Economic Crash Eating: .50 cents a day, 2,000 Calories.

This may come as a shock to some, especially those in cities. But after reading this thread, I thought fifty cents is kind of high.

Raise your heirloom garden, shoot your game, harvest your wild edibles, and take your fish. Sure, heirloom seeds have a one time cost, as do bullets (learn to reload) but most game and fish can be taken by free means. Snares, traps, weirs.

Yes, I have store bought rice and beans in my stash, but to live on only what I can produce is worth more than your supermarket price.

My biggest three food expenses? Salt. I can't make salt, so I stock up now. Alcohol. I make beer and wine, but can't legally make anything hard, and I like being left alone, so I don't have a still. Novelties. Candy bars, easy beer, spices I can't raise due to climate. Yes, I make my own sugar and process my tobacco, both legal, and free.

You want to live in modern society, with stores and dumpsters for a buck a day, fine. I'll live away from modern convince and live for free and be free.

reply to post by salchanra


First, not really a shock. It is of course possible to do without a store at all, if you have time, land or the use of land, and the knowledge.

Second, you make your own sugar? Do tell! I have kind of been interested in this for a while now!

Thanks!

reply to post by Nicenico



Yes, with land, hardwork, and some planing, it should be simple to eat almost for free. I do use stores,but am confident that I could do without them long term. Find those in your community that produce things you cannot. Trade cheese to the farmer for milk, homegrown tobacco to the guy up the road for bacon. We all can produce everything, but to be part of society and be self sufficient takes work, trust, honor, and foresight. Otherwise, you are no longer part of the current world, which is fine, but many don't want to take that step.

As for sugar. Not to derail your thread, but it's yours and you asked.

In all of my research, cane sugar is the way to go, but my climate is not conducive to growing sugar cane. Maybe a sugar for survival thread is in order as I know nothing about growing, harvesting, or processing cane sugar aside from a google search.

I grow heirloom sugar beets. If you wish to do the same, get your seeds now, getting very hard to find non-GMO sugar beet seeds. Monsanto again rearing it's ugly head, and no, I'm not sharing, sorry.

Grow your beets, harvest.

Slice thin, I use a mandolin, speeds things up a bit.

Put in a large pot and cover with water.

Boil until beets start losing color. Strain, reserving liquid (liquid is where the sugar is)

Cover beets again with water, and continue to repeat straining, heating, reserving until beets are mush. Feed what's left of beets to livestock.

Take all of the reserved liquid and bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, stirring constantly, or it will stick and burn. When solution has the consistency of honey (great sugar in itself, but a different thread) remove from heat and let cool. Some cool in the pot, I spoon it out on cookie sheets. Either way, cover and cool. Crystals will begin to form, after cooling(day or so) smash crystals from cooling item and use/store as regular sugar. Beetsugar is darker than refined white sugar, but works and cooks the same. I prefer the taste as well.

Why not just wait for a sale of Ramen noodles.....

Then you can live on like 30 cents a day !!!

ramen noodles are full of salt* prob like 30% if you look at the nourishment info on back :X
too much DEF not good for you! and you cannot live on that alone..yuor going too need protein. i buy alot of hamburgers. thier generally, 300 calories and up. wonder bread wheat bread, is around 170 calories per 2 slices* most other brands do not have that much calores. carbohydrates you are also going to require, to utulize calories. best source..potatos. rice has a good amount of calores, but no real carbohydrates. you need those 3 things to aquire health, carbs, protein and calories, the more the merrier.

reply to post by salchanra


That's interesting! How many beets does it take to make a pound of sugar?

And by stirring constantly, do you mean, stir regularly or stir without stop, because reducing something like that could take a few hours or more...

Originally posted by Nicenico
reply to post by salchanra

 

That's interesting! How many beets does it take to make a pound of sugar?

And by stirring constantly, do you mean, stir regularly or stir without stop, because reducing something like that could take a few hours or more...

First, for the Ramen guy. I love ramen, have a ton of it stashed. It's a sick thing I know, but somedays one just craves that fast salty goodness. As short term survival, if you have veggies and a protein source, you should be fine, but stay hydrated, a lot of sodium can be bad. Long term, I would view ramen either as a guilty snack or useful bartering food. No way can ramen alone keep you for a year, at least I'm not willing to test it.

OP. The sugar questions are seriously derailing your own thread. I will answer this question and no others as to not have the mods come down on me, anything further, please start a sugar for survival thread, or maybe I will after the water is everywhere thread I am starting tomorrow.

If you search for sugar beets online, the general rule is one oz of sugar for pound of beet. I do slightly better than that, but as a guide, figure a three pound beet will produce three ounces of sugar, so 16 pounds of beets, one pound of sugar, give or take. When I harvest end of this month, my beets will range from three to six pounds.

Yes, it's a lot of work to produce my 100 or so pounds, but it's mine, no one else digit but me, I know what's in the plant, the product, etc... Sugar cane would be easier and more sugar per pound, but I don't have that option.

Stirring is constant or it will burn. Yes, takes a long time. Best to do few a couple of people so you don't doze off. I think we stirred four hours last year. Early on, not such a big deal, but when the moisture starts to go, constant stirring is required.

I've just had a read through the site and it does seem a pretty cool experiment! ignoring any socio-economic influences it will be a good test of determination and stamina! eating a somewhat long term diet should SHTF!

I'm just in the process of moving but could be tempted to carry out a similar experiment in the UK! I doubt living of ~30p a day in the UK would be possible unless purchasing in a weekly batch maybe.

@IandEye thanks for the rice hint!

Being a diabetic due to a autoimmune disease no rice, ramen or marcaroni in fact no starchy food at all. no white flour, potatoes.ECT.

For me its high fiber low carb foods and the food industry knows they can make a lot of money ripping off diabetics, so we get charged 4 times more then others.