Dear Mr. Rawles –
I need some advice on storing fats and oils. I have read that the shelf life these essentials can be extended by keeping them in an air tight container, and avoiding exposure to heat and light, but even then the shelf life of these products is no more than a year or so. Shortening, which used to have a shelf life of up to ten years, is no longer sold in metal cans, giving it a much shorter shelf life. How are others dealing with this problem?
Also, I have thought about other sources of oils that one could use once the stockpile has been used up. I found this link on making your own seed press out of a metal frame and a three ton jack. It also gives instructions on how to dehull the sunflower seeds with a grain mill, as well as winnowing them with a vacuum cleaner.
I hope your readers find this information helpful. – Tim R.
Jim:
One of the TEOTWAWKI issues we must contend with is where to get our oils and fats. Historically, sources of sustainable fats and oils included dairy, animal fat, nuts, vegetables (olives), seeds and certain legumes (peanuts). Let us examine these in turn. Dairy requires the animals, the skills to manage them and the ability to feed them. If you do not have all of these requirements these then dairy is off the list. Animal fats require either animal husbandry, hunting, trapping and/or fishing. Animal husbandry gives us the same challenges as dairy. Hunting, trapping and fishing require locations where it is possible to do so. Nuts come from trees so if you don’t already have them now, don’t expect anything from them for a long time [given the many years it takes to grow a nut tree to productive maturity]. This leaves plants like peanuts and seeds such as sunflower. I humbly request that those more knowledgeable in agriculture chime in and let us know which (if any) other legumes and seeds they would recommend for edible oil in terms of ease of production and harvesting as well and yield. – SF in Hawaii
JWR Replies: Both of these letters raise an issue that is often overlooked in long term survival/preparedness planning. I believe that fats and oils are consciously ignored by food storage vendors, because they love to market their “complete” three year and five year food storage packages. The problem is that those food assortments do not include the requisite multiple-year supply essential fats and oils! And I believe that they do this because they have nothing in their bag of tricks to provide suitable sources of fats and oils that store well for five years. They are doing their customers a huge disservice by this omission. Granted, most of them mention in their catalogs that cooking oil and shortening must be added to their storage program, but they hardly trumpet that fact. Unfortunately, most of the typical “buy and forget” customers–those that don’t practice using their storage foods–overlook this! And it isn’t just a matter of having shortening available as an ingredient to bake with the grain that you grow or store. Fats and oils are a nutritional necessity—some fat is needed for health and nutrition.
Raising livestock is a great way to provide fats for your diet. A few home-raised pigs will provide your family with both meat and a source of fat. (So much that you’ll have extra available for charity or barter.) For those readers that avoid pork, I’d recommend raising sheep or emus. Emu oil is amazing stuff. Anyone that has ever butchered an emu (as I have) can tell you that there is a tremendous amount of oil stored in an adult emu. Fish raised in ponds are another possibility. Anyone considering taking up aquaculture should consider raising at least one particularly oily species, such as shad, just as a source of fish oil.
If you have the room to keep one or more cow, you will have a huge source of butterfat. (Again, so much that you’ll have extra available for charity or barter.) If cattle are too large for you to handle, or if you live in an area with CC&Rs that restrict them, then you might be able to raise dairy goats. They are quite easy to handle (but sometimes a challenge to fence), and they do a great job of clearing brush. It is difficult to make butter from most goat milk. American Nubians have some of the highest butterfat milk of all the goat breeds. Even still, it must be run through a separator before you can make butter.
Egg yolks are another important source of fat. This is yet another reason to keep a laying flock. (That is, until a new strain of H5 Asian Avian Flu comes along. Then be ready to butcher all your chickens and emus in a hurry.) Growing peanuts and sunflower is an option in much of North America, and olive trees is viable for folks that live in mild climate zones. Do you have an oil press? If not, then you can buy one from Lehman’s.
Hunting isn’t much of an option unless you live in bear, beaver, wild pig, or emu country. (On the latter: It is notable that SurvivalBlog has a lot of readers in Australia.) Most other wild game lacks sufficient fat. Rabbit meat is particularly low in fat. As previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog, a diet consisting of mostly rabbit meat will lead to slow starvation. Venison by itself is quite low in fat. Just ask your neighborhood butcher how he makes venison sausage. He will probably tell you that his recipe includes adding plenty of pork fat.
A diet that has too much lean meat can lead to both severe digestive problems and even malnutrition. If you plan to depend heavily on wild game or livestock that you raise, then be sure to provide for some bulk fiber in your diet. To provide this fiber, you must ether sprout it, grow it in your garden, or store it. Don’t overlook this aspect of preparing your survival larder!
Survivalists need to seriously re-think the way that they process the wild game that they harvest. Odds are that you currently throw away fat, kidneys, tongues, and intestines. Some hunters even discard hearts and livers. Wasting valuable sources of fat would be foolish in a survival situation. Take a few minutes to read this article: Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans. American Indians were famous for hoarding fat. Bear grease and fat from beaver tails were both particularly sought after. (And BTW, they have multiple uses including lubrication, medicinal uses, and even as a source of fuel for lighting.) One of my favorite books is The Last of the Mountain Men, a biography of Sylvan Hart (a.k.a. “Buckskin Bill”). Hart was an Idaho solitary that lived in the remote River of No Return wilderness (southeast of Grangeville and northwest of Salmon, Idaho.) In the book, Hart makes several mentions of bear grease and its importance for self-sufficient living.
One important proviso about bears for anyone living up in polar bear country: Avoid eating more than a quarter ounce of polar bear liver per month. Because of the polar bear’s diet out on the ocean pack ice, like many other polar region predators their livers contains so much concentrated Vitamins A and D that is cause vitamin poisoning when eaten. (A quarter-pound of polar bear liver contains about 2,250,000 units of vitamin A. That is roughly 450 times the recommended daily dose for an adult weighing 175 pounds.) From what I have read, this is thankfully not an issue with bears in lower latitudes.
For urbanite or suburbanite preppers that don’t hunt, don’t fish, don’t have the room to raise livestock, and don’t have the room to grow peanuts, olives, or sunflowers on a large scale, there are precious few options for long-term sources of fats and oils. The first option is expensive but viable: Once every 18 months completely rotate your supply:. Donate the unused portion of your stored stock of cooking oil and shortening/lard to your local food bank–or if it has gone rancid, set it aside for making biodiesel, candles or soap. (Speaking of soap making, be sure to stock up on plenty of lye (sodium hydroxide). Until about three years ago, lye was sold in the US as drain cleaner, under several brand names including Red Devil. Sadly, lye is no longer widely available in the US, but there are still some Internet lye vendors. One of them is a SurvivalBlog affiliate advertiser: Lehman’s. And of course acquire all of the requisite safety equipment including goggle and gloves. Lye is highly caustic.)
The other thing that you can do is buy a case or two of canned butter, once every three years. Canned butter is available from Best Prices Storable Foods and from Ready Made Resources. (Both of these firms are reputable and both are long-time SurvivalBlog advertisers.)
As I’ve mentioned in the blog before, be very selective about the fats and oils that you store. Some that you buy in your local supermarket are borderline rancid and unhealthy even when “freshly made.” I prefer olive oil over corn oil. I also prefer storing canned butter over Crisco-type shortening or canned lard. For those that do prefer shortening, its shelf life can be extended by re-packing it in Mason-type canning jars. Some brands of lard are still packed in all-metal cans, which provides a longer shelf life. Look in the ethnic foods section of your grocery store for cans marked”Manteca“, which is Spanish for lard.
Study up on fats and oils. This article by Carl L. Alsberg and Alonzo E. Taylor is a good general overview. Think through how you would provide for your family in a long-term societal collapse. Odds are that you will conclude that you must either; a.) relocate to an area with abundant wild game, or b.) buy more acreage so that you can grow sunflowers and raise swine or cattle. To be the best prepared, you should pursue both.