Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 1195 Location: Zoorope
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 6:44 am Post subject:
Hey perm,
same boat here. Small garden, little child, afraid for security!
I also dream about forming a farm and a security force with neighbors, but I can't bet on it.
A food lasting forever: HONEY! It lasts centuries, they've found some in ancient Pompei excavations and was still edible! It's good, provides a lot of nutrients and tastes great. Kids love it.
About crossbows, in my country they are strictly prohibited and I think in yours too. Maybe arches are allowed, but I don't know.
Another question for the experts: do you know how much medicines last after expiring date? I remember in my youth medecines expired after 5 or 6 years, now it's only 2 or 3... I think it's a market trick to sell more. Any suggestion? _________________ **no english mothertongue**
--------
Objects in the rear view mirror
are closer than they appear.
About crossbows, in my country they are strictly prohibited and I think in yours too. Maybe arches are allowed, but I don't know.
Crossbows are UK legal so far as I know, the website I linked to was based here, in fact.
As for medicine, I imagine the type would have an impact on it's shelf life: Asprin and paracetemol tablets would probably last longer than stuff in liquid form.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 7002 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 4:32 pm Post subject:
Of the long-haired type.
The Mormons – who know a thing or two about hard times, are instructed to keep at least one-year supply of food. They have what they call “The Basic Four”: wheat, salt, honey (now sugar) and powdered milk.
Salt lasts indefinitely
Granulated sugar and hard red winter wheat can easily last over 20 years
Powdered milk can last up to three years in mylar bags before it begins to lose vitamins.
Beans add more protein and amino acids lacking in the above. Multi vitamins are a good basic addition as well. IIRC white rice has little protein and brown rice goes rancid fast, so pinto beans are best addition and can easily last 5 years.
The food storage articles compiled by AZGrammy (from a real survivalist site) has a wealth of information - anyone reading this thread should download it: http://peakoil.com/pub/food_storage_articles.doc
Having said that, the Mormons actually advise doing what I said initially, storing what you eat, eating what you store, and rotating it often. I don’t know how many of you have eaten cracked wheat berry gruel, but let me tell you, it tastes strange to an American, it fills you up but it also cleans you out fast. Now if you are in a situation where you must live off the basic 4, you certainly don’t need to be “indisposed” once or twice an hour till your system gets used to the fiber – if you catch my drift.
The above link has 4 or 5 plans for building your pantry, $5 a week plan, 52 weeks plan and others. Also the seven food storage mistakes, 100 things to do with salt and lots more.
Download it, print it out and read it; or just sit there with your head in you monitor and wait for your own personal hurricane Charley.
Says me. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
I'm trying to get the prep web links we lost back, did anyone bookmark the canning guide site? My link doesn't work. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 5:08 pm Post subject: Storing food
Hello Folks,
I've been busy looking for a few acres in Cork (Southern Ireland) but its too damn expensive. Because of my job (army, pensionable and secure) the banks will give me a lot of money but I don't want to carry too much debt. But maybe as the old saying goes 'if you owe the bank 200,000 you should be worried, if you owe the bank 200,000,000 they should be worried'
Tinned tuna, beans, powdered soups and army ration packs are all good. We heat the rations with hexamine tablets which are compact and burn for ages. You can buy simple hexy cookers and tablets at any camping store. The tablets last forever if they are stored in a dry place. Goats are the best animal because they eat anything and provide super milk as regards nutrition. They are also rugged. When I worked in the Middle East, I knew farmers who kept thousands of goats in terrain wiht minimal vegetation.
Colin Campbell lives 3 miles away in Ballydehob, I spoke to him on the phone the other day. I reckon he must be onto something living in Ireland. If TS really HTF, I will have access to automatic weapons and explosive - and my friends thought I was crazy to join the army. _________________ www.askaboutenergy.com
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject: Sorry about the typos
We are having the worst weather here in years. I sat down a few hours ago after running around my house plugging leaks. Drank a bottle of red wine and really should be in bed.
If Cork is too expensive, have you considered the Aran Islands? A friend of mine has a cottage on Inishmor, but I'd recommend Inishmaan - less touristy and home to more people still practicing the old skills. For staying under the radar when TSHTF, it's a brilliant choice. You'd need to import a heck of a lot of coal or peat for heating though.
This is how i have worked it out.
a person needs at least 500 kilocalories a day to be able to survive in crisis.(energy to make shelter etc.) basicly you need 2200 a day.
I plan on getting 1200 kilocalories from stored food and at least 300 kilocalories from scavenging, edible plants, maybe some farming (hard in my case i live in a city am a student and don't have money for it although i intend to learn some farming skills by reading books and maybe a community garden if i can find one)
I will start storing for 3 months (cycle), then another 3 months etc. until i reach a year of storage.
for 1200 kc a day a 3 months on non-meat food is about on average needed a kilogram of 36-43 (when taken 250-300 kc per 100 grams which is a rough estimate from beans/grains/dried/nuts).
I intend to store about this (rough out of my head)
- 4 to 5 kilo's in nuts (energy rich, lots of minerals, some protein)
- 5 to 7 kilo's in others (oil, syrups, brans, etc.)
- 12.5 kilo's of beans (mostly soy bean since best protein value)
- 12.5 kilo's of grains (mostly rice (cheapest to get))
- 3 kilo's of dried things(have to work this out still though i need to learn drieing foods myself)
- 20 liters of water (although i think easy water will be available for a longer while it's still useful to have a small water tank, besides water won't really be a problem, enough water around just need to boil it)
That's a rough layout of my storage plans. I intend to learn along the way about other things to store. I don't eat meat so that's why i didn't put anything about that in it but i believe you can keep dried meats for at least a month i think.
Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1180 Location: England
Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 5:14 pm Post subject:
hi rembrandt.
I have been sad enough to look at the best before dates on tins when i went shopping last and you can actually store at lot of these things to upto 5 years. This is what i found (on average):
Tinned Fruit 3 Years
Tinned Tuna in Salt 5 Years !!(wow!)
Tinned Veg 3 Years
Packet Dried Soup 3 years
Tinned Liquid Soup 2 Years
I'm sure there is loads of other stuff but this is just what i found looking briefly in the local supermarket. I'm sure vacuumed packed rice/pasta might store for a number of years.
If you keep rotating this stock you could in theory keep permanatly the amount of food in stock equivalent to the storage times worth of consumption.(ie if it stores for 3 years , you can keep 3 years worth in your store all the time as long as you rotate).
The only big problem will be keeping the masses away from your food supply. This is particulalry acute if you live in the city. Personally i am going to use my last tank of fuel to get me to my brothers with my family and my food/water/money and a few essentials.
Planning for the collapse of the civilization is probably going over the top a bit.
We have an ENORMOUS redundancy built into our food supply. We can survive on 20% or less of our agricultural produce if we go vegetarian.
(Feeding grain to cattle is an enormous waste calorywise)
Living off basic foodstuffs is incredibly cheap and will remain affordable for most even in massive economic crisis.
I am fairly certain that there will be government programs that ensure the survival of people in the Western nations even in the worst possible peak oil scenarios.
What you want to do is to add to your diet and to have something for bartering.
Because sugar and honey are compact energy sources that keep forever I believe they are well suited for this kind of thing.
A ton of sugar costs only a couple of hundreds of dollars and provides 4 million kcalories, enough for seven person-years.
You could additionally also stockpile cheap hard liquor but that is more expensive because of taxes.
That said, I believe it is always a good idea to have at least a month of supplies in canned foods or MREs because you'll just never know but a sustained food shortage leading to starvation appears highly unlikely, particularly because we will always be able to produce nitrogen fertilizer even without natural gas.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
News
Discussions
Resources
Members
Forum FAQ
Search
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
