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12:37 pm
[Link] | www.peakoilblues.com blog
The Psychology of Storing Food
4 Comments
Storing food is much like exercise for some of us in
the Peak Oil community. We know it is something that
would be important to do. It is something that we
should do, and maybe every once in a while we grab
some extra cans of beans when we get particularly
worried about world events, but there is no organized
effort.
In an earlier post back in September of 2006, I told
you about my love affair with buying salad dressing. I
no longer even USE salad dressing, because Ive
started making my own, and it tastes better to me.
Which brings me to my current point of why you should
start stocking up food NOW: You learn things over
time, as you stock up. These things you learn will
change the way you approach your food supplies, and
after a time, you will be fully prepared and
knowledgeable about what to stock up on and
why.
You may think that the tasks and decisions about how
to store food are economic and pragmatic ones, but I
havent found it to be so. Over time, Ive come to
learn that preparing to feed oneself for the future
involves many many decisions that evolve as you go,
and learning one thing changes the way you think about
future buying.
Im in a different place and have learned a lot about
my priorities since my salad dressing buying days. For
one thing, I learned to eat in season and eat locally.
This means that even if I USE bottled salad dressing,
I dont eat salads anymore in the winter, and where I
live, winter lasts six months. The second thing I
learned is that growing ones own herbs, as I did in a
much more organized fashion last year, provides me
with a better tasting dressing than Famous Handsome
Actors company ever could. Ive also learned about
the shelf life of truly nutritious oils, and so Ive
had to re-think the entire store oil mentality I
accepted in that earlier period.
Everyone whos ever given food storage a moment of
thought knows that wheat is usually first on the list.
But do you really know how your digestive system would
react to eating large amounts of wheat? I found out
that I have a bad reaction, therefore, Ive had to
discover a wonderful world of grains that go beyond
the old wheat standby. But again, it goes beyond
saying I can eat oats, so Ill store some hundreds of
pounds of it. Take oats as an example, you might like
oatmeal cereal, but any grain, once the hull is
broken, has a much shorter shelf life. So how do you
break the hull of a oat kernel? Does it require some
sort of machine? How much does that machine cost and
where can I purchase it? Does it run on electricity,
or can I realistically grind it by hand? Does a
neighbor have one theyve never used rusting in their
garage, or will they let me use the one they use
weekly? (Anyone who is reading this is invited to help
sort out those types of questions
)
What I learned was good news for me:
I learned here that an oat groat kernels outer bran
layer is still intact after de-hulling. This somewhat
protects the inner nutrients and also permits it to
sprout. And, properly stored, it can last even 25
years! So now, I can continue to learn what goes into
turning a oat groat into a breakfast cereal, flour, or
other things Im likely to eat. I can also learn how
easily oats will grow in my climate, and if it is easy
to grow, Ive not only stored food, Ive stored seed
as well. And speaking of sprouting, I learned that
while I might react poorly to wheat flour, sprouting
wheat will be a healthy alternative that I can eat and
enjoy, when nothing is green outside.
So, what Ive learned about food storage over time is
that Im going to make mistakes, and Im going to have
losses, but the sooner I start the process, the easier
and less harmful those mistakes will be to me in the
long term.
Ive also learned that most US citizens are fat and
malnourished. Therefore, it is dangerous advice to
encourage Americans to stock up on the foods they
already buy. Better to have us examine our food
choices and begin to shift to a more nutritious diet.
To truly stock up in a viable way, means eating the
food you store to rotate it and keep it fresh. So food
storage means learning new ways to cook new foods that
are healthier for you and more nutritious. Anyone
overwhelmed yet?
Dont be. You can short-cut all of these decisions by
purchasing your food all at once, prepackaged and
ready to put in your basement or under your bed. Many
sites selling grains in super pails already have
taken the trouble of pouring in the grain and putting
in the oxygen, or whatever they advertise, but be
aware that the shipping costs alone will be very dear.
It will save you time and energy, but in the long-run,
it is a decision you might live to regret. Once you
have all those nice neat boxes of food, all carefully
labeled, how likely will you be to open them up and
start eating them? Then, what will you do to replace
that #10 can of whatever, once it is gone? Buy another
starter kit? Buy a case of 15 #10 cans of the stuff?
Do you even know how much is stored in a #10 can? (A
#10 can holds 13 cups. Dont ask what it weighs. That
will depend on whats in it. 13 cups of wheat will
weigh more than 13 cups of marshmallows.) Dont get me
wrong, there is nothing wrong with this short-cut, as
long as you realize that (1) it will cost you more and
(2) you might not like or want to eat what they send
you. Yes, it will keep a 180 lb man alive, but
learning more about the psychology and the art of
storing food will provide you with a lot more than
just boxes of food. It will cause a shift in the way
you think about the job of feeding yourself and your
family, and this, folks, you cant buy with a credit
card.
And this also depends on the reason you are storing
food. If you want ready-to-eat food for a time when
you are sick, hiking or without electricity for a
week, the ready-made meals will do the trick. But if
you are planning for a lifetime of electrical outage,
youve got to re-think your plan. Consider how our
ancestors survived without freeze dried packs,
condensed canned soups or MREs. They planned their
food storage to get them through the winter and during
a bad harvest. The rest of the time, they grew or
gathered their food, ate it in the three other
seasons, and put up the surplus. If you live where
there is no place to grow your own food, now is the
time to make friends with a farmer. If you live in a
place where you cant farm, and cant reach a farmer
or cant find one to sell to you, youve got a problem
to resolve, and try to resolve it hopefully sooner
rather than later. A very few will be able to occupy a
home big enough to store a decade or more of food. And
the protection to defend it. The rest of us will have
to look to our ancestors for how they figured out such
a basic survival strategy.
Ive found it very valuable working with friends on
food storage, and learning what they have stored and
why. Together, weve learned to share advice, and find
answers to common questions that can arise. Having a
friendship buying group is helpful in other ways:
lets say one friend goes through a lot of product
while baking. You do not, but want to have this
product in your storage and you want it to remain
fresh. Hard to do if you dont use it. Your friend,
who uses it constantly, can add one more 25 lb bag
into their storage supplies, and their supplies will
continue to rotate your storage in their own rotation.
Should we need it, we know it is waiting for us (you
trust your friends, dont you?) and fresh! You can
also buy items in larger quantities and share the
items and cost savings. I once bought a #10 can of
coconut milk, and quickly got sick of using it.
However, everyone I offered it to were glad to take
some home for a special meal. Also, storing food with
friends means you can also cooperate together (and
keep each other company) when other seasonal tasks,
such as canning, drying, or dipping and freezing come
around. Cutting several bushels of green beans last
fall, I can tell you that it speeds the job having
other people to socialize with and help out while Im
doing it!
Group buying can also reduce the cost of plastic
storage buckets,
by as much as 35%. And a group can discuss the pros
and cons of buying plastic vs. glass jars, or buying
cheaper plastic lids verses the expensive but
re-usable gamma lids. And what about mylar bags?
Should you save money on buying the 4.1 mil thickness,
or stick with the 7 mil ones that the LDS uses? And if
you do go with the heavier bag, do you get the smaller
12×14″ bags or the full-sized 20×30″ that
fill the entire 5 gallon bucket? I settled on the
heavier bag and bought some of both. Ultra high oxygen
barrier, 7.0 mil, FDA approved bags are sturdy, but
with a price of $288.60 per case of 100, and a hefty
shipping charge on top of that, they dont come cheap.
Ill use them only for my longest term storage items.
The smaller mylar bags (foil pouches) were much more
reasonably priced. They also allow you to fill a
bucket with a variety of items you might need at any
one time. Instead of 45 lbs of oats, you might fill a
bucket with a 6.6 lb pouch of oats, barley, wheat,
apple slices, and smaller bags cut to size for baking
powder/soda, raisins, or whatever. Opening one bucket
provides you with a variety of goods youll use,
instead of one massive amount of one item.
One person can get overwhelmed thinking about buying
250 smaller bags or 100 larger ones, but a group can
easily go through an amount that size. And on to
desiccants, a trick spelling bee word if there ever
was one. Which size to get? I settled on two, a
smaller one for smaller mylar and a larger one for
full-sized buckets.
Desiccants are those little packages you get in shoes
that have the warning Do Not Eat! and they do come
in food grade and non-food grade, so pick the right
one. They absorb moisture and minimize molding of
grains and other foods. Do your research to determine
whether you will use them or not, as this will depend
on how quickly you will be rotating your food. Choose
ones you can dry and re-use. Finally, many
recommend,oxygen absorbers, as oxygen can cause
rancidity. Check the price of shipping on these
however! I settled on the ones I bought because
shipping costs were dramatically lower than the other
places I checked. Nevertheless, if you are planning to
sprout your grain, rather than turn it into flour, you
may not add the oxygen, as seeds need some oxygen in
order live in order to later sprout. Im also planning
to store any oxygen absorbers in an airtight jar,
because if not, theyll absorb the oxygen around them
and be ruined! (Makes sense doesnt it?)
If you dont have and cant find friends to work with
you on storing items, you can work with virtual
friends in this website, as she goes through her
adventures in storing, week by week, with her little
daughter. The friendly folks at Running on Empty 3,
LATOC, or Sugar Mountain Homestead or the extensive
information Sharon Astyk is writing about Food Storage
on her blog can also give you motivation, direction,
and support.
With a truckers strike possible by April 1st, you
might give some serious thought to trying your hand at
buying some bulk items for your storage. Even if you
live in an apartment, you can find many creative
places to store your goods (new coffee table, anyone?)
If you have children, now is the time to instill a
memory of how to store whole grains and why, and these
memories are powerful, as I recalled recently. As a
child, we had no clothes drier, and as I was hanging
up my own clothes on a make-shift line I constructed
in my basement, I remembered how natural it was to
watch my mother hang clothes outside, and I watched
myself hanging them the same way she did. I also
thought about how common it was to be sent down to the
basement to bring up a can of X, and how guests were
never a problem, because food was always on hand.
Weve gotten away from this kind of thinking, when it
is so fast and easy to run out to a market and pick up
something. But we cant have the luxury of only buying
food on sale this way, and it costs almost twice as
much to buy ready made food in small containers.
It should give us all a cause for pause to realize
that, should the truckers GO on strike, our
supermarkets have about a three-day supply of food.
Thats IF there is not a run on the markets, as so
often happens. Have you ever stood in long lines at
the grocery store trying to check out? Now imagine
doing it, after having found only half of the items
you wanted to buy, when you got there, AND after an
annoying 30 minutes spin around the parking lot trying
to find a parking space.
And that assumes, of course, that the truckers strike
hasnt spread, like it did in Europe when the French
fisherman went on strike in September of 2000, angry
about the price of gas. That strike was widely
supported and paralyzing so many parts of Europe
during the 11 days it lasted.
Whatever finally motivates you to get started, I
believe you will likely find a deep sense of
satisfaction knowing that whether the supermarket
shelves are empty, snow locks you in, a plague affects
the area, or you are just too sick to leave home, your
pantry is filled and there is plenty more in long-term
storage. Start now.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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Thank you so very much for posting this.
Do you have links to Running on Empty 3, LATOC, and Sugar Mountain Homestead that you can send me? I tried doing a search on them and didn't have any success.
| | | Knowledge is power use it wisely :) | (Link) |
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![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/69636388/468403) | | | Re: Knowledge is power use it wisely :) | (Link) |
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Thank you for being so wonderful and helping me.
| | | Re: Knowledge is power use it wisely :) | (Link) |
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No problem, if you ever need help researching something don't hesitate to ask. I am always looking for excuses to not work on my TPS reports :)
You know with all of the information that you, doingsoso, Amp, and myself post we should start our own alternative news services and information guide for surviving peak oil, global warming, economic collapse etc...
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/69635959/468403) | | | Re: Knowledge is power use it wisely :) | (Link) |
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I would love to do something like that.
| | | Re: Knowledge is power use it wisely :) | (Link) |
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Awesome! I'll run it past Amp at the gym tonight and then we can see if doingsoso is interested. |
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