What's in your food cache!

Well, we all should have at least some food stored, if nothing else it means no more daily trips for food for a time.

Just got some more food stored today.

All in the loft so its out of sight and there as an emergency reserve.

36kg - Rice

24kg - Oats

5kg - Canned Meat (Spam & Corned Beef)

0.5kg - Crisps (McCoys!)

1.5kg - Salt

3.2kg - Canned Beans and sausages

0.5kg - Jammy dodgers

1 litre of Smirnoff Vodka! (Good for barter)

All bagged and sealed to keep out the dust and preserve the life a bit more.
If I get around to catcheing food I'll just grab what's up there and box it up.



When you're sealing bags always remember to leave a fold-back tab of sealing tape exposed. You don't want to rip bags needlessly especially in SitX when bags might be short.



I'll be looking at getting a bunch of gas canisters and so on for up there too.

No water stored up there yet though. I'm still mulling over the best method.
I'll probably bump up the supplies to a quarter of a ton of food over the next 4 months. Then I know I'll have enough to last for an age.
From there I'll trickle the supply out to Catches and so on for any bail-out contingencies.

Picture quality is pure clump, but that's mobile phones for you

Additional advice on what other food to store welcome

[edit on 14-7-2008 by WatchRider]

[edit on 14-7-2008 by WatchRider]

[edit on 14-7-2008 by WatchRider]

[edit on 14-7-2008 by WatchRider]

[edit on 14-7-2008 by spacedoubt]

I'd like to introduce you to quinoa. Quinoa is known as a superfood. It is mostly thought of as a grain. It takes 2 parts water to make. The reason you need to know about quinoa is this.

Dietary requirements basicly breakdown to this. Humans need
10-15% of calories from protine
15-30% of calories from fats
60-75% of calories from carbs.

Quinoa's breakdown is:
15% pro
15% fat
70% carbs

AND! Quinoa is one of the only grains that is a perfect protine.

so basicly you could live very well on Quinoa and vittermen suplements.

Yeah I've heard something of the food athletes and iron gorillas take but never really gave it much thought. Usually fibre shakes and protein mixes

This quinoa sounds a bit more interesting though.
The only problem I see with it straightaway is the fact that this sort of food is often slated for being boring and unappealing.
In SitX boring food is not a bad thing (better than no food!) but having a varied diet is a fine thing to do.
So Quinoa could be an excellent addition.
I'll see if the UK has any...

It looks like a stash of illegal drugs from the pic's!!

It's good to be ready though.

Hey Watchrider.

I don't have an inventory list of our cache, but I'd guess:

100 lbs. of white rice, mostly long-grain, but some sushi rice.
50 lbs. of brown rice.
Well over 100 lbs. of mixed beans.
100 lbs. of wheat flour.
25 lbs. of (homemade) coconut flour.
Several months worth of prepared foods, most of the them semi-nasty, but stuff we like -- canned tamales, chilimac, canned pasta, canned chili.
Several dozen canned fruit, a few dozen canned vegetables.
2 cases of MREs. Please God, let me not need them.
2 cases of canned beans.
20 lbs. of quinoa.
1 case of canned butter.
1/2 case of canned cheese.
5 gallons of tinned olive oil.
2 cases of tinned milk.
20 or so lbs. of honey.
two boxes of splenda. (I know, I know, ewww)
50+ seed packs -- mixed.
10 pounds of salt.
several bottles of various spices and herbs.
several bottles of saffron.
A couple dozen (again, nasty) packets of mixes - gravy mixes, hollandaise, etc.
5 lbs. dehydrated eggs.
30 lbs. homemade beef jerky.
two cases of canned beef.
1/2 case of canned tuna in oil.
1/2 case of tuna in water.

Lesseee, what have I forgotten? Well, most of this stuff is in our storage room. about 1/4 of it is waaaaaaaay behind the house, near our cave in a cache that I made by concreting in between four huge rocks. There is a door I framed, and the "floor" is poured. I had to haul water, aggregate and portland cement over 500 yards on my back.

Now, let's get to your water. IMO, this is more important than the food. I wrote a water challenge once and posted it on another site. I emailed ATS to find out if I could post it here, and received no reply. Maybe I'll just post it anyway, assuming that no reply is not a "no". Do this sometime: COUNT the gallons of water you use during a day. You'll have to estimate for showering, but you should be able to be pretty accurate for everything else. Now cut that figure in half, as in a bad situation, you'll be extra frugal...... reusing gray water, etc. I almost soil myself when I hear people saying they can do fine on a gallon a day. Sure, right. No hygiene, no washing, just ingesting water. The thing is, to me, is the ability to refine/filter/purify water in an ongoing way to suit your minimal needs, and those of your family/loved ones. We, the two of us, can SCRAPE by with 4 gallons a day, IF we collect all the waste and use it for watering plants. At that, we're figuring on washing dishes and other things in the sea.

Sorry to be so verbose. I think you ask a good question, and I sometimes feel awkward answering such questions, becuase I think I come off kinda smug, like I have it all figured out. Well, I don't. I'm just doing the best I can for the people I care about, and have been at this for more than 13 years.

We rotate our stocks, and that takes a HELL of a lot of organization and marking of the containers. I don't feel as thought all this stuff has affected us financially, as we've acquired it slowly. I'm figuring out how to ferment my own alcohol, and a brew that I can live with. I'm sipping it now -- a delightful mash of Naseberry and Ginep -- both tropical fruits. I think you're way ahead of the curve, and I'd encourage you to keep on it. Look, you'll eat it all eventually, so nothing lost, no matter what, right? Worst case is nothing happens and you've merely saved money. Of course, one must consider the possibility that my Bride and I are whackamoles, wingnuts and too paranoid for our own good.

We think the S is going to HTF. We are preparing for it, and not forgetting to have fun and laugh like it were the last day in the process.

Good thread.

Cheers

[edit on 14-7-2008 by argentus]

Keep in mind that you will always want to add candy to your food list because when your food gets low and you start to get weak from not eating you can eat a small amount of candy to raise your blood sugar level so you don't faint.

Poor Arse Homeless Trick 101

reply to post by MrMysticism


Excellent point. You remind me too, that we have two bottles of really tasteless "emergency tabs". Yuch. Minimal nutrition, but a fair amount of sugar. Upon retrospect, I think we'd have been better off to have bought a coupla pounds of hard candy rather than the 50 food pills.

I have yet to figure out a way to store chocolate here in the tropics in ambient temperatures where it doesn't turn to mush. If we could afford a DC-powered freezer, several batteries and PV cells, that'd be da bomb.

reply to post by WatchRider



Did I somehow miss something? I thought we're talking about survival but you're addressing the issue as if this is a recipie forum. That's puzzling to me. Quinoa might get boaring? Try going a week or month without eathing during a survivalist event, that should liven quinoa up for you.

Cool thread.

I've read it all and can only add 1 thing...

Please put the stored food in metal trash cans or metal tins sealed with tape.

RATS, and not the "Really Above Top Secret" type, but the Loud and Ugly, poo dropping type, will find your stash this winter.

They WILL "eat through" Plastic 6 gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids.

The little Bastards !


Long Term Food Storage "Bible": athagan.members.atlantic.net...

All the Best,

Blitzkreigen





[edit on 15-7-2008 by Blitzkreigen]

Originally posted by Incarnated
reply to post by WatchRider

 

Did I somehow miss something? I thought we're talking about survival but you're addressing the issue as if this is a recipie forum. That's puzzling to me. Quinoa might get boaring? Try going a week or month without eathing during a survivalist event, that should liven quinoa up for you.

Cool down man I was just shooting the breeze with you, no problems if the topic shifts a little, kinda keeps it fresh yah know

reply to post by argentus


Jelly beans are easy to store and is pure sugar. Be careful the rush alone will get you munching them all down when you are hungry!

Jelly beans are nice.
But jelly babies are nicer
Now I need to add some sugary sweets to the catche

Ok, been busy today but managed to get the water rations sorted.

People who store food need to remember that water may not be available from the tap in an emergency, SITX etc, or that it may become polluted.
So having some water is wise

I couldn't find the big 8 litre containers while I was out and about but managed to source 5 litre ones that had the carrying handle, this would be important for later (see pic).
I got 12 of the suckers.
That means I've got 60 litres of pure, fresh, spring water. I could consider it ultra-long lasting but I'll probably rotate it every 6 years or so.

Here's two of them:



Getting it into the loft was easier using a bit of frigging in the rigging skills
Eye-Splice and re-threaded the live end through the 'eye', then simply hoist the babies up!



Assuming a daily requirement of 2 litres of water per day this should give me about 30 days drinking water. Assuming a 'stay-at-home' SITX happens I'll be running the taps and filling every cup and container with water for cooking and drinking, in case the water goes pear shaped.

I might get one more batch of water next time I'm out and about just to push it up to 2 months water, but I'm not too concerned right now.
Bought some soup (4 kg) for rounding out the supplies.
I had a look for tinned fruit, very important, maybe more than veg in certain cases, but didn't find any.
So just fruit, some water and extra gas canisters and I'm a happy buzzball
Catche on!

I don't have the readies to start putting together a food-cache yet (i know i'm about to be tut-tutted on that) but oats, barley, lentils, chickpeas and a large supply of curry-spices are already on the list for when the grant-chq arrives

Honey will be one major addition too, and needs very little in the way of preparation for long-term storage

I found a good way to store dry food like beans, rice, and grain.

Many paint stores sell new unused 1 gal paint cans.

These can be used for insect and rodent proof storage.

Fill with the dry food and put in a oven set at 170 degrees for 30 mins.
this will kill any insect eggs that might by on the grains.
and will kill many types of bacteria.

This is also a good way to store medical supplies, ammo etc (DONT HEAT THEM)

If you want to bury them paint the outside with zinc galvanizing spray, wax or tar.

www.yankeecontainers.com...