GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

A recent post about the US and preps has me wondering just how many here have long term preps.. I would be interested to know.. This is not a public poll, so if you wish others to know how you voted you can post below. :signs1:

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

Well ... I suppose It depends how mine will be spent. I'm between a rock and a hard place it seems but suffice to say:

My preps intended for my immediate household will last a year.

However - charity and the needs of my extended family will place an incalcuable (is that a word?) stress on my plans. I'm sure I'll have to resort to devine providence at some point. But I have done that in the past and it has not failed me.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

If you think I'd tell the truth on this poll, you'd be crazy.

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One thing is for certain:
When all heck breaks loose,
there will be NO mormons looting the shoprite..

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Why? It isn't public.. Unless you think the GIM servers are sending info to the gubbermint.. :biggrin:

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I'm at about 7 months, but should easily be set for a year by the end of summer between canning and drying garden produce, putting turkeys, chickens and lamb in the freezer, getting a dairy goat (by fall), and fresh eggs from my laying hens. I barter chickens and turkeys for cheese and other things that I don't raise myself. Life is good! :rose:

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The real trick is not food storage, but food production.

i am working hard in this area... chickens will be ready in 4-5 months for production egg laying

saving up for med. size 120x70 pond. Should be good enough for some cats and some perch. Also doubles as emergency water.

Greenhouse going in this fall if time/weather allow it.

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Yeah... 1 year could be more - Or I could be lying. It's the internets after all:biggrin:

Sidenote -

Over 1 Year! I am ready!

I'm not sure that's ready.

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2-6 months for one person and building.

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Over a year doesn't come close, and nobody is ready.

"To be ready is not"

Ponce.

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3 months without buying or bartering.
I must say, all of the real tasty food would be gone in two weeks.:confused_m:

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Beat me to it Andy...

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Haha, same here. If you coun't the non freeze-dried stuff, I'm under 3 months. =x

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We have about 300 lbs of rice so tomorrow we are headed out to purchase 2 rice cookers.

One to use and a 2nd as a backup.

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Truer words have never been written. The food production issue is a never-ending one. There is always something to do with the garden, something to do with the chickens and cattle, fences and equipment to be maintained, and managing all of the food stuffs. I will never be ready; at best, I can keep up.

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At least 3 years and adding more for me and the wife. If family and friends begin to show up, well......less than that. :yes:

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6 months to a year, but if the wife's land whale sister shows her ass around here, I'll figure on 3 weeks, tops.

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My little chickens are almost there, too and I'm framing out a small greenhouse next month.

Although the bolded type above is true, it will also be a real trick to keep poachers out of your garden if ts really does ever htf.

:biggrin:

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

6 months to a year for two adults and one child here. 6 months of real food. Freeze dried, Spam, corned beef, soups, veggies, dehydrated milk, kool-aid etc. Probably 3 to 6 months of sustenance food consisting of rice, beans and instant potatoes.

Everything is packed in mason jars and/or 7 mil mylar backs with 02 packets for long term storage.

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I voted "up to two weeks" of food preps because that is what I have so far. However, I plan to gradually add more to my food preps.

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You're right. I've spent too much time on this forum and now have a well-developed case of paranoia. I started prepping in 2004, right after I stumbled across the subject of peak oil for the very first time. I purchased Walton's deluxe one-year supply for one person and followed up with their regular one-year supply and supplemented that with a year's supply of Mountain House entrees. Since then, I have made additional purchases: a couple of cases of freeze-dried fruit, a case of dehydrated veggies, a case of canned butterd, a case of canned cheese, etc.

I also have put in a stock of Spam and canned corned beef (probably 80 cans of each), some canned roast beef, and enough canned soup to feed an army; we could probably share a can of soup every day for a year and a half before running out.

Along the way, I learned how to bake bread, so I purchased an additional 100 pounds or so of wheat. We also have home-canned beef stew and hamburger and home dehydrated mixed veggies, canned V8 juice, peanut butter and various other things like oil, macaroni, rice, spaghetti sauce, chili, etc. Because of the sheer variety of things I've stashed away, it's kind of hard to estimate how long the food would last if we had to survive on it. But, supplemented with what I grow in the garden every summer, I bet we'd make it through two years. :ok:

Is that enough? Well, probably not. But I do sleep so much more soundly now knowing that it is there.

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Why not consider buying extra canned goods -- anything you actually eat regularly -- when they are on sale. Many canned soups, sauces, meats, etc. have shelf lives that greatly exceed the printed expiration date. For instance, we frequently pull canned chili off the shelf for dinner when we're feeling lazy and also enjoy corned beef hash, canned roast beef with noodles, etc. If, like us, you enjoy Campbell's chicken noodle soup, why not stock up on it when it's only $0.38 a can? If the S never HTF, at the very least, you'll be eating foods that you purchased at the right price.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

That makes sense to me. Every time I get paid I can accumulate a few canned goods and gradually build up my food preps. In my city, Walmart has the lowest prices for canned goods. The "Sam's Choice" brand is the cheapest canned food brand available for me.

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You need to do more research on how bad things are going to get. You should do what it takes to get 2 YEARS worth of food for your family.

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Preps? Why? Ain't the government going to take care of us? I'll just mosey on down to the FEMA mess tent that will be set up in the common area of our developmemt. MRE's 3x a day and maybe real food once or twice a week. They'll probably even have hot buttered popcorn to munch on while watching the indoctrination movies every evening. Pass the salt please.

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Get your FEMA uniforms here.

Print out this Golden Ticket.

One per person.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

could get crazy in the the inner cities
if you live there, better be ready to bug out or defend.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

Hey GIMers,

Generally confined to the pm thread, it's time I refocused my efforts on food preps. I don't have spare time, so I'm looking to buy in year-supply units all at one.

I'm sire this has all been discussed and researched at length here among the community, but my initial search just now brought up little. I'm so sorry for the repetition, but can someone please recommend a source they've used for year-supply food packs and any observations about the product, service, etc?

I'm looking at Pleasant Hill Grain, which I found while looking into the Berkey water purifiers. What do you think of their food packs? Seems like a lot of calories for the $.

Any thoughts or guidance very much appreciated!

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I noticed Costco has a year supply survival food for what seems like a decent price.
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...se=&lang=en-US

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There is no real meat in that it's textured vegtable protein a poor substitute...

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While I agree with what you just said, I also have to tell you that the TVP has its place. I put Taco-flavored TVP bits on top of our dinner salads all the time. Full of flavor and crunchy!

On the subject of year's supply units that various vendors are selling, the less expensive seem to concentrate on 5-gal pails of beans, rice and wheat berries. If you already cook from scratch or intend to learn, that's a cost-effective way to get a lot of calories in a hurry. Just don't forget the grain mill if you intend to bake bread. A water filter wouldn't be a bad idea either. And FWIW, be sure to store your yeast in the freezer.

But I recognized early on that I'd want more than beans and rice to make surviving hard times more palatable. So, after you've bought in bulk the calories you need to survive, be sure to purchase the other things that make life worth living.

Edit: For value, look at what Walton Feed is selling. The basic unit is very basic; you'll probably die of food boredom before you starve if that's all you have. They add a whole bunch of dehydrated veggies and such in the deluxe unit. Be sure to buy some sampler cases in #2.5 cans so the taste and texture of rehydrated veggies doesn't surprise you on SHTF day. And remember, you still have to buy vegetable oil in order to make these work. The freeze dry stuff from Mountain House is OK because it doesn't require cooking. But it is expensive and contains MSG. I put all the freeze dry stuff in one of two categories: 1) for people who don't want to cook 2) for people in SHTF mode who need comfort food. I bought a year's supply of dinner entrees for both reasons.

So, now you've got the basics covered, get your hands on a food dehydrater and learn to dry and can your own. Purchase soups, canned meats and canned goods you eat in your everyday life when they are on sale. Buy a bunch when you do. Examples: I grew up on Campbells soup and Chef Boyardee. Every once in a while I find the chicken noodle and tomato soup on sale for around $0.38 a can. The Chef Boyardee can be found for $0.83 a can. When that happens, I stock up. The food Nazis always jump in right about now and tell me about the sins of MSG and sodium. But these items (along with Spam, canned corned beef and canned beef) are among my favorite canned foods. So, I don't mind having hundred of cans of something I intend to eat anyway and purchased at bargain prices stored in the basement.

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I am putting together a food survival pail for my daughter and her fiance'. It's mainly about the maximum amount of calories in the smallest volume, an acceptable protein to carb ratio and making assumptions of availability of potable water and fuel. The master plan is for them to bug out to my place, but this is to sustain them for a month or so, if that becomes impossible. They may have to walk from their location to mine.

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My wife picked up some canning glass bottles today for a case of 12 for 3 bucks.

Found them selling on ebay for 16-17 dollars for a case of 12.

theberkeyguy

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You know, I can't tell you all how glad I am that I have a basement full of food! Now that I'm looking at flying solo here and wondering how I'm going to afford this place by myself (impending divorce), it's very comforting to know that at least the animals and I won't starve! The world as I know it just ended, even if the rest of the world is still hanging on!

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I'm sure that definitely helps Maddie. Just something else you don't have to worry about!

I just added another 150lbs of wheat, 100lbs of rice, 50lbs of beans, and 6 #10 cans of potato flakes to our pile yesterday.

I still need to add powdered butter, powdered eggs, and powdered milk to the stash to round it out. We won't starve with what we have now, but it may not be the tastiest food in the world either!

Just remember to replace whatever you eat when you get back on your feet!

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

I keep a log of what I have and what I use. I've been doing this for a long time, and life has dealt me some hard hands. I've actually cycled through my survival food a time or two in the past 30 years. I'm pretty good about replacing it. I'm afraid this time it may take me a long time to get back on my feet...I may have to see about getting an equity loan in order to get the house fixed up. I could get by on a loan amount that would keep me from being upside down on the mortgage and even leave a little equity in the house, though, so while I hate to do it, it's not all bad and it's probably the wisest thing to do under the circumstances. Leaving these things unrepaired any longer will only cost much more in the long run (there's already structural damage)... If I can do that, I may not have to dip into the food stash much.

And if I do have to rely on the food stash, well, at least my dogs LOVE rice...

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

I am totally, utterly unprepared.

Max situational awareness comes from an uncluttered mind.

scyth

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

look at walmart for the cook book,, to serve man,,,,its all you will need wtshtf.

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If it comes down to it, mine are going to have to acquire a taste for it! Rice is one of the very few things they won't eat.

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I thought that was a Twilight Zone episode, no?

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

I've bought from Emergency Essentials a number of times and they seem to be good folks. Might be a little pricey, but they occasionally run 15-20% off specials.

I'm looking into the Costco year package and might get one of those. It seems pretty well priced for what you get. I think the company who is selling the stuff knows that going through Costco is real good advertising for their own on-line sales. I called them to see if I could get it direct, and the woman said "No", I would have to go through Costco. I asked her if it was a good deal (it looked that way to me) and when she glanced at the list, she said she thought it was a great deal.

Honeyville sells some canned steel-cut oatmeal that we eat all the time and it is really good--you haven't had oatmeal until you've had this stuff (check out the reviews on Amazon, e-bay, etc.), and their prices for fruit are better than EE, but their selection is not nearly as good.

Remember to get stuff you are willing to eat in your regular diet. Unless you are rich, you should rotate the stuff so it doesn't get stale--and that means eating a meal or two a week out of your stash. I've been gobbling the MRE's, drinking the milk, and eating the oatmeal. Haven't started on the Mountain House entrees yet and I haven't learned what to do with the buckets of wheat yet.

Good luck........it's actually somewhat fun once you start doing it.

Like others have said, it gives you peace of mind to know you have it. And it's not just for shtf, it is also for Katrina, Earthquake, Volcanic Eruption, martial law, bird/swine/whatever flu epidemic, etc.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

I haven't eaten any Mountain House stuff yet either. But I've gone through probably 150 pounds of wheat berries that I've turned into flour and used to bake bread, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, etc. I've even used it (the whole wheat flour) to thicken navy bean soup that I've made from scratch.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to order some more wheat berries!

By the way, the Dakota bread recipe (yummy!) that I have contains:

whole wheat flour
pumpkin seeds
sunflower seeds
millet seeds
sesame seeds
salt
yeast
honey

The Great Harvest bread folks at the farmers market are charging $6 a loaf for this, and I've discovered I can do it myself!

Do you have a grain mill yet? At the end of the day, that's the only way you're ever going to find a use for buckets and buckets of wheat berries.

Amen.

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I don't have that many buckets....we figured we could boil them if TSHTF. If I buy the Costco package, it comes with a hand grinder, but that might be tedious to grind enough flour to make bread, etc. Maybe not. I'm still a bit new to all this.

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

Whether it's tedious or not depends on two things: your hand grinder and your point of view. I have the Country Living Grain Mill and it takes me about 450-500 cranks of the wheel to produce 3 cups of flour with which you can bake a single fair sized loaf of bread. At first, I found operating the grinder to be a tiring, pain in the *ss. But then I learned to pace myself and got stronger. Now it's not so bad.

Yes, boiled wheat can be good and nutritious; but nothing succeeds like variety. Today I had a bowl of vegetable stew (way too hearty to call it soup) that I made completely from my storage pantry. I had a quart of beef stew I had canned last October that had no beef in it because I had prepared too many veggies, LOL. To that I added some cooked pinto beans and some stewed tomatoes (also canned last fall.) The flavor was a little bland for my taste, so I added some soup starter and some bacon-flavored TVP. The end result was so good, I surprised myself.

Storing basic foods is just the start. Now you have to learn how to make a tasty meal from the ingredients on hand. That is challenging and very rewarding too.

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I would say we'd be eatin' well (American standards) for a month.
I've been so focused on water,I need to step up food stores.
Our city recently had a city wide water ban /boil order in place for 25days (E-Coli coliform bacteria).
In the water dept. I'm now looking good!(it took a wake-up call,though)

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Depending how you play your cards it could mean an additional 2 week's worth of meat and some fuel for your oil lamps.

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I have enough wheat and grains to last me awhile, but I find myself cooking them whole as I would do in a rice cooker. Rye and oat groats are my favorite so far, but I haven't dug into the quinoa yet. A bit of variety and color will carry you through the "rice with everything" stage.

Some things to consider when making your grains- use other liquids in addition to water. I've added beer, wine, vinegar, beef and chicken broths, even a bit of tequila or slivovitz for flavor. Get a bottle of liquid smoke. Saute mushrooms, garlic, and/or onion and add it to the mix. And if you don't know how to make stir fry, learn now. It's amazing what you can do with a few handfuls of wilted greens.

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You may have to render her first, for the oil. Myself? Land and guns and gardens, maybe 3 months worth of skinny preps as well if I need them. All hidden away, including the land. Wildlife, wild food, and planted food (and planted wildlife - I imported rabbits onto the island!) all ready for the shotgun.

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Don't forget the cooking instruments and energy needed post electricity failure. A good Coleman propane grill will cook for about an hour on each 16 oz can of $4 propane. They now come with attachable griddles and a grill/burner combo. Much better than trying to fire a grill up in your living room for those trying to keep a low profile while your neighbors are wondering why you aren't losing weight.

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Just for a grin.

If the shtf how long do you all think propane will last??
Methinks the supply's would dry up p.d.q.

If you live in an area that has coal. Cool running....

If you have wood or can get it ....Great.

Anything that is made out of crude oil until there is some kind of order established in a legal and or political sense
can and will become rare as hens teeth...

JIMHO

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I've got the older pump-action coleman, with the propane conversion and a couple of rebuild kits for the pump seals. The ability to switch hit has paid off in the past. The propane is nice while it lasts and (personally) cooks better, but gallon cans of white gas store better. 5 gallon cans even better ... and it's ready to use even after a decade of storage.


Naturally, that's my "go-to" solution, but far from my only backup. I've spent the last couple of years practicing cooking with coals, open flames and smoke. I highly suggest getting familiar with your backup cooking methods. It not only vastly improves your fuel efficiency, but if you're going to cremate food, it's best to do it while replacements are still readily available.

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With regard to the "one year" packages, I would highly recommend against them. Much better to buy what you normally eat and rotate it, as many have said before. You can often get just as good or better prices if you stock up on sales and buy in bulk. Don't get me wrong- it's good to have some INSTANT food that you can pop open and eat without having to cook, prepare, add water, or anything. If you "don't have the time" to make up your own kit, you are going to be punished severely if it ever comes time to use your preps. Making food from scratch is much cheaper, tastier, and more nutritious. There is no excuse not to know how to cook and bake a few basic dishes, it's easy to do and a life skill you simply can't afford not to have imo, whether tshtf or not.

At least one hand powered grain grinder is a must, but who knows what kind of quality it may be if it's included in a CostCo package?

Having a vast supply of clean water is much more important than any food, so make sure you keep your priorities straight. You're going to need a lot of water to cook stored grains / seeds / beans / pastas etc etc.

Buckwheat, Quinoa, Amaranth, Wild Rice, Spelt, Oats, etc are great alternatives to supplement your 100 lb pounds of white rice! When I see you guys buying "another" 100 lb bag of rice, I wonder if it's nutrient-free white rice that will last practically forever, or brown rice ( where spoilage would be a real concern for me at least )

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I wonder if its a good idea for people to be disclosing their level of food preps openly on a forum like this. It seems like it falls into the same category as not disclosing the extent of your gold and silver stash, or even what it was before you had the boat accident.

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Definitely agree with breaking up the monotony, spices are very very important- make sure you have enough put away. Much better store of value too in terms of how much space they take up. Much rather be way overstocked in spices than in rice or beans... learning how to make bread and storing yeast / grain mill / wheat berries is a great idea to save you money and get you delicious bread, and give you something that you can possibly keep cooking even after TSHTF. I would much rather slowly wean myself off of the diet I am used to when TSHTF than go from my normal diet to MH /freeze dried / MRE 3 times a day... yuck! Eat what you store, store what you eat.

Watch out for canned stuff items, you can do it healthier and cheaper by mass producing the items yourself. Don't be shortsighted and buy a year or two package that you're NEVER going to eat. It will not be nearly as healthy or cheap or synergistic than if you made it yourself.
Canned stuff- especially campbells soup, who knows what's in it? :puke:
http://food.change.org/blog/view/tes...campbells_soup

Also wanted to say I'm vegan and if you want my 2 zinc cents worth, TVP is nasty and I would never eat it under any circumstances. Also I hate all soy burger/hot dog / sausage / fake meat products, i hate tofu, i hate tempe, i hate anything with soy in it really, hate soy milk. Pretty much all soy is genetically modified even if it says organic on it. Best to avoid like the plague. Now keep in mind it's nowhere near as bad for you as meat... but I guess I should save that for another thread.

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That's my problem. I rarely eat canned foods or freeze dried anything. I have lived the last 25 years on what's fresh and readily available. I hate "fast" or "instant" (and will most likely perish when the suply chain is interrupted). I am having a hard time stocking up on canned goods knowing that I won't rotate through them since I never eat them. It seems like a waste to me if they go bad. That being said, I have started stockpiling some things.

The one exception to that is what I grow and can myself. I have a large garden. I just got a freezer and have been stocking up on meats, but I'll lose all of that if power goes out for too long. I'm thinking of going the Mountain House route. I've eaten them many times on wilderness trips and I could survive on those + my home grown food.

Like others have said - you can only live off of your reserves for so long and then you need to produce food on your own.

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http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h5...-cansWheat.jpg

http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs...cg3=&cg4=&cg5=

free shipping

Re: GIM Survival Food Prep Poll
 

i gave all are stuff away there no need for saving food there walmart

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Walmart...Walmart only the un-informed rely on Walmart. They will let you down in a second.:fan:










FEMA has my back!

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Food preps? I've got nothin' except a weeks worth of MREs in my truck.

If anyone wants to come invade my property WTSHTF, that's fine.
You can either harvest yourself - or help us out, and we'll share :biggrin: