Stocking Up, Putting Back, Prepping = Paranoia?

[moolie]

Peanut butter is very high in oil and low in moisture so it takes a long time to go bad (usually good sealed on the shelf for a year)--when it does go bad, it goes rancid and you can tell right away

If you buy nuts and make your own, or buy peanut butter made fresh in a natural foods store, you need to refrigerate it right away to be sure that any aflatoxin mold spores don't take hold--this mold is very dangerous to ingest because it is carcinogenic.

 

[ninny]

Quick question. Is there anywhere that says how much and what to store for so many people? Any non food stuffs? I want to be paranoia too!

 

[moolie]

The best thing to do is to track your actual food usage, and add 10% for a slush fund. But the Mormons have lots of online information about food storage (just google Mormon food storage) because it is part of their religion, and a specific site that I've found very useful is www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net

 

[Emerald]

Quick question. Is there anywhere that says how much and what to store for so many people? Any non food stuffs? I want to be paranoia too!

There are plenty of prepper sites that have whole spread sheets on how much and what to store... but for me I just started by listing absolutely everything we ate in one month and then did it for another month(from salt to herbs/spices and snacks etc...) and then you kinda have a jumping off point. I so don't believe in the "store beans and rice etc... " for after TSHTF... if you ain't eating it now, it will not go down that easily after. You take what you normally eat per month and then x 12 it for storage.. some things you may only eat once or twice a year.. so go from that also.
So... plan on Storing what you eat, eating what you store and the First in First out rule. And the KISS Keep it simple silly..
I buy and keep on hand stuff that we eat normally.. especially the easy to store stuff like rice and (yes we do eat beans.. lol)beans, pasta(if you can eat it) and many of the ingredients that I use to bake our own bread stuffs.. While I am only stocked enuf for about 9 months to a year(if we stretch it out).. I am prepared to grow much more of our own foods and I can wild forage here.

I know that is not quite what you wanted but it may help when you go to look.

 

[Emerald]

Moolie types faster than I do! But I am gonna check out her link too! Thanks for posting it!

ETA:Just did some reading there and really do like it and have them bookmarked.. only one thing I do not agree with on their 7 day challenge is the kitty litter for sanitary toilet.. it is a nightmare to get rid of.. they would have been better with sawdust. or just bucket and pail for indoor and hole for outdoor "facilities". Old fashioned and scoop kitty litter just doesn't break down and remains a bio hazard in the yard for years.

 

[moolie]

It's a very "pretty" website, but has a lot of information. I like that the gals who run it are "learning as they go" and open to new ideas.

 

[hiker]

I took a slightly different approach to determining how much to put back. After 3 years of trying to find a calculation that worked for me, I decided to do one on my own.

I found the recommended servings of each food group by age and sex and activity level. I then input the number of people I was prepping for and how long. From here I figured out the total number of servings required for each food group. I then found the serving sizes for commonly stored items and how much they weigh. This gave me the total number of pounds that I would need to store.

For example, let's say that you need 12,000 servings of grain/starch per year. If you want 10% of your grain/starch to come from rice, you would need 1200 servings of rice. If a serving of rice is 1/2 cup dry and that weighs 8oz (i don't remember if this is right) you would need 300 pounds of rice.

Everyone has their own approach, so keep looking, you will find one that works for you.

BTW, I started buying rice in 25lb bags @ Sam's club in June of this year, it was $8.08, it is now $9.16! Scary

 

[Icu4dzs]

Both Emerald and Hiker make some exceptionally good points. Emerald tells us to store what we eat now and that is extremely wise. Hiker gives a method for calculating what and how much to store. While I did see some slight discord on the subject of eating beans, it might be a good idea to consider DIFFERENT ways of eating beans. Beans can be boiled, baked and sprouted (which means they can also be planted and raised as a sustainable commodity.) I have been eating sprouted beans for some time now as well as other sprouts and while thinking about this one day something occurred to me that I had not realized before.

Whenever we eat a fruit or vegetable we KNOW it had to be removed from its "source" (i.e. the tree, the bush, etc) and as such it is then put into the cycle of death for that particular organism. It no longer gets water or nutrients from its main source. Some will argue that it remains alive for a while but we all know that there is a limit to that and within a short time, it begins the process of necrosis because it was taken from its source.

With that being said, I realized that sprouts are different in that they are still very much alive and growing naturally when they are eaten. They have started to grow in the natural way and have not been separated from their source of life. They are simply growing seeds, if you will. Therefore, the life force within them has NOT been separated from them and that to me seems to have some very important advantage with respect to the life giving energy of food in general. What a wonderful difference!

So, for those of you who have some issues with beans, don't forget the wonderful properties of eating them in their earliest and most lively stage of existence...the sprout.

What seems most valuable to me is that sprouts afford you a fantastic source of fresh greens in the dead of winter when the canned foods are most prevalent on the table. It is rather hard to find a good salad in the farm environment in February (especially around my neck of the woods) so a fresh salad of sprouts really is a wonderful treat that appears to be enjoyed by all. They are cool and crunchy to the taste and sometimes beans in a pot just don't have that joyful taste that sprouts have.

When mixed together in a jar, sprouts that develop at the same rate offer a wonderful variety/selection of greens to supplement any meal.

One other really important feature of beans is that they are dry and can be carried in the event that you have to "get moving". You can carry a whole lot more food in the dried state and add water later than if you carry things which have been hydrated and then can spoil. Beans will stay safe until they are either cooked or sprouted. We all know the nutritional value of them so I guess if you figure the actual nutritional requirement of each person in that situation you will find that a similar weight of beans allows a LOT more flexibility if you have to be "on the road" for whatever reason. 5 lb of dried beans will feed you a lot longer than 5 lb of cooked/canned beans because you are not having to carry the weight of the water. In one of my other posts, there was someone who was more concerned with carrying water than knowing how to find and prepare water for safe consumption. You can stay on the road a lot longer with a head full of knowledge than you can with a pack full of food. (at least I believe that)

No, I am NOT a seed/bean salesman...just someone who has learned some interesting things by "DOING THEM" both in a military survival setting as well as out on the farm. I hope this makes some sense because in a situation where our "JUST IN TIME" transportation system is interrupted for any prolonged period, fresh greens will be one of the "casualties" and with this method, you have just one more way to preserve you health and happiness.

Not a sermon, just a thought.
Trim sends

//BT//

 

[Dreaming of Chickens]

When Katrina happened, all those people sat around, complained about the heat, and demanded the goverment provide for them. Very few if any tried to help themselves.

I know this quote goes waaaayyyy back, but I just found this thread. While I agree that these people probably only had a can of soda and the ends of a loaf a bread in there houses.........during hurricane season.......in a city below sea level..........with Katrina staring them in the face......... and their mayor telling them to abandon ship.....and so on, it would not have mattered if they were prepared and had every closet in the house and the shed in the back yard filled with food and water. You can have the largest stockpile in the city, but it does you no good when it's under 8 foot of water and you are stuck on your roof.....for at least a week. And it may be easy to say, "well, I guess it's time to start swimming", but it ain't that easy. When the water went into the houses it was like turning on a blender. Everything in the house was churned up and spun around. The only way to truly be prepared for a 40 foot storm surge is to leave town. My family and I took the food and water we had, packed up and left! That is what all of these people should have done. I know some people just had no money or means to leave and that is unfortunate, but there were plenty of those that had the ability to get out and chose to stay (head in the sand). They are the ones I don't really feel sorry for. They were unprepared. You always need an evacuation plan as part of your preparedness.

 

[moolie]

My understanding was that the actual flooding was more to do with the levies breaking than the actual storm surge? That New Orleans would have been relatively safe but for the levy breaches? I don't know the actual order of events during that time, but I don't think the word went out for everyone to leave town until it was too late for a lot of people? And I've read horrible stories of people who tried to leave but who were turned back by the police. A very sad situation all around