Stockpile Food While it's Still Cheap?

[endlessvista]

I am thinking of hording non-perishable essentials as I am amazed how how inexpensive food can be in places such as Lldl and Tescos at the moment.

By "food" I am not talking about Llyod Grossman pasta sauces, Jamie Oliver organic frozen pizzas, sirloin steaks and buckets of designer ice cream, but essentials which keep one alive such as canned vegs, fruit and meat. I bought two large cans of salmon today for Euro 1.50 and they had massive ranges of fruit and veg in cans for less than 50 cent and some as low as 20 cent for a can of peas. That's seriously cheap.

They way I see it, food is not going to be this cheap for long and prices will skyrocket as the false Global Warming scam takes further hold. I suspect much of this cheap food was canned before the massive oil increase and bio-fuel food price designer-disaster and hence why it is still unreal affordable.

I was thinking of making a traditional pantry and filling it full of this cheap tinned and other non perisables while I can. Even if nothing happens I will still have food to eat in my retirement which I can eat unlike my pension I paid into and which has vanished because it was never real to begin with.

Anyone thinking of/doing this? How long can canned foods last and how best to store them. I also think the elite will have all foods dependent on refrigeration in years to come as well. So you have to eat frozen food (all mums love iceland!) - you will be able to store nothing outside the fridge. I can also see control of seeds for growing veg either becoming super expensive or banned.

I can't believe I am even thinking this as 10 years ago I would have though only nutcases stockpile food!

But alas here we are...

[tom bombadil]

Hullo endlessvista.

I already do stock-pile. Start now. Next time you shop, buy 15-25% of your next weeks/month's shopping. Stockpile the chemicals Hair shampoo, washing up liquid ect, and tinned stuff. That is, put it out of reach, but keep the perishables handy, but not with your main shopping. This way you know how much you do eat.

Remember that tinned food will go off or the tins will/might rust, so they will have to be rotated into your main month's stuff.

After a while, you will end up with a few months extra supply.



Some tips.

Buy a cat.
Buy bulk rice and wheat ect and put it into drums. I am talking the huge 55kg bags here. This is far cheaper anyway.
Half starve the cat.
Build a larder. Mine is only 8X6ft, by 8ft high. Lots of shelves (use old pallet wood for this) make it more than 2 tins high.
Learn to make bread and cakes and biscuits.
Buy a hand cranked mill for flower (flour. I am a tw@t).
Praise the cat for the mice that have been caught.
Buy 20 second-hand hens and make a coup. (a pound each from a battery farm about to kill it due to the fact that it wont lay every day and now lays on every other, this not being cost effective to them is a boon to you.)
Buy a puppy to watch your hens. Trust me it works.

I have gone off topic :D sorry.

I know that, for some, there is a cost issue already. But it will never get any easier I think.

Get an allotment. £20 a year. If you cant dig then don't. Mulch instead.


I can be a sweaty sod at times, but even if I shower 1.5 times a day I only need one bottle of hair and body gel, £1.20 ea. a month. This means that two years supply will set me back £29 !! Not bad. With toothpaste costing
twice as much I have covered oral and body hygiene in one fell swoop of £90. for two years.


Tom.

[the norseman]

Well if nutcases stock food I am a nutcase.

I think you should begin to store as much food is practicle for you and your circumstances.

Food is one of the most important things you can own when something in society goes wrong. Each time you go shopping buy a few more non perishable items each time. Most canned foods will last well over a year and most of the time a lot longer - what normally happens over a long period of time is that the nutrient content of the food generally declines rather than the food becoming inedible. If a can is "swollen" or "bulging" though it should be discarded.

You can rotate your food to avoid any of the above - Once you have an appreciable supply just eat the older stuff and replace with new it is that simple. What you must bear in mind is that you should only buy what you eat - don't buy a crate load of corned beef if you can't / won't eat it. I have heard it said that you should:

"Store what you eat and eat what you store".

Aside from canned goods pasta and rice store well with or without oxygen absorbers.

Also think about water - I personally have a big berkey water filter. This means if anything happens to the domestic water supply (I am living in the west of ireland and we had a huge cryptosporidium outbreak last year, giving us a boil water notice, couple that with a 2 day power cut and most people had problems because not everyone could obtain bottled water) I will have a safe stand alone means to meet that requirement.

I store at least 60 gallons of filtered water at my place - you will need about a gallon a day per person so that gives me 2 months worth plus with my water filter I have the independent means to drink quality water permanently.

Aside from food prices increasing think about the following:

Generally a local supermarket only has sufficient food for its core client base to last 3 days. In the even of public panic buying you will have problems.

Depending on where you live, there could be any number of problems with food supply due to haulage industry problems, oil disruptions causing problems, a manufactured terrorist attack etc.

If you lose your job you have sustenance.

Storing food empowers you - you have the means to look after yourself should society collapse.

For the record I have 12 months of food stored at any one time as well as a host of other items etc but that is a new thread completely in itself.

One word of advise if you should choose to tread this path - limit or in fact do not tell anyone about you storage - should tshtf you may well have a hoard of unwanted guests depending on the situation they may well be hostile.

The Norseman.

[tom bombadil]

Good advice the norseman. I think we were typing at the same time :D

You put it better than I.



Tom

[endlessvista]

Thanks a lot lads. This is superb and extremely usual/important advice. My sincere thanks I live on the East coast of Ireland, but in a mountainous rural area south of Dublin. I am also planning to get books on wild food and fungi I can eat from the local woods.

Can we try and keep this thread going as I bet there are loads of people with all kinds of good info on the subject.

The detergents stuff I never thought of - how useful a stockpile of soap would be...

[endlessvista]

Would it be worth oiling the tins in order to prevent rust?

I also see a lot of vacumed packed dry goods. Are they OK if the packing is plastic? What about stuff like Galaxy chocolate which is sealed in a plastic pack with aluminium foil backing. Somebody told me that chocolate like that can be stored for decades.

What about podwered creamers, coffee, tea and condensed milk.

Sorry for all the questions but I am really eager to get this going.

[diamond dogs]

I am buying/storing a bag of Quick soup mix a week (79p a bag from Holland and Barret atm makes loads) and stock cubes that make a hearty filling soup at low cost you can add whatever other ingredients you want to it..

Ingredients:

Contains Green Split Peas
Whole Green Lentils
Yellow Split Peas
Red Split Yentils
Whole Grain Brown
Barley
Barley Flakes

[endlessvista]

What about the flour that sold in sealed plastic bags? Dried eggs?

[the norseman]

Endlessvista,

Regarding rusting that should not be a problem if stored in a dry cool dark environment. I would suggest that you get a food rotation system in place which would mean that most of the "long term" food storing techniques are not needed.

As regards as to what get it all depends on how far you want to take this and why you think food storing is important.

Are you storing merely for economic reasons? If so, you will reach a point of diminishing returns.

Chocolote does store well - refrigeration works very well for longetivity but again for contingency planning again, cool dry and dark will do the job. When I was in the forces we would eat chocolate that was years old - it had turned white - with no ill effects.

As regards to vaccumed pack dry foods, these are very very good - an excellent supplier would be "montain house" - these would last 5 years no problem but the downside is the cost of such things.

You can store flour, dried eggs, rice protein powder, powdered milk etc but make sure you know what to do with these and have the means to process them. Can you cook with flour? Do you have the means to cook with flour in the event of power cuts? Again, this comes down to why are you storing food and what problems you are planning for.

For long term flour storage do a bit of digging around "survivalblog" - this is a great resource for such things.

A good book for wild eating is called "food for free" do a search on Amazon. They have this book available in the collins gem pocket guide. Couple that with the collins gem series for wild plants, fish, fungi etc and you have a great resource that is easily carried. They only cost a couple of Euros each too from Easons.

Other books that may be of interest (again depending on what you are planning for) are:

"Marlene's magic with food storage"

"ABCs of home food dehydration" - Dehydration is an excellent way to store freshly bought fruit and veg, dehydrators are relatively cheap.

"the complete book of self sufficency"

"where there is no doctor"

Unscented, additive free household bleach is a good item to have on hand. It does not store too well long term but can be used to steralise water in an emergency. You will need approx 8 drops (from an eye dropper) per Gallon of water. There is a little more to it than that so do a google search if this interests you.

The Norseman.

[pandamania]

The rotation system seems to make the most sense. I would label a box of food for one year from today and eat it then. You have a constant supply and you do save money as it's basically inflation free eating. Best of both world.

[tom bombadil]

True enough pandamania, but you do feel it when you next buy stuff in bulk :(

endlessvista, Things like coffee and tea ect. If you dont worry too much about those but just wein (spelling) yourself off and onto something local and from one of the many good books you will aquire, then these things will soon not cost a penny. Nettle tea is nice.

Go out and fish. Cook what you catch. If you have never gutted anything before then goto the fishmongers and do it yourself. Ask them how it is done. They will show you. Do it yourself at home.


Tom.

[silver_eyes]

why are people stockpiling food? oil armageddon ?