An aside: I seem to have developed two phrases in these posts, so will define them so won’t have to define them over and over: “today’s world” means we have power; “tomorrow’s world” means we don’t have power. Hopefully, “tomorrow’s world” won’t happen.
A word about ordering large amounts of long term storage food: It’s not a good idea for people around you to know what you have (the security thing). If a UPS truck stops at your house and unloads large boxes and lots of them, your neighbors are going to wonder why. For this reason, I staggered my orders, not ordering large numbers of boxes at a time, and letting a few weeks go by before I ordered more. Think about this if you order a good amount of long term food.
A comment about Egypt and our preparing: this morning I’m hearing, due to the rioting, food is scarce and gasoline is scarce. If these riots don’t stop soon, water will stop as the employees won’t be at work and pumping stations will go down. People have barricaded themselves in their homes as rioters are now in the more well to do neighborhoods. I wonder if people in these homes have any water and food stored (I doubt it). There is a lesson here – they didn’t know this emergency was going to happen so didn’t know to prepare. If you couldn’t leave your home today due to rioting with no end to it in sight, do you have stored water and food?
GRAINS: RICE, OATS, PASTA plus VEGETABLES, CANNED MEATS
RICE
We’ve only talked about rice in relation to paring it with beans for complete protein. Rice by itself can be a side dish, put in soups, used to make tasty rice pudding on top of stove; the uses are many. Morning rice made with cooked rice, milk, sugar, chopped apple, cinnamon and raisins sounds tasty and that’s in Hansen’s book. As said before, instant rice is better for emergencies, due to the small amount of fuel it takes to cook it. From the Minute Rice website we find the shelf life of their 5 minute rice is two years. For longer shelf life, hermetically sealed in the absence of oxygen from Walton, the shelf life is 25-30 years. This long term storage rice is not instant. However, there’s a recipe in Eating off the Grid, that tells us how to cook regular rice only bringing the water to a boil and turning it off – takes a lot more time than instant, but fuel is saved. Make your choices of storage based on your goals – I chose to have 25-30 yr. rice.
OATS
Instant oatmeal is a fixture in our modern world. It’s made instant by cutting the oats into smaller pieces so it cooks quickly. For shelf life: I just bought a box of apple cinnamon sugar free instant oatmeal and the “best by” date is December, 2012. This is January, 2011, so it’s “best by” date is two years from now and “best by” doesn’t mean it’s spoiled two years from now - it’s just not going to taste as super fresh as it did before and that’s due to the seasoning taste beginning to lessen. Plain, no flavor, no sweetening, instant oatmeal can be used in recipes when you just need oats, however boxes of regular oats are much cheaper for recipes. For long life, long term storage oats, sealed in the absence of oxygen, are good for 25 years. I have some.
PASTA
Technically, pasta would be covered under flour since it’s made from flour. However, it doesn’t seem like flour and it’s storage qualities are different. In today’s world, at our house, we eat brown spaghetti, better tasting than white and better for you. I don’t store brown spaghetti/pasta for the same reason I don’t store brown rice - very short shelf life. White pasta will store very well for at least two years or more as long as you keep it dry and away from light. Buy it in plastic bags, not cellophane bags (these are too flimsy and split easily), or cardboard boxes (not tight enough to keep out moisture). If you do have it or buy it in cellophane or cardboard, put those in plastic bags, press out the air, and seal. Keep pasta in the dark. Long term storage pasta lasts 20 years or more. I have some.
VEGETABLES
Canned veggies in the grocery store, basically, have a good tasting shelf life of about two years if kept reasonably cool. After about two years, the quality of the taste diminishes. For canned veggies, I would rotate them to keep the taste up. Long term freeze dried veggies are more expensive than long term dehydrated so I don’t have any. However, I do have dehydrated ones, again bought from Walton. They have a shelf life of 20-25 years. The beauty of these dehydrated veggies is, they don’t have to be rotated and many more can be stored since they are dehydrated and take up much less space than cans with liquid in them. They are sold as individual veggies or mixed veggies.
There is one veggie in the grocery that has a huge amount of life sustaining nutrition, even if it’s canned. This marvel is sweet potatoes. A 2/3 cup serving of canned sweet potatoes has this: 190% of Vitamin A one needs a day: 30% of Vitamin C; 2% of Calcium, 8% of iron. That’s a lot of nutrition in one veggie – in tomorrow’s world, open a can, heat the contents, put some on each plate, sprinkle with Molly McButter and cinnamon, and even the kids should like it. When you heat them, you could add some brown sugar - pour off some of the liquid in can if you do it this way so the sugar will concentrate itself on the veggies- won’t take much brown sugar this way. There is fiber in the canned ones but if you had fresh ones (which you likely won’t in tomorrow’s world), the fiber content would be higher, naturally.
CANNED MEAT
Buy Hormel canned meat of every kind and you’re done – that was easy, wasn’t it? Not long ago, I searched their website and read due to their processing, as long as the can is intact, the product is safe to eat. For best taste quality, canned ham is 2 years, canned meat and poultry, is 2 to 5 years. I can’t guarantee other brands, or store brands, would last this long as I have no information on their canning techniques, so I’m sticking with Hormel brand. I do believe Hormel is the standard for canned meat – Spam, Spam, Spam, does that register? Look at Spam cans, there’s more than one type Spam now. They have been providing our individual military men with meat forever it seems so they know what they’re doing when they can meat. Buy a can of Hormel ham, one of the Spam varieties, one of chicken every week and they will build up in your pantry – or buy more than one each every week and watch the stack grow faster.
Look, don’t diss Spam. Sliced, fried Spam is tasty a number of ways: on a sandwich with mustard and it’s good with eggs and it’s good as the meat on a plate with other foods. Hormel ham will do nicely as meat in soup or sliced as the main meat for a meal. Hormel chicken is useful to make chicken salad, put it in soups, etc.. It’s chicken so use it as you would chicken now.
Hormel meats are the only real meats I store. One 14.5 oz. can of “Signature” hamburger in juices, at Walton, is $6.45, one can of “Signature” chicken chunks in juices is $6.45 and both have a shelf life of 3 years. That’s too much money for too little meat for too little storage time. So, I went to long term storage meat substitute – beef and chicken flavored textured vegetable protein (TVP).
Don’t turn up your nose at TVP. Look, we’re talking a major disruption for whatever reason, and TVP could be the only meat texture and flavor you have if you don’t store canned meat. Plus, beef or chicken flavored TVP is fine to put in soups – gives you the texture and flavor of meat plus protein and saves your canned meat to have pure meat on the table. A #2.5 can of beef flavored TVP is 10 servings for $4.30. A #2.5 can of chicken flavored TVP is 11 servings for $4.50 and the storage life for both is 10 years.
Next is fruits, sugars, salt, baking powder, baking soda, honey, bottled/canned pasta sauce, salsa/Picante, gravies, ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc..
