Stocking Food

Discussion in 'Survival and Wilderness Skills' started by AddictedToSteel, Jun 5, 2017.

  1. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    I wanted to say "Storing Food", but I am not sure that would be accurate.

    Many of us have a bit of the prepper in us and tend to keep more than a few days of food at home. Just in case. We have seen multiple articles about freeze drying and dehydrating food to extend it's shelf life. There are a bunch of companies offering prepackaged meals where you just add hot water to get a delicious and nutritious entre.

    Those things make sense for a grab and go scenario. But what about the stay in place people? Should they invest large sums to have buckets of food so that they will not have to go to the grocery 20 years from now? I have been rethinking it.

    Most canned food you buy at the local mega mart has a "Best By" date anywhere from one to three years, and in some cases, up to four years into the future. What if you were to just start building your stash by buying a few extra cans of what you are already buying. Buy three cans of corn, eat two, buy three more, eat two, buy three, etc. It is said to buy what you eat and eat what you buy. How long it takes to reach a level you are comfortable with depend on how aggressive you are. In time you will have several days, then weeks, months, and eventually years of food with none of it going bad, since you are always eating the oldest cans in the pantry.

    Now you have a year or more of food and it is all the stuff you normally eat.

    I am not suggesting that there isn't a place for the dehydrated meals, but for the most part, accumulating your normal food seems to make some sense. Plus, if finances become tight, you can continue like normal without eating up your high dollar Mylar meals.

    I realize that there are some things that lend themselves to bulk storage. Salt and sugar come to mind. Rice and pasta are also a couple that you can put away easily. Most of the food, though, could be canned goods from the supermarket.

    What am I missing? Where am I wrong?
     
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  2. Strigidae

    Strigidae Administrator Staff Member

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    Just like any stockpiling there are issues with portability and security of it.
     
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  3. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    That makes the case for having some of your stash in pouch meals and MRE type food. I can see that if you are planning to bug out or are setting up a go to location, then the shelf stable stuff is a good choice as you can pretty much store it and forget it.

    I am particularly thinking of times where you need food at home and you are not planning to transport it. Realistically, bugging out loses it's appeal if everybody else is bugging out, too. If your neighborhood takes off, you may decide to stay simply because you have the area to yourself.

    Also, if you are taking it all with you, then there doesn't seem to be a reason to store more than you can carry.
     
  4. olderguy

    olderguy Member

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    I'm of the mind set to stay put if it makes sense. Panic moving will be high on the list for folks who don't prepare at all. Food and Ammo !!!
     
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  5. Strigidae

    Strigidae Administrator Staff Member

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    Im making the case for knowing wild edibles and how to make your own food.
     
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  6. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    Wild edibles is the weakest of my bushcraft skillsets. I am pretty good on shelter and fire and have done a lot of fishing and a little hunting. I would consider snares and trapping to be just above wild edibles in my repertoire.

    To me the stored food is for tiding you over until you can bring in a harvest of your own. If SHTF in late July then here in Michigan you are pretty much beyond the point of being able to plant a garden for the fall. For many crops you will have to wait until the next spring to plant and over a year to harvest. There are always some things that have a short enough growing season that you can get something grown earlier, but for a full harvest you have over a year. Thus I think your stored food, at least for someone around here, needs to last at least 18 months and probably close to 30 months just in case that first crop does not work out so well.

    I also see the stored food not as something that will allow me to ride out whatever the trouble is until it all comes back to normal. I don't think I should plan on "normal" returning. It might, but I should plan that it won't. Therefore my stored food is for making the transition to the new normal (hunting, husbandry, food plot) more gentle.
     
  7. Strigidae

    Strigidae Administrator Staff Member

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    Agreed. Multiple baskets. Learn all you can and set yourself up for success. Farming and animals suck. Theres always problems.

    Field survival intensive brought me to my senses. We are fragile stupid creatures now. We have lost a lot of what makes us survivors.

    What i worry about most is the resting on laurels of i have a years worth of food im gtg. It doesn't take much to lose that food or to have it taken in a few weeks. Sad to say but history is filled with groups pillaging to feed their families.

    Gloom and doom i know. Life sucks. I need to get out and learn more. Good reminder and reminder to be thankful for what we have.
     
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  8. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    Have you read "The Secret Survival Garden"? http://secretgardenofsurvival.com/

    He has some interesting ideas of how to have a productive garden that does not reveal to the casual observer that you even have a garden.
     
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  9. Strigidae

    Strigidae Administrator Staff Member

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    Ive heard of the idea but never realized there was something published. Cool! Thanks!
     
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  10. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    I had seen this many months ago, but only recently bought the book. While the website focuses on the planting of the various things and alludes to their compatibility with each other, the book is about more than that. In it he talks about setting up the landscaping to allow for more capture of water by the layout of the garden so that you reduce the runoff during rainy times making the water available to the plants during dry times. There is a bit of infrastructure in the setup of the garden. The thing that was a little disappointing was that I am not sure how to implement his ideas on a smaller scale and on flat land. His layout uses a south facing downslope and berm placement for being able to direct the rain runoff to where you can hold it or let it soak into the ground. Kind of hard if you have a half acre lot on a flat piece of ground. I need to read it again and pay more attention so I can see if I can adapt it to the smaller plot.

    One of techniques that might be hard to use on a smaller plot is using the home gray water in the garden. This is water that can be put into the growing of food rather than having it end up in your drain field.

    His premise is that if you have a societal breakdown and are trying not to advertise that you have food, you don't want some garden laid out in rows that everyone can see as they trudge down the road past your property. Even if it is late or early season and nothing is growing in the garden, just the existence of the garden will give people some hope that you might have food and thus lead them to approach your front door or maybe break in. By making your garden essentially self sustaining, you won't have to worry about losing access to fertilizer or pesticides since his plan doesn't use them. He relies on natural methods, good bugs killing bad bugs, composting, perennials instead of annuals for food plants, etc. According to him, once you get it set up properly there is little maintenance required to keep it going from year to year.
     
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  11. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    He also has a book on setting up a stealth greenhouse using an enclosed porch or sun room like many that older houses have. Again, because it doesn't look like a greenhouse it should not attract unwanted attention from people moving past on the roads.
     
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  12. mlrs

    mlrs Member

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    This is an interesting topic that the wife and I have been discussing. For the most part we plan on staying put for as long as possible if things got bad. We also have plans to head out to if we really have to. The way I see it, you kind of have to be prepared to do both because you never know what is going to happen.

    We have some of the dehydrated meals and we stock up on can goods too. The buy 3 use 1 idea has worked well for us. The dehydrated stuff is used mostly for hunting and fishing trips or would be used in an emergency for if we had to stay away from home for a bit while out hunting and gathering things.

    We grow a decent size garden every year and we do a fair amount of canning. We also talked about hiding small gardens out in different areas we would be hunting or fishing if things went south.

    About 65% of the meat and fish we eat every year is stuff that we hunted or fish we caught. We are in the process of designing a cold smoke house so we can cure meats and not have to have refrigeration.

    I am a trapper as well. Trapping is dying art it seems. In my opinion I think it is something that any prepper or anyone who does wilderness survival things should know how to do. You can put out a couple dozen snares and they will work at catching food even if you aren't there. The one thing I don't know that is trapping related is how to brain tan. I hope to fix that soon.

    I think to be able to survive long term in a situation where things may never return to " normal" you need to have a lot of different skills like hunting, fishing, trapping, gardening, being able to preserve your meats and vegetables that you grow. It's easy to read books and articles on how to do things, but I think to be able to actually do a lot of those things you have to get out and practice.


    mlrs
     
  13. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    First off, WELCOME BACK!! Been a while.

    I have hunted off and on for many years, mostly off. I have fur trapped (just a handful of traps) when I was in college, but I haven't used snares. I need to give it a try just to see what I can do with my limited knowledge on the subject.
     
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  14. mlrs

    mlrs Member

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    Thanks brother! It's good to be back!

    There is a lot of good info out there about trapping and making and using snares. Snares are actually easier to use to me than leg hold traps. I use both and trap everything from small game up to coyotes. I do a lot of predator control for some ranchers and farmers. Trapperman.com is a good source of info and the guys there are usually pretty nice and helpful.

    Along with doing all of this stuff to practice and make sure you can do it, I think it will help get a person out of their comfort zone on trying new foods. Right now most people would never consider eating a trash panda ( raccoon ). They are actually pretty good eating. Trying stuff like that also gives more of an opportunity to try different ways of cooking things.

    Prepping and being prepared is a good thing for people to do and I encourage it. I also encourage people to think past having their food and water storage and what they will do if things don't get back to normal and the supplies run out.


    mlrs
     
  15. koolaidnd

    koolaidnd Member

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    My wife and I stock a lot of the same items we eat already. This saved our butts when my wife was 8 months pregnant and lost her job. We cut our grocery bill down to milk, bread, eggs, and a few other essentials.

    I figure you are more likely going to encounter a financial hardship rather then most kinds of SHTF situations.
     
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  16. tangomike3

    tangomike3 Member

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    There is a lot of information on stealth gardening available. I am blessed in that I live 3 miles from my primary bugout location. Located in the southeast I employ lots of Jerusalem Artichokes, muscadines on old fence lines, mushrooms, cattails, and bamboo in a very haphazard way. Once you know the plants it's pretty cool to "manage" them into sizable amounts. Then get Darryl or James to walk your property and find 20 other items you had no idea were there. For example Plantain and Cross Vine...

    I keep 12 months of freeze dried food to be used only in the event of catastrophic crop failure or destruction. The Mormons have the best pricing and have been professionally doing this for a long time. I have not bought from here in years but they had the best pricing and you did not have to be Mormon. Prices include shipping. If you are fortunate enough to have a Bishop's Storehouse near you, they have a lot more variety available than what is listed.
    https://providentliving.lds.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-order-form?lang=eng
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2017
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  17. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    Have you considered planting perennial veggies and herbs in the wild as a way to expand the availability of food? Or, instead of planting standard veggies, gathering seeds from wild edibles and planting them around the forest? It is not unusual for hunters to create food plots to attract various game animals, I am wondering about the legality or efficacy of planting stuff in a public space?

    Most of the time cities are considered as food deficient, but planting wild edibles or perennial veggies in empty lots or overgrown open spaces could expand a person's food availability. At least it does as I type this. lol



    I have a friend that likes porcupine and goes out hunting them when he is home on leave. So far I am not that enthusiastic about eating stuff that is strange to me. Borrowing a phrase from a comic strip, I don't have an adventurous palette. I know that I need to expand my willingness to try stuff.

    I will check out trapperman.com. Thanks for the reference.
     
  18. mlrs

    mlrs Member

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    You're welcome. That is a good idea on the wild edibles. Most people wouldn't know they were edibles. I live about 400 yards from the river. Not many people go down there so I am going to have to check into doing something like that.


    mlrs
     
  19. AddictedToSteel

    AddictedToSteel Member

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    Are there any seed houses that sell wild edible / wild medicinal plant seeds? I know you could probably just keep your eyes open and harvest the seeds of the various plants in your area, but if you wanted to introduce a new one to an area, then getting seeds from a reputable dealer seems like a good starting place.

    So, lets take this detour a little farther out. Where would be good spots to establish a wild edibles food plot and have some confidence that it should be there years from now when you might have need of it? Highway medians? Deep forest clearings? Fence rows? Along two track roads and trails? Wondering about the legality of being a Johnny Wild Edibles Seed (thinking of Johnny Appleseed)? Maybe plant peach pits or appleseeds or other stuff out in the woods where not many travel?

    Just a thought.
     
    Last edited: Jun 12, 2017
  20. mlrs

    mlrs Member

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    From a quick Google search it looks like there are a few places to get wild edible seeds. I checked a couple for prices and they are pretty expensive.

    As far as where to plant some of that stuff is a good question. I would think you wouldn't want to plant it somewhere that is going to get mowed or sprayed with weed killer. That would rule out fence lines in town or medians in roads. Around my AO I have a fair amount of parks that are kind of wildlife areas too. They have paved trails but they also have a lot of dirt foot trails that go through the woods and run along the creeks. Maybe off of some of those trails and into the woods a little? I would think that two track roads that aren't maintained by anyone would be another good one.

    Legality May be another question. In Kansas, our wildlife biologists get a little testy when people introduce new things. If it was on private land then there is nothing they can do. In a public place may be another matter.

    The great thing about wild edibles is 99.9% of people have no clue what the are. I think it would make cultivation of them much easier as long as you don't plant them in the typical crop rows. People won't be able to tell the wild edibles from grass or weeds.

    Wherever you decided to try and plant stuff, it is going to be like a regular garden in the fact of having to do some research and see if they are shaded, partial sun, or full sun type plants. I think that will play a big role in where to plant things.

    What do you think?


    mlrs
     

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