How to build up a year of food for 2 on $5 a week:

http://www.themormonchannel.net/tmc/1yrfor5.html

You can actually get more emergency preparation info at this link:

http://themormonchannel.net/tmc/prepare.html

All the other stuff is geared towards the religious parts.

Not sure what I could do with the wheat.

As a preface, I am not a Mormon.. But from a survival / provident living point of view, it is based on a shelter in place scenario (e.g. your home). For the wheat, you would need a hand grinder (since electricity probably won't be available in an emergency). Once ground, the uses are great. A goal of every Mormon for provident living is to have a year of food on hand when the "time" comes.

I like to reference their provident living techniques from a standpoint of "time" = bird flu type pandemic.

I guess the areas I'm lacking in would be where to get the grinder, and more importantly, where to get the wheat <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> and, I guess, how it is stored.

Walton Feed is your friend:

http://www.waltonfeed.com/

As it goes, there are many types of emergencies. I'd like to try to prepare for all of them. All of the below is still work in progress, but I try to identify what I would need based on scenarios.

Scenario #1: Building collapse based on earthquake / Terrorism - typical things if I'm still alive: whistle, water, cylunme light, flashlight, mask, first aid - All this would be in an EDC

Scenario #2 - If I am able to get away after a disaster, there would be 72 hour emergency kit in the trunk (BOB).

Scenario #3 - If I am at home, with family, load up the family BOB and go!

Scenario #4 - Is where the shelter in place, long term survival comes in play (e.g. wheat, etc)

Thanks. I've got some learnin' to do!

If you plan on long term storage you must refridgerate the wheat otherwise you will get grain beetles, moths and weevils. The eggs are already on the wheat so they will hatch under room temperature.

for small quantities, an old coffee grinder is just fine.....

When I got into survivalism (I'm still an amatuer) I tried making bread from scratch & it took me all day. I switched over to rice. No grinder needed. Very cheap. Stores well for a long time. Goes with just about any other food - most importantly with wild game & wild edibles. This past spring I made rice, cattail & wild onion stir fry that was excellent.

I wonder if you couldn't do what I've done with my rice - freeze at zero degrees for about a week. That kills all the little critters eggs. I did this to six 5 gallon buckets of rice not to long after 9/11 and the ones I've checked are still good. I don't know if that would work on wheat or not?

I keep a lot of rice on hand too. Goes with everything and when stored right it keeps a long time. I also keep a variety of dry beans and pasta's like garden rotini.

You dont have to put grain in the freezer all you have to do is put it in a mylar bag then into a 5 gallon bucket with lid. Then fill with nitrogen from the bottom to the top. Then put on with a twist lid that will be air tight.... no bugs.

Keep in cool dry and no light. This way when the power goes out you dont have worry.

Too add nitrogen to bucket:

Insert the nitrogen tube into the 5 gallon bucket and cautiously push the tube to the bottom of the Five gallon bucket. Care should be taken not to damage the bag with the tube. Now open the nitrogen valve allowing nitrogen into the bag. We're not talking about a lot of gas. Think of a gentle to moderate blowing through a drinking straw, as a guide for how much nitrogen to allow into the bag. Flush the nitrogen while holding the bag vertically. Nitrogen is heavier than air and will settle, forcing the oxygen out the hole at the top, so do not restrict the air from escaping from the bag. The nitrogen gas will be cold so you will feel the bag getting cooler as the nitrogen replaces the oxygen.

I wanna know where you can get 100lbs of wheat for $5. Maybe out in the country from a grain mill?????

I went to the prepare website. Under water storage, they mention siphoning the water with garden hose with a "cottontail" stuffed in it. I was visualizing stuffing a rabbit into a garden hose. Further down, I find out that they meant "cotton balls". Whew!

yeah, but they're talking about 700 pounds! <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Odds are, they are talking about a feed store, but buying it in 20 pound bags. And they did say that some weeks would be more than five bucks, others less. The $5/wk is an average.

I'm not sure when this list was produced. Either that, or we're getting hosed on food and feed costs around here. I was in a feed store a few weeks ago, and it would cost a bit more than five cents a pound right now for wheat. For any kind of feed grain.

Yeah, I wasn't banking on $5 a week.. Maybe in Utah ;-)

The reason why I forwarded or linked to the message is to let everyone know that you CAN get a years supply of food on very minimal out of pocket expenses.. It'll just take longer. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh, heck yeah. You can do a month in two milk crates, and that has luxuries and inefficent packaging it, along with a couple of colman canisters and batteries. Slide them under the bed, behind the couch, whereever they fit. Keep the cats away from the flour bags though- they think it's fun to turn into ghosts. Best to put that in the middle of the crate.

You can also use dry ice (carbon dioxide) in the bins instead of nitrogen, or now they have oxygen tablets which remove the oxygen from the bin (they absorb it).

The best way to use wheat in the long term is to sprout the wheat and either make juice, eat them raw or make bread from the sprouts. If eaten raw you get the full use from the enzymes, vitamins and minerals in the wheat grain. This is very beneficial in an emergency situation.

You can live for a very long time on sprouts and be healthier at the end. However, living mostly on bread in the long term will have a very bad effect on your health.

Also, after a few years of storage, the grain will probably not sprout, so if you want to do sprouts I would keep a fresh supply. Hey why not incorporate sprouts into your regular diet <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> it will keep your supplies fresh and you healthier. Plus it will keep you in practice.

It is very important to remember with any long term storage of foods that any cooked food is dead. We need vitamins and enzymes (raw food) for long term health. In a time when you will be using long term stored food it is pretty safe to say that medical care will be hard to find. So think about live foods which can be stored and cycled, in addition to the dehydrated and cooked foods.

Remember, eating only dead food will kill you in the long run, after many health probems.

Ok, I don't post very often, but this one I figured I would...

As for the $5/week.... I don't think so...you need to be ready to spend a little more. However, my own little alteration to that plan should be doable by most people...I don't break it out by weekly expenditure, but anyone can figure that out....

I also include some "comfort" items....sorry if it doesn't format quite right....

NUMBER ITEM PACKING QTY
1 Antacid bottles 3
2 Aspirin bottles 2
3 Beef Soup can 25
4 Black Pepper can 3
5 Brown Sugar lbs 20
6 Carrots can 50
7 Chicken Soup can 25
8 Chili can 50
9 Cocoa Mix box 10
10 Corn can 25
11 Dry Juice Mix box 12
12 Flour lbs 200
13 Green Beans can 25
14 Honey lbs 20
16 Mac & cheese box 50
17 Multivitamins (100 ct) bottles 6
18 Peanut Butter lbs 20
19 Powdered Eggs lbs 25
20 Powdered Milk lbs 100
21 Quick Oats lbs 25
22 Rice lbs 200
23 Salt lbs 10
24 Sugar lbs 100
25 Tomato Soup can 25
26 Tuna can 100
27 Vegetable Soup can 25
28 Yeast lbs 2



Buy the ?family? size cans
2 cans soup/week
1 can chili/week
2 cans vegetables/week
1 Mac & cheese/week
2 can tuna/week
1 lb milk/week drink
1 lb milk/week cook
4 lbs flour/week cook
4 lb rice/week
1/2 lb egg/week
1/2 lb oats/week

Everything else is "comfort" food, adjunct or seasoning
Vitiamins only need to be taken 3 times a week.
Ration things like vegetables over the week.
Learn to make bread or biscuts.
Supplement with anything "found"
Are you going to be living it up? No. Are you going to starve? Probably not. But more variety than the original posting would have given and easier to use (no grinder needed) <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I saw something similar to this (might have been the same site, I don't recall) last year and decided to use the idea for my own, less far reaching plan. I wanted to have supplies for a little over a month and set about making specific purchases each week. I also wanted to have a certain amount of emergency cash on hand - so started putting away a certain amount (even a few dollars) earch week. This sounds exceeding simple - but saving for me and planning purchases over a period of time is a challenge for me. I'm very impulive. This worked out very well.

White flour stored in food grade buckets in a relatively cool area keeps a lot longer than I would have thought. Used some last winter that was 3 years old with some baking powder that was over 5 years old to make quick bread that tasted just fine. As cheap as white flour & rice are I'm not really that worried about using it up. If I throw it out after 5 years then that will be a good thing.

Much nicer menu. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I noticed a lot of pasta- make sure you save your pasta water when you drain it. At the very least, it is grey water, but if you have a slow simmering soup around, add it to there. The starch in the water is a good thing.

Speaking of pasta, you can save money and space buying in bulk. I buy several different kinds of pasta, for example organic whole wheat penne, in 10 pound boxes for less than $15-20 at wholesale. They're sealed in plastic bags inside the boxes and their shelf life is probably as close to forever as anything. A small family can easily go through a box in few weeks, so there's no need to worry about an open box going bad(although it probably wouldn't anyway). If you like mac and cheese, you can buy bulk cheese powder in sealed 1 lb. mylar bags, though I don't know what their shelf life is.

Rice is a great grain to store, but even better are quinoa and amaranth. These unique grains(actually seeds but considered a cereal grain) are delicious and have complete proteins, far more nutritous than most other grains. If you're conserned about grinding wheat, sacks of flour should last a few years if stored properly. I reccomend buckwheat in addition to whole wheat, as buckwheat is also a complete protein and quite tasty. Most health food stores will let you purchase bulk food at a slight discount.

I also buy organic almond and cashew butter(peanut just doesn't compare) in 9 pound buckets for an insanely low price, they can last years and are a very nutritious food. However my freinds and I eat a lot of nut butter, for most peaople this may not be as practical. I don't want to post the details of where I get these because not too many people know about it, but if anyone in New York is interested I can give you the details.

Cheese powder stores like milk powder, FYI. At least the King Aurther Bakery stuff does. So does thier butter-flavor powder.