Survival foods?

[QUOTE

One thing I haven't seen mentioned on this thread yet are sports supplements. As well a protein and carb shake mix, you can also buy complete meal replacements; they contain the correct proportions of carbs, proteins and fats. The tubs take up very little room on a shelf for the product inside. A little more spendy than the usual canned or dried goods but it's good quality nutrition. If you need to get out of town a tub or two is easy to transport and all you need for a meal is a little water. Not a long term solution but over the course of a couple of weeks it could offset any impact of a rationed diet.[/QUOTE]



See my post, it is there.

S/F,
CEYA!
 
Coldwood said:
Regarding stockpiling food: I say, buy the things that you really like to eat. I can't see buying a case of MREs, unless you really enjoy them...or a case of Hormel pork'n'beans, unless you really enjoy that. You might be eating that stuff three times a day for a long time. Buy and stock up on your favorite foods, and soups, things that you can stretch out. Forget chips and soda, think chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, canned meat and vegetables, dried sausage, bulk cereals and flour and oatmeal, and stuff you can trade. Water is a biggie. I know, it takes money to do this.
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ironically I've noticed that the chocolate with the highest cocoa content has the longest shelf life- so the fancy chocolates actually last longer (which will make my wife happy when the shtf...)
 
Coldwood said:
...(by the way, beer and alcohol might be another thing to reserve for those cold winter nights when the power is out...adds to the entertainment when your killing time playing gin rummy...and of course a good battery powered radio or miniature TV)
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neutral grain spirits, i.e. everclear or spiritus, are the ultimate survivalist booze... it is:

1. booze
2. a disinfectant
3. a fuel source
4. a weapon (molotov...)

great thing to have around
 
Dogs are like that, ain't they? They want to be part of the pack, eat what you eat. But unless your planning to eat the dog, you do want to think about what he or she wants to eat. And ultimately, you could end up sharing with them ;)
 
Codger, that was rude. There are a lot of dog lovers here. I just can't think about skinning out my favorite four-legged girlfriend and roasting her on the hibachi. It would have to be out of sight, in the dutch oven. ;)
 
OK, no eating the dogs... but how 'bout something the dogs and people would both like? Rabbit. :D

I read in an article somewhere that 3 or 4 breeding rabbits can supply a family of four with all their protein needs. Is that really true? (I could have the numbers wrong but it's something like that). I know that's a little off track but it's worth a thought at least. How much work would it really be to maintain a few chickens and a couple rabbits?
 
It is werk. Anytime you raise livestock, it is work. And expense. And they have to be fed, watered, and tended 7/12. You can't just go off and leave them for days at a time. Cows you can, but they still require attention, vet bills, etc. I currently have three rabbits, a flock of forty chickens and a few ducks. The chickens and ducks have to be let out and fed in the morning, eggs gathered and refed in the evening, and penned for the night. Otherwise, you just feed predators. One chicken thief can empty a twenty hen coop in a night. An uncaught egg stealing snake can take half the lay every day. My weekly feed bill for the flock is about $14. On top of the initial purchase from a hatchery or breeder of $3.00 per chick average, ducks are more. I don't get 14 dozen eggs a week (couldn'e eat or sell them all if I did), and the women and kids bail off the farm on butchering days.

In the winter, feed bills increase, providing thawed water is a hassle, and due to shortened sunlight, egg laying is minimal. Rabbits require maintenance too. Does will eat their young, get hairballs, sore feet from the wire, get bitchey and attack kids and adults, can even castrate a buck you are trying to breed her with. Rabbit feed isn't expensive, but to feed a litter of six to eight up to fryer size is not cheap. Storebought meat is cheaper.

The advantage to all this lies in more healthful food. IF... you can keep the wife and kids from naming the critters. Naming one Stew, one Fry, one Meatball doesn't work. I tried that. Wanna know about my chicken Patricia? Blind as a bat. Has to be in her own coop so the other chickens don't peck her head off, special feeder so she doesn't starve, special waterer. Kid's felt sorry for her, now she is too old to eat.
 
Rabbits do multiply. We did that once, raising rabbits in pens and free-range chickens. I figured if I was going to eat meat then I should take responsibility for killing it, cleaning it and cooking it. The free range chickens were the worst. They took to roosting in the pine trees. So if we wanted chicken for dinner, I had to lay an extension ladder up against the pine tree, climb up there, grab the bastard by the feet, drag him or her down squawking its head off and do the deed. It got kind of inconvenient in the winter.
 
I just brought home this week's feed from the Co-OP. And fed them all. Counting the ones who have gone feral (they do show up at chow time), I have fifty. Mixed flock, some barred rocks, two Auracannas, production reds, some white plymouth, a dozen or so assorted bantams. I reccomend the Auracannas. My best layers of large eggs, quiet dispositions, faithful to their roost, silent..no noises at all. The bantams are the most decorative, easiest to house and feed, and give me no trouble.

50 birds/100# feed is 2# per on average, .28c each per week. This is still warm weather here and they can range for seeds and bugs.
 
For those that are raising Ducks and or chickens, what will happen to your flocks if the Avian flu hits your area. Are they vacinated or will you need to cull them all?
 
Avian flu does not just "hit". Like most diseases, it is transmitted, usually from imported stock held in close confinement. Hatcheries are the watchdogs for this. All of my new stock is quarantened anyway. There are a lot of other more common avian diseases and parasites to worry about.

That said, sick chickens are killed and buried, unless I can identify an easily treatable condition. Keeping the coops clean and your property "livestock safe" goes a long way toward preventing illness and injury. The ducks are my watchdogs. They see hawks and take cover, the chickens learn to watch the ducks. The ducks don't sleep at night either. They "cat-nap".

Codger
 
I return to the topic of bulk foods, with a tip. It is easy to buy large packages of food, fairly cheap, that will sustain you for a long time. If you have the added capacity to add minimally to the larder, you can live for years on what you can buy at Sam's Costco, or the local supermarket.

However, make sure that those packaged foods with the interminable shelf lives do not spoil the instant you open the can or bucket. A five gallon bucket of anything that needs refridgeration once you open it is no better than a small can if you can not use what you have opened before it spoils.

Canned foods do in fact last almost forever. However, if the storage area ever freezes all that wet canned food will split.

I like stuff that is pretty easy to keep around. rice in five gallon buckets. pasta in the same. Dried potato flakes. corn meal, flour, white and brown sugar. honey. Any GI canned foods you can find. The old Government surplus containers of berries, cheeses, butter, and syrups and sauces are great, I used to live on canned cheese food with elbow macaroni and canned meats from the Government when I was in school. There was a program that let you buy what the government was rotating out of stock. I think I would spend about 45 dollars a semester and it would feed me maybe 6 nights out of 7 for the whole semester.

the two gallon cans of berries and sauces and syrups would be opened, split up to Mason canning jars and those kept in the fridge or cupboard till used.

I actually liked the mac and cheese made with gov;t pasta and the GI version of velveeta melted in better than anything else I have bought.

Add a can of tuna or chicken and it was a meal.

Lots of companies are now making meats available in foil packets with a year or more shelf life, these are great for dry storage foods. Always remember to take your new purchases and mark the date bought on them and store them at the back of the cupboard and use the old stuff first. it works fairly painlessly and adding 5% or so to your weekly spending at the grocery store can make building a stock pile easy.


I would not ever advertise that you have food stored, nor would I help out other who come to my door unless i know them previously. I would also make sure the door is never opened by an unarmed person. Just me, but I have been in places where killing for food was common. Get a dog, teach it to bark at strangers. and yes dog tastes good. In fact it was the favorite food of either Merriweather Lewis or William Clark. Best if roasted slow on a fire, to let the fats drip off.



Water If you want a cheap and easy supply of water, add a inline water tank to your current water system. for about 200 bucks, adding a tank is very easy and it will hold about 150 gallons. make sure you have a syphon breaker on the line. Adding water in to the top and drawing from the bottom keeps the water in circulation and it works very easy. In some places, adding a tank like this up stairs allows for water pressure but I would say not to as then it is possible to use up your spare supply before you know that water supply is gone.
 
Really Raw Honey---Whole foods. Will last indefinitly, and has a myriad of uses
REAL maple sugar/syrup--considered the single most important part of the natives winter diet
making pemmican
 
Don't forget fuel - whether it's gasoline, kerosene, propane, charcoal, or wood. Five gallon buckets of beans and rice aren't much good if you don't have fuel to cook with...

Unless you're going to rely entirely on precooked canned food or MREs, your fuel should be stockpiled in a safe and secure location just like your food.
 
A 5 gallon container of "Emergency Food" featured at Costco was mentioned earlier in this thread. Just for info the following link is the actual manufacturer: http://www.nutristorage.com/products

In short, Costco currently has this at $109.00 and it is the same item that the manufacturer sells for $199.00.

I picked up two buckets today. It is 275 servings of freezedried vegetarian food product, "Up to 20 year shelf life", lightweight, relatively compact compared to my stash of MREs, and apparent relatively easy prep.

I would strongly recommend trying the sample from the manufacturer before buying a large quantity. However, in my case this will be a good supplement to what I already have.

All the very best regards,

Stuart
 
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