Food Prices, Shortages & Inflation - The Trash Index

[Wildsky]

When I was living in Renovo, I saw butter on sale at $1.50/lb and stocked up... 15lbs of butter. Unfortunately, I moved and really didn't think about grabbing any of my stored foods. Now butter is $2.77/lb. Of course the fake crap is only $2/lb.

So...the people who moved in after you found 15 lbs of butter in their freezer/pantry...??

Lucky them!!!

Lol. The ex-boyfriend. I'd never have left my freezer in a move!!! Lol. Oh well, I don't have anywhere to store 15lbs of butter now. My freezer is smaller (not quite as tall as I am) and is old, so my parents would never let me plug it in because of the electricity usage. :/

Take him to court and sue for custody!

 

[Wifezilla]

I don't have anywhere to store 15lbs of butter now

This wont help Bettacreek much, but if you even find yourself with too much butter and no freezer space, make GHEE!!!

Ghee, or clarified butter, has all the water and milk fat solids removed leaving pure oil. It can store this way for years.

 

[Dunkopf]

It's amazing how much juice the old fridges and freezers suck. We had a fridge that was given to us, circa 1960's. Spent 300 on a new one at Sears and it actually dropped our electric bill about 10.00 per month.

 

[i_am2bz]

Ghee, or clarified butter, has all the water and milk fat solids removed leaving pure oil. It can store this way for years.

Ok, since I now have 6 or 7 lbs of butter (plus 16 lbs of flour) in my freezer, I am convinced my electricity will go out at any moment (read my signature line, I'm a pessimist ), how do you clarify butter? And then how do you use it afterwards?

 

[ORChick]

When I was living in Renovo, I saw butter on sale at $1.50/lb and stocked up... 15lbs of butter. Unfortunately, I moved and really didn't think about grabbing any of my stored foods. Now butter is $2.77/lb. Of course the fake crap is only $2/lb.
If I could ever afford the gamma seal lids, I'd start buying my ww flour and raw sugar in the 50lb bags, since the store is soooo far away. But I just can't heft out the money (pretty pathetic huh?)
If I could find them locally, for cheap, I'd be one happy gal.

Betta - You don't need the gamma lids for either of these. The wh wh flour should be stored in the freezer anyway (or at least the fridge) because it goes rancid quickly (if you don't use a lot of flour at a time it would be unwise to get 50#, IMO). Wheat berries, on the other hand, will store for ages, but you would need a grinder. As for sugar, raw or otherwise, keep it pest free, and dry, and all will be well. I keep mine in a rubber tote. Those gamma seals look great, but so far I haven't felt the need to spend the money for them. Of course, where I live the summer humidity is pretty low; maybe in other places a tighter seal would be necessary to keep sugar dry.

 

[k0xxx]

The gamma seal lids are indeed very nice to have, but as ORChick said, you don't actually need them for those items.

We use the regular lids on all of our bulk, long term storage items. Once we open, say a 5 gallon bucket of wheat berries, then we transfer the bag into a bucket that has the gamma seal lid. That way we can securely close that bucket and conveniently open it again as we use the contents. We may have 40 to 60 buckets at any given time, but only a few that we are using the GS lids on.

Since we seal everything in mylar bags with O2 absorbers, we just re-use the original lids when we re-fill a bucket with new bags. The original lids that get damaged when opening, get replaced with new original type lids.

 

[Wifezilla]

Just google "making ghee". All you are doing it heating it until the milk fat solids drop to the bottom of the pan. Then you strain.

As for storage, put it in a canning jar when it is still hot and seal it.

And I am a born optimist, but I always still have a plan b...cuz life is weird and stuff. ALWAYS!

 

[TanksHill]

k0xxx----- How do you seal you mylar bags? I am glad you pointed out using regular lids on long term. I have gammas on all my first buckets. But now I am working on back ups. No need for those to be convenient.


g

 

[ksalvagno]

DH uses an old iron (to iron clothes) to seal the mylar bags here.

 

[k0xxx]

k0xxx----- How do you seal you mylar bags? I am glad you pointed out using regular lids on long term. I have gammas on all my first buckets. But now I am working on back ups. No need for those to be convenient.


g

As ksalvagno mentioned, a dry clothes iron on high will do the job. I use a hand held impulse sealer. Take a look on YouTube for videos on long term storage and you can see the methods used.

Here's one on using a clothing iron.

This same fellow has videos on using hand held, clam shell type impulse (heat) sealers also. This is the type that I am using, although I am looking at upgrading to a table top unit that will seal the entire width of the bag at one time.