Our recovery to everyday level was slow, tedious, and expensive, and our emergency preparations seriously lagged, as we had to learn how to rebuild our kitchen and home pantry supply first. Trips to the grocery store that would normally take an hour, would now take three. Each and every label had to be read for allergin disclaimers, or crypto glutinous ingredients like malt, or dextrose, yeast, 'broth', starch, hydrolyzed protein and on and on. From scrutinizing labels, we learned some interesting things, like Walmarts Organic Mixed Berry Jam not only contains wheat, it has anchovies....yum. We also learned that some fresh chickens contain 15% 'broth', which is just starchy water placed there for the sole purpose of charging chicken prices for water. Lastly, we learned that most gluten free processed food is a slippery tasteless abomination at 4X the price of it's normal counterpart. So to conclude, we have learned what we can eat (I say 'we' because I cannot bring any gluten into the house for myself). We have refilled our pantry and freezer with safe canned and frozen vegetables, canned and frozen meat and fish, Bush's beans in many varieties, rice and corn based safe products, and fresh fruit and vegetables. We have even found a few brands of rice pasta noodles that are marginally edible. Over the course of the year as funds permitted, I replaced all of my essential cast iron pieces, and learned to make some old favorites with strange flours and ingredients. Our kitchen food supply is back to a new normal, and our emergency food supply has recovered to about three weeks worth and now revolves around dry beans, dry rice, canned beans (Bush's is gluten free, many others are not), canned meat and fish, Hormel chili, veggies especially tomatoes, canned or asceptic pak rice, potatoes, and wild rice. It has gotten easier, but we can never let down our guard. I think we're OK now.


Edited by Byrd_Huntr (12/23/17 06:54 AM)
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The man got the powr but the byrd got the wyng