When I first started prepping, I had no idea how much I really needed to sip for a year for a family of six. Is it really possible? If everyone had only one can per day for 365 days x 6. … So, I thought if I broke it down into weekly shopping trips… I would have to shop every day for 52 days to equal the 52 weekly shopping trips. Then another 14 days to make up for the food consumed during the 52 days of daily shopping. I don’t have time to shop everyday so it would take months to store enough that way. So, I went to Sams and bought 6 50lb bags of rice and 40 lbs of Bisquick. And I felt good. Then I read that I would need at least a lb per day for a family of six. So now I realize that I only have enough for 3 months. Should I buy 4 times what I have already purchased? We don’t normally eat rice and bisquick. What should I store? People who wait until the last minute can not avoid being exposed to the virus. They should just buy meds to help them survive once they are exposed.
Look at some of the SIP type recipes that I … and many others … have contributed to the dry and canned food recipe threads. There are a ton of them.
The other thing you can do is take your normal menu plan for your family and convert it to using canned and/or dried foods then figure out how much you would need of your normal items for “x” amount of time.
There is no way that you can get a balanced diet off of rice and Bisquick. You also have to watch out for food fatigue which could be a problem in an SIP situation … where you are having to eat the same things day after day to the point where you just don’t have an appetite anymore and refuse to eat. This can be a problem with children especially.
I’m with you on the sheer volume of food preps needed. We have a family of 7 … 2 adults and 5 kids ranging from teenage to toddler. Its doable with some creativity. Water is a bigger worry for me.
Thanks I am new. I will look for the canned recipe threads. I can see that I am just going to have to bite the bullet and get as many canned foods as I can carry every time I go to the store. The thought of how many cans and jars of everything I will need is almost overwealming. We usually eat freash food and we eat out a lot. The kids will not be eating breakfast and lunch at school then so that is 8 more meals everyday more than usual. I will just do the best I can, but it makes me realze that I am lucky to have time, because it is going to take a long time. I was worried about the water too. I know your not supposed to drink water from the roof so, yesterday I bought a tarp, some string, s hooks and a large plastic container that is rectanular, has wheels and a lid. I am going to try to rig something by attaching the tarp to the poles of my kids trampolene and have it empty into the container with wheels. I realized when I got home that I should have bought some shorter poles for the other end because my tarp is going to be to bunched up if I try to just put it inside the container at the bottom in spite of the large rectangular shape. I also think my tarp is to big. I will post the correct size to use and how much water I was able to collect when my experiments are finished. I bought 2 regular plastic garbage cans to catch roof water for flushing and cleaning. I am concerned though, see going outside. I have stored a lot of dinking water as well. I know we will not be able to store enough bottled water for our large familys, so we have to catch rain.
prepmaniac – at 11:58
You might want to start getting the family use to casseroles and soups/stews. This way you can better utilize the canned goods and stretch them further. Pasta dishes are another way of stretching the canned goods without too much pain to the budget.
Hope this helps.
It definitely takes a LOT of canned goods. I have made trip after trip from a bulk type grocery to get where I am (about 4 months). As Kathy above suggested, you need to get used to eating what you are buying. We have made the change to powdered milk, homemade bread (no biggie there!), and powdered eggs in our everyday consumpion. Not only does that keep those items from going bad over time, but you get a much better idea how long everything will last.
I would like to recommend a book to you. Our library carries it - so I am betting you could find it or get it reserved at your local library as well. It is:
“Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook” by Peggy Layton
It is short, concise, and loaded with practical information on how to determine the amount and variety of foods to stock up on - and then how to execute the plan - and lastly there are simple and very good recipes for using your stored supplies.
It is the best book on the subject of emergency food storage that I have yet to read and I highly recommend it.
By the way, after I borrowed it from the library - I immediately saw how incredibly useful the book was - and ended up buying my own copy to keep on hand.
prepmaniac, It’s good to feel overwhelmed at first, it emphsizes the gravity of the task. Then switch over into “do” mode! You seem to be coping well! Just move forward with the gathering, there will be “holes” in your preps that will become apparent as you go and then you fill these in! You can only go at the pace you can go at. One prep at a time is a good motto here so you don’t become so overwhelmed that you give up. I feel better and better each time I fill in the holes knowing I am closer to the goal. The wiki will give you all the help you need in knowing what to aim for. Good luck and welcome to the “brotherhood” (or sisterhood as the case may be!!}
One of the best pieces of advice I have found - is to prep well for 1 month or 3 months first - i.e. do a complete job on that period of time - canned goods, dairy, pastas, grains, dehydrated products, beans, rice, fats, and seasonings/baking agents. Once you have that first 3 months supply completed - then you repeat the exercise again - until you have 6 months done…etc… repeat until done.
The idea is that you have at any time a complete and balanced supply for a reasonable period of time - as opposed to say 1 year supply of rice and beans and nothing else to go with it - should an actual emergency erupt while you are still working on your inventory.
If 3 months is too much to manage - do it a month at a time.
As for overwhelming the shopping. I have found it is often easier to make a separate shopping effort for my prepping - apart from my normal grocery shopping. It get’s too be too much to handle otherwise.
prepmaniac - It is exhausting work on the days I shop. I seem to have settled into a twice a month schedule. I’ve been prepping for 3 months for only 3–4 people and I estimate we have food and supplies for about 3 mos. And I’ve got a long way to go, but if my DH doesn’t get involved, I guess some things just won’t get done. He “gets it” and is supportive, but so far, I’ve done all the “work”.
I’m also concerned about extended family, but that’s 33 more people plus a set of twins on the way. No way we can prep for them too. All I know is that if things heat up and we can’t convince them to take care of themselves, if they try to do it all last-minute, they can just forget about it. I don’t think people have even a clue how much there is to buy and how much time and money it takes to do so.
The important thing is, you’ve started prepping for your family. You’ll get the hang of it - just keep moving forward. And the FluWiki is a terrific source of information and inspiration :)
prepmaniac, I think you did a great job getting all that rice and Bisquick. Good job! KathyFl is truly gifted and extremely generous in how she has built a resource of usable recipes that can be used in the event of a significant probablem. Others have been inspired by her generosity and contributed also. She stresses diversity of recipes while often using the same ingredients. Follow her posts. Print and save.
There is a website I ran across . . .hmmmm . . .nursehealer.com? That website has prep newsletters on it. It has year-long lists of supplies as well as well as recipes. There is an LDS component to the newsletters. The newsletters look very well thought out and are obviously written by someone with a background in storage and preparation. If anyone looks at the website, let us know what you think.
Bisquick- might want to start using it now. See how you like it. Google “impossible pies”. You can whip Bisquick into eggs and cheese and veggies and make mexican flavored casserole things. Apple pies that make their own crusts. Pumpkin pies, quiche. You can also use Bisquick to make pancakes with fruit cooked in them. Bacon in them. Waffles.
With a family of six, you might have to research economical means of food storage. 50 pound bags of beans, rice, wheat may give you a level of comfort if you know how to cook them and especially know how to cook them in a possible crisis situation. Canned foods are very expensive. I am of a mind that if my family had long term food issues (and they might, you never know!), I might use my money to purchase the most economical means first. Wheat, beans, dried milk powder, large containers of oil, rice, pasta. Getting the most bing-bang-bong for your money. My family eats an extremely healthy, organic diet now, so they are used to having boiled wheat or oatmeal for breakfast, beans, homemade tofu. Right now I have 4 loaves of whole wheat/honey/sunflower seed bread rising on the counter. Homemade yogurt is doing it’s thing in quart jars in the cooler that has warm water in it. Throw in a little bacon every now and then and life is great.
I can alot, but I’ve always done that. Canning can be expensive because quart jars can run almost $10 for a dozen. If you put up 100–200 quarts of tomatoes in a summer. Yikes! And, you can buy already canned tomatoes about as cheap. So you have to think out your options.
So, if you are thinking out your options. Here are some questions that might help organize your thoughts.
What types of bulk foods pack nutrition, but are less expensive? Beans, wheat, rice, pasta come to mind. How much do you need and where and how will you store it?
Do you need milk? How much? Buying it and drying it out will give you data which will give you comfort as well as knowledge. My family goes through 8–10 pounds of dried powdered organic milk in a month. I buy it in 50 pound bags. So a bag lasts us about 4–5months. I store it in glass jars and keep it in a dark cupboard in the basement. In an emergency, I would need water to reconstitute it. We also drink soymilk. I make my own in a soymilk maker, but I can make it the conventional way. So, I need organic soybeans, water, salt. The leftover soy stuff from the soymilk process has a special name, which escapes me at the moment. Is it okara? It can be used to make bean patties, casseroles and such. It’s high in protein. I can get a 50 pound bag of organic soybeans for $18–20 dollars. Non-organic soybeans might cost $5–10. It will go a long way to feed my family. Soybeans can also be boiled, dried, roasted. My point is, if you educate yourself regarding traditional food preparation methods, it is a great way to enhance nutrition, CUT your food budget now and also have a readily available supply of food to rotate and replenish.
Good luck!
Thanks guys. You are so helpful so quickly. I am going to town tommorrow and will find that book by Peggy Layton. All of your advice is helpful and I really appreciate it. I just got back from the local grocery store. I don’t usually buy many canned vegetables so I didn’t know how much they cost. They would average about a dollar a can. That would be about $2000. I think for 6 people to each have a can a day. I think I will shoot for 1/2 can per day average per person. I will add more after I reach that goal. I noticed that most of the cans do not have an expiration date. Do they last indefinatly? Good advice on trying new stuff before I go out and buy another 100 lbs of Bisquick. We might not like it , right. I thought I could buy a lot of peanut butter and jelly and make sandwiches. Also I think I will try to do like some of you and go to Sams Club. It will be at least a three hour round trip, but it might be worth it since I need so many cans. It must be worth it if HillBilly Bill did it. At the local store I only bought 4 cans of collard greens. I bought fresh asparagus, lemons, tomatoes, and basil. Old eating habits are tough to change. I can see that the advice to get used to what you will be eating is very good advice. It would be hard to change all at once. Thanks for the welocome.
“prep well for 1 month or 3 months first - i.e. do a complete job on that period of time - canned goods, dairy, pastas, grains, dehydrated products, beans, rice, fats, and seasonings/baking agents. Once you have that first 3 months supply completed - then you repeat the exercise again - until you have 6 months done…etc…”
I started with one month of canned food, stuff I normally eat for an occasional “I’m way too tired to cook” meal. Then I added one month of freeze dry from such as mountain house. The other four months (plus any overflow) is variations on beans and rice (and lard and spices), with lots of varieties of kinds of grain rather than just rice.
If I get sick there are two months of easy to cook food in the house - the canned food can be eaten without cooking.
If I recognize that a long term event has started that makes food hard to get, I would start out using lots of “beans and rice” with the other foods as meal variety. I’m no cooking artist, but four meals worth of beans/rice plus two meals worth of freeze-dry and canned, is six meals with a lot of potential variety.
Anything more than six months, I’m going to have to survive on the same basic foods day after day, like poor people all over the world do. I’m no gardener, but by then maybe I’ll have grown some peppers or herbs for added flavor. I’ve got the seeds.
PrepManiac:
One of the reasons why many, including myself, have diversified to dried foods instead of just canned food is precisely the issue of cost that you raised. Canned food is simply more expensive than dried grains and legumes. It is also bulkier and has a shorter storage life. For example, most canned vegetables have a shelf-life of a couple of years. White rice and most dried beans, if properly stored (in airtight containers with oxygen removed), can have a shelf life exceeding 6–7 years. Having a lot of canned foods is great, but I would recommend large bags (25–50lbs) of beans and rice to make up the majority of your storage food needs. Rice and beans, especially mixed with various canned soups, gravys, casseroles and noodles, will work quite well. The Mormans focus on whole grain wheat as their primary storage staple because it is inexpensive and can be stored for decades. I don’t want to grind grains into flour at this point, so I am sticking with white rice.
Good luck!
Hit the sales. Hit them hard. Try not to buy prep stuff in your normal store UNLESS it is on sale. Canned stuff in particular can go on sale for 1/3 of the normal price. The same is true of pasta and flour. If you do this consistently for a long time, AND BUY FOODS YOU NORMALLY USE, you will save a significant amount of money - maybe enough to pay for prepping.
The supermarket sales prices will be much cheaper than the normal prices in the wholesale stores. The difference is that the supermarkets don’t sell 25 lb. bags of flour, or #10 cans of baked beans.
You may want to plan 2 shopping trips per sales cycle - one to buy “samples” to find out what you and yours like, and the second to buy in quantity. Some stores will give out the sales flyers well in advance. If you see something you will want a lot of, it might be worth finding the grocery manager in advance and asking him to get you cases, rather than buying whatever loose cans are on the shelf when you get there. You may even get a further price break on cases.
Don’t buy stuff just because it is cheap. For example, I read a post by someone who had bought a lot of canned jack mackeral. Nutritious, no doubt, but that stuff is exceedingly fishy. Now, the canned salmon right next to it on the shelves is great tasting, can be made into salmon salad like one would make tuna salad, and is amazingly cheap.
And don’t forget multivitamins! If you’re living off a half can of something a day or a cup of rice, your body is going to thank you for the supplement. They’re expensive at first glance, but when you consider how they are most of your RDA in one pill, they’re worth it. Not to surive on solely, but certainly a great aid.
And when you plan your RDA for SIP or BOB when TSHTF with high CFR HEH2H H5N1 AI, don’t forget to check the MSDS for the LD50 of those MRE’s.
My recommendation, if you are going to shop the ‘regular grocery stores’, shop the BOGO’s (Buy One, Get One Free). For example, in this week’s Publix ad (Southeast grocery chain) they have BOGO’s on Peanut butter, Smuckers Jelly, Gramm Crackers, etc. Stock up when these ‘HOT’ promotions come around, as the manufacturers don’t offer these deals that often.
Another good tip is to check the weekly ads for grocery stores in your area on-line. Typically grocery ads all drop the same day in a particular market (in FL it’s Wednesday). Most promotions are good for a one-week time period. Don’t be afraid to hit multiple stores and ONLY shop the sales… it’s called ‘cherry picking’ in the biz.
If there is an Aldi’s within driving distance it is well worth the trip.
SIPCT at 20:00. DAMN you’re good with the abbreviations. Kudos!
And prepmaniac, don’t forget treats and other stuff for variety. I found pretty good prepackaged Indian food at about $2 a box (at a normal supermarket). It’s basically chick peas or lentils in a fiery spicy sauce. The boxes aren’t big (they say 3 servings, but that would be small servings). But even a small serving on rice or a baked potato, used basically as a condiment, is enough to remind your taste buds why they exist.
gardner
I will second your reco on the Indian foods. Bought originally at Trader Joes, they now sell their own brand. In any case, the Tasty Bite line of Indian foods are wonderful if spicy. For the vegans out there, there are at least four that are vegan. Love the Bombay Potatos, Jodpur Lentils etc. You can buy them by the six pack right from TB online, frequent discounts if you are on their email list. Prep is same as MREs, just drop in boiling water for 4 or 5 minutes to heat. Shelf life about 18 months. They will jolt you out of any possible SIP food fatigue! Kids will probably not like them unless they like spicy foods..
Gardner - thank you!
I learned how to cook as a Boy Scout: “You must poke a hole in the can before you put it in the fire, or it WILL explode.” The prep variation is, to heat canned food, remove the label from the can, and scrape off the label glue. Place the can ON ITS SIDE in a pan of water, and heat. That way, you don’t have a pan to wash.
If you are storing many cans, it may be worthwhile to use a Sharpie to mark the contents and date purchased on the end of the can, in case the label comes off somehow.
Thanks again. There is a Publix about 30 minutes from here. I will see what they offer when I go to town for the book too. Maybe they sell canned meat like ham or beef. Is there such a thing as canned beef?
Yes, a small tuna-sized can of roast beef is about $2.50 here in VA, maybe $2 at the Dollar Store. However, read some of the food receipe threads and learn how to dehydrate hamburger. I had not done it before, did a test batch and then made a couple of recipes with it and was VERY impressed! I only have 10 lbs [pre-dried weight] put up right now, and because there are only two of us, I won’t need as much as you with the kids still at home.
“Is there such a thing as canned beef?”
I get canned roast beef in a gravy sauce that is very good. We like it over egg noodles. Also, Dollar Store has canned hams for $2.
Hi Everyone, Hey HB.I just got some canned hams at my dollar store it was $2.00 and sliced it into ham steaks cooked them with eggs the kids went nuts over it.They loved it.I then cubed some of the canned ham and put it into some chilli BIG HIT again.I also got some sliced beef and gray in a can going to put it over some egg noodles and see if they like that to.I also buy those little styrofoam containered beefaronies and chef boyRdee thingees for the kids.35 seconds in the nuker and there happy as clams.There like 83 cents at walmart and they stack very nicely and dont take up much room the mack and cheese is a biggee at my house.I just try differant things and so far these have worked for me.OH OH this is one my wife showed me.She makes 2 boxes of Kraft mac and cheese then adds a can of peas and 1 can of tuna this makes a meal for the 5 of us for about $3.75 and it has your dairy, fish protein, and a veggee and is very filling.And all of the items are canned or dry and can sit on the shelf for some time without going bad…..I hope this gives you all some ideas………We will all get thruu this……..and the wiki is the best place to get the help you will need…………You all be good and stay safe……..Later Y’all
I don’t know if you guys know how great this is. To have all of these ideas and help, instead of running around trying to find everything on my own. I never would have known about the beef in a can. That will make a huge difference at my house. They don;t sell it here at the grocerey stores, but there is a Dollar store about 30 miles away. I never would have gone there. Have never been there, but I plan on buying every can of beef and ham that they have. They don’t sell canned ham at my grocery store either. I have a lot of tuna already. The reason I have a lot is I bought a bunch when it was buy one get one. It was when someone was saying “put a can of tuna under your bed every time you you to the store”. Well guess what. No one in my family will eat it except me. I appreciate the tuna recipe. That looks good. I will be sure to get a lot of mac and cheese . Good idea. Really, thanks for all of your response. I have no one here to share ideas with. My friends - even long term- don’t want to talk about it. I am friends with the woman who hires police and fire fighters. When I asked here about bf plans she didn’t know what I was talking about. The hospital has no plans. I took my teen age daughter for her tetnus and other boosters…I got one also…. I asked her about any plans. Her answer was “We are teaching people to cover their coughs and wash, wash, wash, their hands.” That is it. My family laughs at me. My garage is full of water. I finally realized I will never have enough. I bought things to try to catch rain water. Now they are sure that I have lost my mind completely. So, I can’t talk to them either. It is nice to have people out there who don’t think I am nuts, because I am trying to prepare. Thanks for letting me know you are out there. CashB - sister
Also try Walmart and Target. Not all their food items are cheaper than grocery stores, but are significantly less (eg. my kids favorite cereal is $1 cheaper at Target vs the SALE price at my grocery store). Our grocery store also always has one aisle (well, half) dedicated to weekly deals. I always check that out. Also, check to see if there is an Aldi’s or Big Lots near you - great deals to be had there as well.
Definitely experiment with some of your preps. My kids still won’t eat tuna but I’m working on it. Rice and beans not a big hit but I’m going to try another recipe or two. Definitely stock treats - cake and brownie mixes are often on sale also.
As for expiration dates, more and more items have them now. Canned goods is probably 50/50 marked, but in general you can probably keep them at least 1 1/2 years. It’s the dry good that you have to watch out for - cereals, crackers, flout, etc. expire much more quickly and are susceptible to unwanted critters, so be careful where and how you store things.
Good for you, prepmatic! Just keep on prepping, but don’t forget your water needs. That’s just as important as food prepping, for sure, or maybe even more if you don’t have a source of free flowing water.
One food I’ve always loved is sunflower sprouts. Who would ever think of it?!? They’re very easy to sprout and are ready to eat in a few days. Of course, the seeds themselves make very healthy eating. These sprouts are delicious!
I sort the seeds first; you’ll find a lot of yellow, broken or dark-coloured ones. Those go in the compost pit. The good ones go on a dinner plate with enough water to cover them, and a piece of paper towel over that. Generally, I use 20–25 seeds for a 3 inch pot. They’re pretty close together. After some hours, before they dry out, pop them in a small shallow plastic flower pot, with the pointy side of the seed down. Each seed has an almost translucent “bag” around it; when I make ém I gently squeeze the seed out of this bag; this way when the leaves come up the bag doesn’t stick the young leaves together. I always use good clean soil.
After 2–4 days, when the plants are about 3 inches high you can harvest them, stem and all. If the second pair of leaves start to appear the sprouts lose their fresh taste and become a little bitter. I eat half a pot each time. You can also sow them in bigger pots to feed more people; just keep in mind to use shallow pots or trays because these powerehouse seeds grow very long roots. Every 4 days or so I start the process over. Try taking these beauties in a mixed salad to a potluck party sometime; people flip out when they see them!
I’ve also experimented with them in the winter on a cold window ledge. They grow much more slowly but if they don’t freeze they’ll come up eventually. I do re-use the soil, after taking out as much of the root system as I can. I set this soil aside so the roots compost back into the soil; this way you avoid the soil getting moldy. I have to reclcle in this way; we live in a small appartment in the big city with little money.
I know that all sprouts are very nutricious and easy to grow;, even the rinse water is very good to drink. Only the alfalfa seeds have a bitter taste, IMO. Try sprouting beans in a jar with a screen over the jar mouth. Any kind of eating beans are good; beans for planting sometimes are coated with anti-fungals. Soak the beans some hours in the jar, pour off the water (use for soups or drink it as is), give them a fresh bath a few times a day and eat before they start getting green (I mean, with leaves).. Lentils and peas are especially delicious. One advantage of eating bean sprouts, besides their high nutrition value, is that they’re easy to digest; they don’t give you the thundering farts!
We’ve been calculating by calories. 2,000 cal per person per day as a basis. This does involve a lot of arithmetic, but if you are handy with a computer spreadsheet, it makes it easier. I found it hard to figure stuff out by “number of servings” listed on containers, as really we tend to eat more than one serving of something anyway (really are there 8 servings of pasta in a box?.. my husband and I can eat more than half a box together at a single meal if we’ve been working hard).
What we learned is that all those nice cans of fruit and veggies are never going to provide enough food energy. Yes, they are needed for vitamins and minerals, and to add variety, but we found a need to base the larder on relatively CHEEP, HIGH CALORIE foods, such as rice, beans, flour and pasta. You can rack up the calories quickly that way without going totally broke.
To avoid monotony and try to balance the diet, we’ve also stockpiled lots of canned meats: hash, chicken, tuna, salmon (oily fishes good for calories), as well as peanut butter, jelly and whole nuts. Then other ingredients for cooking such as olive oil, spices, some special flavors like soy sauce and sesamie oil. A few treats like chocolate and cake mixes round things out.
We also have some stuff in the freezer including meats, veggies, cheese, butter, pepperoni. Obviously some of that will have to be eaten or canned quickly if the power goes out.
Anyway, the big thing we learned by counting up calories, is that unless you are pretty rich and have a lot of storage room, you just can’t get to, say a year’s worth of food for two people on canned beef stew and peaches. Flour, at 13 dollars for 50 pounds and some freeze dried yeast to make bread is very helpful, along with pasta, rice and beans.
And the wonderful recipes posted here by Kathy from FL and others! That is what has made this all “doable” for me!
bump for BB.
bump
I know it’s been said in the threads before but I want to restress it. Before you buy a lot of cans of something you have not tried before, buy one and try it. Some are good and some are dogfood.
Oremus, is there anything specific that you have found to be “dogfood”? For example, I’ve never bought the canned roast beef before, nor have I tried any of the [few] cans I’ve purchased. I know that no matter the brand, they all come from the same source [according to several posts on FluWikie]. Is that what you are referring to, or to another type of food? I’m not worried about the tuna, salmon or the like, since these are brands I’ve used in the past.
MAinVA @ 14:17--I’m not Oremus and can’t speak to the dog food issue (although I really, really can’t do the canned hams or the SPAM). Was just going to say that I have had really good luck with the canned meat products from Brinkman Farms (www.brinkmanfarms.com). Large, family-sized cans. Decent enough taste that we actually eat and rotate them. Even thier canned ground beef was good (not as good as fresh of course, but in an entirely different league from SPAM or the DAK canned hams IMHO). Was not entirely satisfied that the Brinkman Farms chicken was any better than the grocery store variety. Canned pork, canned beef, and canned white meat turkey, very good. Downsides: really very expensive compared to grocery store variety canned meats and some issues with cans getting dented during shipping. No affiliation with company; they’ve been in business for decades. For those that shop at the Internet Grocer, this is the direct source for the canned meats that they sell.
Galt
Spam is wonderful if fried and eaten with white rice. Just ask the Hawaiians.
My DH *requests* Spam now and then. I make it with macaroni & cheese, fried Spam sandwich, Spamburger, fried - with eggs or biscuits…lots of possibilities. But it always has to be cooked - we never eat it straight from the can. It’s not my favorite thing, but I can think of worse. I use the lower-sodium variety :)
MAinVA, i bought 20 of the 2.00 hams from dollar general, and several of the small dak hams, fixed one of the hams with pineapple and one fried. my husband has refused to eat another one unless it is the last of the last of our preps during a very real and ongoing bird flu pandemic. said if he really had to eat another one he would just go outside and just give himself over to the flu. ive gone back to tuna, salmon, and chicken. havent tried the beef but am looking into the tvp products at honeyville grain, also looked at the site for brinkman farms - it looks promising. good luck
All of the above are good suggestions for you. I started prepping by simply buying 2 of whatever in my weekly shopping. If I needed, say, canned peas - I would buy 2, or say dishwashing liquid, I would buy two. If you normally buy 3 cans of peas - buy 6 (when on sale) or else buy the gynormous one!
But the best advise here - test your preps. As you said - you are the only one in your family that likes tuna. Practice one night with your family and prepare dinner. Tell them you are camping or whatever. But practice cooking with limited fuel and water.
My family went through Hurricane Rita last year and I had 17 people (including small children) in my home for a month. Buy large cans of food, if you can. Preparing food for that many people becomes a garbage nightmare with regular cans. You need 4 cans to even get started!
As mentioned above, write down for a week or two everything your family eats from breakfast to dinner including snacks. Also include any foods you eat out. There’s your prepping shopping list.
Last but not least, put away more snack foods than you think you will eat. We discovered during Rita that small children can be finicky eaters when stressed. Goldfish to the rescue!!!!
Thanks for the reponses to my question. I’ve stayed away from the hams, btw — my DH won’t eat port after growing up on a farm! [It’s not a religious thing.] Guess it would be a good idea to test out the roast beef. If its bad, I can always save it for barter in a desparate situation. I’m in the process of dehydrating my second 10 lbs of hamburger. We did try out the first batch and really liked it! Wish I’d known about this when the kids were small.
geez, do you have a Whole Foods nearby? may not be as expensive as you think. the majority of my preps consist of dried bulk items including a variety of:
beans, lentils, peas, rolled oats, millet, quinoa, popcorn, chick peas, rice…
then tuna, peanut butter, sardines, canned/dried fruits/veggies, turkey jerky, powdered milk/eggs, protein bars, pasta, chicken broth etc…to supplement.
in addition to oils, spices, sprouts, mollases, seaweed, vitamins…
seems best to go bulk if possible for main staples, then accessorize later with everything else. of course, reliable access to potable water would be key in preparation of dried goods.
good luck!
oh, btw, i’m only prepping for myself, a young child, and eventually probably extra for her father (who does not normally live with us but might come in more handy alive than otherwise), but…i’ve experimented a little and found that with some (dried) veggies thrown-in for good measure, i can make a large pot of lentil or blk bean soup from 2–4 cups of same, with some rice, and this will last us all week long, esp if we had a few other things to add as filler in-between meals.
lentils sell for between .89 and 1.49/lb at Whole Foods.
so this can be done. go grab some big jars and fill em up!
(can’t believe i’m actually giving prep advice as just a few months ago i was feeling the task seemed nearly insurmountable.)
Posie at 20:19
“(can’t believe i’m actually giving prep advice as just a few months ago i was feeling the task seemed nearly insurmountable.)”
And THAT is the beauty of the flu-wiki community! Sharing both fears and solutions, empowers everyone. ;)
People who are not aware of the pan-flu threat might think we all are nut-jobs, but so what. Ya gotta love this place. :)
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