Bear Ribs
Well-known member
So I live in a major disaster zone where frequently there are periods of a week or more where all services are cut off. F'rex in spring of this year there was a massive ice storm followed by a blizzard that cut off water and any possibility to travel outside the house for nine days, three of them with no power. I prefer to keep at least two month's worth of food on hand and tend to focus on what has a long shelf-life so that I don't wind up wasting food that went bad from being in storage so long.
So needless to say I'm a little bit of a prepper and keep a decent supply of goods on hand. With other people being interested I thought we could share what and how we store food.
For myself, my staples are dried beans and rice. The two keep for around 30 years when stored correctly, produce a complete protein when eaten together, and both can be used as a base for a variety of different foods. I use 5-gallon buckets, the type used for construction, for each. I just drop the bags in and fill the bucket, that way I can have some variety in my beans. For oil, I keep several gallons of unopened olive oil which have a shelf life of about a decade.
I maintain a large supply of flour for baking purposes (I make my own sourdough bread and haven't purchased bread in years) and it keeps well, but I don't consider this emergency food as getting an oven to work without the utilities working is beyond what I expect to be able to do. I do keep cornmeal on hand for making cornbread, which I know how to cook on a wood fire.
I have a shelving unit bolted to the wall for canned vegetables. Because of the risk of losing access to water, I prefer canned vegetables to be in water so I can drink it in a pinch. This means scads of canned corn, tomatoes, and green beans, along with applesauce and canned fruit that are in juice instead of syrup to make sure I have a bit of variety. Of course, I keep a few gallons of water on hand too but I find that water enough to survive more than a week or so is just too bulky to reasonably store, so I keep a box of iodine tablets so I can disinfect water if I have to. I hate using it as it tastes awful but it will keep you alive...
For cooking purposes, I prefer alcohol to propane. It's relatively easy to make your own can stove and they're handy for camping and hiking as well. This is mostly because the fuel is easier to get and handle in large quantities, I feel much safer with five gallons of pure alcohol sitting in my kitchen than I would with several propane canisters. The fact that it's highly portable where propane isn't is a plus. I still use propane outside on my grill but that's not always an option, so can stove in a pinch.
So, what tricks do you have and what goods do you keep for an emergency?
So needless to say I'm a little bit of a prepper and keep a decent supply of goods on hand. With other people being interested I thought we could share what and how we store food.
For myself, my staples are dried beans and rice. The two keep for around 30 years when stored correctly, produce a complete protein when eaten together, and both can be used as a base for a variety of different foods. I use 5-gallon buckets, the type used for construction, for each. I just drop the bags in and fill the bucket, that way I can have some variety in my beans. For oil, I keep several gallons of unopened olive oil which have a shelf life of about a decade.
I maintain a large supply of flour for baking purposes (I make my own sourdough bread and haven't purchased bread in years) and it keeps well, but I don't consider this emergency food as getting an oven to work without the utilities working is beyond what I expect to be able to do. I do keep cornmeal on hand for making cornbread, which I know how to cook on a wood fire.
I have a shelving unit bolted to the wall for canned vegetables. Because of the risk of losing access to water, I prefer canned vegetables to be in water so I can drink it in a pinch. This means scads of canned corn, tomatoes, and green beans, along with applesauce and canned fruit that are in juice instead of syrup to make sure I have a bit of variety. Of course, I keep a few gallons of water on hand too but I find that water enough to survive more than a week or so is just too bulky to reasonably store, so I keep a box of iodine tablets so I can disinfect water if I have to. I hate using it as it tastes awful but it will keep you alive...
For cooking purposes, I prefer alcohol to propane. It's relatively easy to make your own can stove and they're handy for camping and hiking as well. This is mostly because the fuel is easier to get and handle in large quantities, I feel much safer with five gallons of pure alcohol sitting in my kitchen than I would with several propane canisters. The fact that it's highly portable where propane isn't is a plus. I still use propane outside on my grill but that's not always an option, so can stove in a pinch.
So, what tricks do you have and what goods do you keep for an emergency?