I was just reading through the "Nov-long term prepare" thread and it got me thinking about the type of foods to store for that long-term-staying-put option (the one I favor).

Long-term preparedness seems to rely heavily on storing masses of dried beans, rice, and pasta. I know they can keep nearly indefinitely with minimal preparation, but I see two problems - fuel, or lack of fuel, and nutrition in the long-term.

1) Especially with rice and beans, they can take a long time to cook = lots of fuel required. Those with acres of forest and a woodstove may have no worries, but for others, the quicker-cooking options may need to be considered.

2) Nutrition - if we are talking about a long-term situation (waiting for crops to grow, etc.) Staying healthy in the meantime becomes more meaningful. For the fuel-needy who have resorted to the "instant" versions of rice, grits, etc,, consider that they lose much of their nutritional value in the processing.
- Diets heavy in carbs will have negative effects eventually (the fact that rice and beans make a complete protein notwithstanding).
- I haven't read of too many here storing vitamins - maybe because of relatively short shelf life.

This is a thoughtful group. How are you addressing these issues?

I try to keep a good supply of multi-vitamins and a few other types of supplements (iron, omega 3, etc) on hand.

I also keep dried fruits on hand, as best as I am able (raisins, banana chips, dried apple slicesw, etc) to round out a diet.

The first thing is to store food that is similar to your normal diet. That way you know it works with you system and you like eating it.

There are a lot of canned food possibilities. There are lots of canned veggies, soups, fruit, fish and meats.
I just saw these today at the Safeway;
http://www.bumblebee.com/products_fam.jsp?famid=10
These are chicken. I also saw tuna (of course) and salmon including steaks. http://www.bumblebee.com/products_fam.jsp?famid=2
Don't forget Spam which now has a turkey variety which is probably a bit healthier.

Bill

Not necessarily. For beans, soak them overnight, come morning replace the water with boiling water (you can use the soak water), then stick the beans/hot water in some sort of insulated wrapping. They'll be ready to eat later that day.

Rice works the same way but you don't need to soak it the night before.

If you are secure in your location and the sun cooperats you can use a solar cooker. A simple one can be made from a cheap styrofoam cooler, a sheet of glass or plexiglass, and a pot painted black.

-Blast

pressure cooker--they make small ones..if you have a
wood lot your all set..it took me 26 years to go thru
less that 5 acres..that was oak and the grow-back never
caught up with the use..

Blast said it. Food prep and a well thought out cooking method is a great way to save fuel. Most of my camping meals can be made by a combination of pre-soaking and/or pouring in boiling water and letting it sit for 10 minutes or so. Even at home I make oatmeal like that. Boil water, pour, cover, wait 5-10 minutes, and eat.

I agree with using a pressure cooker, it speeds things up and uses way less fuel.
It's useful to look at what camping and hiking websites have to say about food sources. I like to take prepacked potato buds and bacon bits, they keep well and cook up instantly.

We store lots of what we eat everyday, nothing special. Remember dry food usually requires a good supply of water to rehydrate.

What about cans of V8? Is V8 juice a good source of nutrition, or at least a supplement to 'plain' foods?

Instead of using boiling water, I used to make ramen by tipping a can of V8 into the ramen cup (with the seasoning sachet) and putting it in the microwave. Makes a sort of bolognese-inspired dish. (Sort of).

A

Costco. Think six-packs of chili, veggies, canned meats, etc. Can be eaten hot or cold, easily rotated, full taste, etc. Add a few bottles of multi-vitamins and you are set...

I think this is the approach that makes the most sense. If you stock up on "survival food" that the family won't eat every day, you end up throwing a lot of it away after a couple of years. Buy extra cans of what you like, and as you eat them, rotate in new supplies.

On the beans and rice issue: these are staples in countries that don't have an abundance of cooking fuel. Efficient means to pre-soak and cook them have been mentioned already.

OK, I'm a little biased, because I have a weakness for red beans and rice, New Orleans style.

Frank2135

Seems like grains,beans and pasta are all dry goods.
I can't seem to find any why out of the trade off between difficult to prepare,water required and long shelf life.
Are most of you planning on a mix of dry and canned goods ?

Many of the old folks from the turn of the century I talked to as a kid, mentioned 100 lbs of rice, 25 pounds of flour,50 lbs of sugar 50 lbs of beans etc. as standard starter house stocks.

Pasta is bland but last forever.
Still you need to cook all of these, for me the trouble is ready food (canned,tinned) have about a five year shelf life.

Vitamins have yet to be proven as well absorbed without a person consuming sufficient calories.

Mostly the stuff I have is not likely to be eaten UNLESS there is no choice.

My impression is that there is no one right way and that most ways are right sometimes and wrong others. Hence, being prepared means having different things on hand.

My assumption is that I will have no refrigeration. So having a can of chili opened means I have to eat it all at one sitting or lose it. Same with any canned food. So my thinking is pop-open single-serving cans of tuna, chicken, spam, whatever. Small cans of vegetables.

As I understand from this thread, having dried grains means I have to have lots of water to soak, then cook briefly; or having lots of fuel and water to cook for hours; or not eating it. I have to have big pots for soaking; pots for cooking. A place to soak and cook. I do think I'll have plenty of water from a nearby stream, and I have a supply of microfilters and a container for filtered, presumably potable water. I'm not sure I'll have fuel for long cooking. Maybe not even for short cooking. I have a camp stove that burns unleaded gas, so as long as I have abandoned cars nearby, I should have fuel, but not if there is a flood that contaminates all the gas. If I cook single serving portions, I don't have to worry about spoilage of cooked food if I have no refrigeration. But I think I have to cook more often and consume more fuel.

Then I get to ability. If I'm injured, I may not be able to carry water for filtering and cooking. I may not be able to handle pots and water for soaking. I may not be able to gather fuel. It depends on the injury. If I'm injured, I'll be happy to have a supply of pop-open single-serving cans I can eat out of. Maybe some self-heating MREs, assuming I can get them open.

But there's no way to know ahead of time what my situation will be, so I try to include enough variety not only of food but of containers and preparation methods that I'll at least have something to eat in most survival situations. There are too many variables in my situation to limit myself to flour, beans, rice, and the like, even taking into account rotating the goods so that they remain edible. Additionally, I don't assume I'll have my house and its stove and refrigerator and walls and roof. I may be in my tent or in a patio under a tarp.

What about dehydrated fruits?

If your talking about drying them yourself, you can’t get the low moisture content required for long term storage, somewhere around three and a half percent. Some of the commercially prepared products have lower moisture content and then can be stored long term. Most home units still have about twenty five percent moisture, which would keep for short term.

2 quick fixes for this is to 1-add a incandesent bulb to the unit to add a small amount of hear repeat small amount it you go much past 150F your cooking it instead of drying.2-increase drying time I found 4-5 hours past the manufactures recomended times usually work, but you may have to experiment some for your area. Using one or both of these fixes I have stored fruit for up to 5 months in zip lock bags. If you add vacume packing it should extend the storage time.

I have 3 months of mountain house for 2 people. Just add water
25 3600 Cal Maydays in my BoB.

Rest is just usally pantry rotation of canned/dried fruit etc.

Again, not necessarily. Do a search on wood-gas stoves and/or bio-gas stoves, you'll be surprised at some of the innovative stove designs people have come up with for 3rd world countries where fuel is scarce/endangered/expensive. Some of the designs even produce charcoal for later use or sale while cooking meals.

ie:Hybrid Stove Making Charcoal

Another solution is to prepare dehydrated meals and store those in ziplock freezer or vacuum sealed bags. Place the bag in an insulating cozy, add boiling water to the bag, reseal it and in 15 minutes or so you are ready to eat. A search of backpacking sites will give loads of info on this. I find dehydrating food an interesting hobby and it allows for an amazing variety of storable emergency foods. Basically, anything you find in the frozen vegetable section at the grocery store can be dehydrated and then vacuum sealed in canning jars for storage.



Vitamin and mineral supplements can be helpful but most vitamins don’t have much of a shelf life so planning balanced meals is very important. The internal organs of wild and domestic animals are a rich source of vitamins that are rarely used anymore but may be a life saver in a long term emergency situation. Mineral supplements (colloidal minerals are the best) can be stored for a year or more with little or no loss of effectiveness. Colloidal minerals can also be added to hardtack for long term storage by replacing some of the water in the recipe with the minerals and then vacuum sealing the hardtack. While hardtack may be a boring bread to eat, it’s a whole lot better than no bread at all and it can be stored for years if properly prepared and kept dry.

A couple of tricks I've used for cooking beans using very little fuel:

Solar Cooker - Soak the beans overnight. I had a gas cooker so I would bring the beans to a boil then shut off the gas. Then I'd put the beans into the solar cooker. This gets the beans up to temperature very quickly so they can cook for a long time in the solar cooker, whereas it would take a while to heat up if you put them in cold.

Thermos - This is the "fireless cooker" method. Soak the beans overnight. I'd bring them to a boil like before, then pour them into a large thermos. I made sure to fill the thermos all the way with water. I'd let it sit for about 8 hours or so. This didn't work as well as the solar cooker, but it's an option if there's no sun.

Hey Blast,
I've always heard cooking beans in the soak water will increase the BLAST effect that occurs soon after eating said beans.

I've heard the same thing. Unless water is scarce it's best to discard the soak/cooking water from beans.

Never heard it called the "blast effect."

Beans aren't a problem with me, mostly. But broccoli -- whew!

Given enough methane production, I'd want to capture it to run the generator.

:-)

Just a thought- since everyone interested in this topic must have some food stashed for the long term.
At this time of year, many food pantry's are in the collection mode. If you have not "rotated out" in your natural "first in first out" method I find that scouring the pantry for shelf dates sell by in the next 6 months. Kicking into the local food drive feels good and is a good reason to buy new items for long term storage and replacing the stuff due to expire in 2008.
It is a shame to find stuff a year or more past the sell by date that food banks could use.

If you're cooking with the thermos method, pour hot water into the thermos to heat it up, then drain it just before you put the hot beans into it. Pouring hot beans into a cold thermos is counter-productive.

Sue