soap recipe, supposed weed killer, dealing w/moles (plant some chocolate lilies or skunk lilies around your yard or garden and that will help repel them), white flies, etc.

Some medicinal related recipes and notes: Elderberry syrup, various wart removal, skin tag removal, various medicinal uses for ACV, how to make mustard plasters, how to make drawing salve, etc.

Everything that I have was printed off from the internet. Some I googled, others are notes from what I read in forums or groups. I'm pretty sure I have a lot printed off from this one, as well. Some other sites I used were Earth Clinic, maybe the Boy Scouts...Doom and Gloom forums, camping forums, alternative energy, passive solar... You can look at your own lifestyle, then research what you'd need or want. Print it off. Scribble notes on those pages.

I overthink many things. One day when I was washing a few dishes, I thought 'what would I do if this was the last dish soap I could ever get'. After that moment, I looked at everything with a different view. And started researching.

In a perfect world at my age and health, I'd have elderberry bushes, soap nut trees, hawthorn bushes, apple trees (to make ACV, too!), bee hives, herbs, etc, everything and anything I could grow out here for medicinal use. With a small garden, a stash of dry foods, and with a few hens, I hope I could barter for some occasional butter, milk or lard.
Oh crap... and flour and sugar. Ha! It's been a while since I was overthinking this!!

 

[DconBlueZ]

(redacted for brevity)
by the way, I ran across this tutorial for making a NON ELECTRIC mason jar vacuum sealer http://www.tenthacrefarm.com/2014/06/non-electric-mason-jar-vacuum-sealer/

FYI - I can't find that article on their site.

 

[flowerbug]

thanks for bumping this thread!

for me it is the beans, peas and garden seeds that i would like to be able to replant from year to year.

as for sealing and stashing in the water, any canning lid i know of will rust unless it is completely kept dry. eventually the rust would break the seal or crack through the lid.

my own personal interest was what to do for canning if nobody is making lids any more. i thought that some sort of natural gum/resin and pieces of thick enough glass or smooth enough stone would allow for a seal.

eventually then it would be a process of figuring out how to make strong enough jars as even if we have so many eventually they break or get chipped or crack or get dropped or ...

all seeds if kept cool and dry will last longer than if they are stored in a hotter location.

unfortunately here we don't have a root cellar as i'd surely love to have more storage space for food. the crawl space that we have is not kept cool enough.

i do like the idea of turning an interior wall into more shelf space. i currently have book shelves in front of it, but for emergency and back up storage it would be better than nothing. i do have more storage space i'm currently not using because it wouldn't look that great, but eventually if i were stuck here and staying i could turn that into a more enclosed area that wouldn't look too bad.

 

[Hinotori]

I have some Tattler lids but not enough for serious canning with how much they cost. In my experience they haven't kept sealed as well regular lids. I have to check them regularly for seal.

 

[flowerbug]

i have no experience with reusable lids/gaskets at present other than the fact that i do reuse some lids and jar tops at times just because i'm willing to risk it for the contents i'm putting up (high acid stuff i don't worry as much).

since i have no experience i fired up youtube and looked and found out right away that there are a few things you do have to be wary of. if you are canning things with grease of any kind the lid, gasket and jar rim have to be very clean. the other tip was that the initial processing does not need as tight of a twist on the ring as what i would normally do but when done with the processing you can tighten it down when you first take it out.

since i only do high acid canning here i'm not nearly as worried about things being absolutely perfect, but i am pretty picky about how i do things anyways. over the years i've only lost a few quarts due to jars breaking or even failed seals. by far i've lost a lot more jars because Mom over filled things before putting them in the freezer. recently i've finally gotten her to leave more room and glad to say that has helped.

i do have things "go off" or not be exactly what i was expecting at times, but even then that isn't too often. this past year so far i've had a few jars of dill pickles that look like they fermented even after i put them up and the seal is still holding for them so the lid is pushed up. since they are high enough acid i did taste them and i would have eaten them, but i knew Mom wouldn't eat them so i fed them to the lilac tree out back. before that we'd lost a few quarts of tomatoes due to inclusions that weren't caught during processing. i think the total is still less than 10 quarts total for spoiling out of several thousand put up so i'm happy with our methods and results. we've probably lost 20-30 jars by dropping them, chipping them or having them break in the freezer. we have a lot of jars now so that's not too critical, but in a longer term trying to keep going after the apocalypse kind of way i don't like to lose a single one of them...

 

[Hinotori]

Over the years Ive only lost 2 jars of tuna after storage to seals failing. There is usually one or two that fail each year when I pull them from the canner. Those just get a new lid and reprocessed with the next batch.

I only use the Tattlers for jams and pickles. It's really rare for me to lose jam to a bad regular lid. I actually haven't tried the Tattlers in the steam canner.

 

[Britesea]

@DconBlueZ At the time I posted that it was there; but if you do a search, there are several sites that give the same general directions.

 

[CrealCritter]

I honestly think I could survive a little while on some of the higher gravity German beers I've been brewing. Water, malted grains, hops and yeast, seems pretty healthy to me. So that's the best food stuff for me to stockpile. The key here is moderation though. Like most everything you don't want to let it get a hold of you.

 

[Hinotori]

The unfiltered beers used to be a major part of calories in working diets in some areas. Basically liquid bread.

 

[CrealCritter]

The unfiltered beers used to be a major part of calories in working diets in some areas. Basically liquid bread.

I believe you... When I first started brewing beers I went to great lengths to clarify the beers I brewed. But here recently with the German styles I've brewed, I don't clarify at all. Yeast really does contribute to the flavor profile and seems to be working very well for my gut health.

I just poured a glass of what I'm calling a finished traditional bock beer now. Like you said it's liquid bread. I'm quite certain unfiltered beer is higher in calories than filtered beer. That's just another reason to exercise moderation.