Category: Food Storage & Cooking

A Year’s Supply of Food on a Budget, by J.H.

Without enough food, all other preparations you do are worthless. In a SHTF (grid-down) scenario if you are out of food, there may not be any way to obtain more. This article represents my own research on how to get a year’s supply of food on a budget. By the end of this article, you will see how I can feed a family of four for under $2,000 for an entire year. Initial Criteria and Plan First off, let me tell you why my focus is on inexpensive instead of nutrition or other criteria. The short answer is I don’t …


Letter: How People Behave with Galactic Stupidity

Dear Hugh, A local supermarket announced that it was having a re-furbishment, and to clear the shelves it would open at 6:30am on a Sunday morning and all goods will be at 50% marked price. Now, think what you would buy. Make a list and read on. One of my tenants told me this, and so my wife and I checked out the store and confirmed the situation was just as reported. We came home and rearranged the freezers to see how much space we had available; one of our neighbors was let into the situation and she had space …


Paleo Food Storage Plus Ideas for Celiac/Gluten Intolerances and Dairy-Free Diets – Part 2, by Utah Suburban Prepping Gal

Carbohydrates White rice is considered to be a less harmful grain to those eating Paleo. Therefore, I have continued to store white rice because it keeps so well, up to 30 years, and will make a nice source of carbohydrates, especially when physical activity is high. It does not disrupt my gut like wheat and beans do and therefore will not cause another source of difficulty for me in the middle of a crisis. Also, cooked white rice can be fed to my chickens, if their food supply is disrupted. Starchy tubers, like sweet potatoes, provide carbohydrates and keep well …


Paleo Food Storage With Ideas for Celiac/Gluten Intolerances and Dairy-Free Diets – Part 1, by Utah Suburban Prepping Gal

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When I first became serious about prepping, I looked to the guidelines found on the LDS (Mormon) website. This means grains, beans, sugars, and dairy, so I spent the next few years stocking up on these four. A few years later I discovered the Paleo diet, which resulted in great health benefits for me, such as increased mental focus, elevated mood, fat loss, and clearer skin. However, I faced a dilemma. Everything in the basic food storage I had accumulated was now off-limits. Basically, the Paleo diet consists of meat, vegetables, nuts, fruit, and “good” oils, like lard, tallow, butter, …


Letter Re: Egg Rationing

HJL, I am one of THOSE who do not yet have their own chickens but hopefully within a couple of months though. You may have seen this already. I haven’t experienced the rationing, but I bought eggs in April at $1.97 a dozen and went back yesterday to discover they were $2.97 a dozen at my local Walmart. Wow! – C.P. HJL Replies: We have had chickens for a number of years now and have enjoyed the fresh eggs tremendously. The price of eggs have always been a bit of a sore point with me though. I cannot produce eggs …


Don’t Forget To Prep Your Spice Chest, by T.H.

Spices may be the number one overlooked item when prepping a kitchen to survive the apocalypse. The following article, which I wrote based upon my 15 years of chef experience and a lifetime quest for a self-sustaining lifestyle, includes reasons why you should stock up on spices, information about prepackaged spices, my technique for building a stockpile, the addition of seed-stock to your stockpile of heirloom seeds, how to store home-grown herbs/spices aswell as some techniques for using them. Surviving Doesn’t Mean You Have To Suffer One of the pillars of prepping for survival is to stockpile food. This is …


Letter: Food Shortage

Dear HL and Readers of SurvivalBlog, We all know that in a TEOTWAWKI situation, people will panic. After what I saw this week, I believe it will happen sooner and to a worse degree than I previously thought. I live outside a small town in the Midwest. We have one mom-and-pop grocery store, a “milk store”, two convenience stores, Walmart, and Kroger as our choices for local grocery shopping. I noticed the shelves at Kroger were somewhat bare the last two times I shopped. I was wondering why this was the case but just thought the employees were not doing …


Letter Re: Historians Perspective At Natural Diets Link

Mr. Hugh, There are significant facts to be gleaned from the post: A Plea For Culinary Modernism. This post should be read by all. This should be read slowly to glean the correct viewpoints. For example: Those who are not “prepared” will be thrust back to the 1200’s and gathering roots and berries, which will kill them due to their lack of knowledge. We have been enjoying fresh chick weed salads from random patches of weeds from our fence rows this spring. It tastes 10 times as good as lettuce from the store. Some think that if not prepared, they …


Scot’s Product Review: The Orb and UV Paqlite

We have many needs; food, water, air, shelter, and heat come to mind. To acquire and use all those things, we have to be able to find them, and the tool used the most is our vision. Our eyes work great during the day but not so well at night, so having a way to make light is vital. We started off making light the same way we made heat and cooked, with fire, but that has drawbacks. We finally came up with electricity, and now the most common way we make light is to flip a switch on the …


Letter Re: Freeze Drier

Hugh – During the time that you evaluated the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer, did you happen to monitor the power consumption? As an off-grid type, voltage, amperage, power factor, and total watts per freeze dry cycle are critical to determine if my available power can support this unit. Also, the length of the full freeze dry cycle is important. Thanks – Roy G. HJL Responds: After evaluating the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer for three months, I found myself very reluctant to send it back. About the time I was mentally figuring ways to extend the evaluation, I decided it was …


Buying in Bulk, What We Have Learned – Part 2, by JSP

A couple of years ago I wrote the initial offering on this subject of buying in bulk for Survival Blog readers, without thinking there would be a second part. However, since then we have learned some new ways to leverage our buying power, I will share that below. Update on Part 1 First, I will give an update on the strategies in the original article. We continue to buy in bulk, as described in the article. Currently, we access wheat for $200 per ton and whole, clean, food grade, non GMO corn for $300 per ton. Much has been written …


Letter Re: Little Things WILL Become Big Things, and Food Will Be Everything!, by L.T.

Hugh, I just wanted to say what a great article LT wrote. I have been a long time “back to the earth” guy, and the last few years have had me going at breakneck speed to “fully prepare” and put even more things in place. I am an older parent of three young boys and have felt VERY pressed in the last few years to get our 20 acres in order and get some more resiliency in place for what I see as a very uncertain future. My rural upbringing, military service, outdoor education, and EMT background have given me …


Letter Re: Storing Canned Goods in Cat Liter

HJL, Sorry to bother you, but after reading an article that you linked on Survival Blog I just can’t get this off my mind. It was the Doomsday Prepper meals article, and it said that Wayne Martin “stores canned goods in buckets of cat litter to increase the life expectancy of the product”. Is this to keep the cans from rusting as when kept in a damp basement? I can’t find any reference to that on the Internet except where the cat litter is used as a desiccant alongside of the actual food. Any comment on this would be appreciated. …


Scot’s Product Review: MRE Depot Food Products

I recently wrote about the Yoders meats sold by MRE Depot, one of a number of vendors that sell storage foods aimed at preppers. As well as MRE’s and Yoders meats, they also carry a number of other items of interest. While MRE’s are useful and everyone should have some, the other items are, in my view, more important. A diet of MRE’s is going to get old pretty quick. This review is on some of the other food products they offer. They were kind enough to send several different items for me to review. Since I think readers deserve …


Letter Re: Canned Food Alternatives

Hugh, I started “doing this” in 1979 when I took a class taught by Ron Hood through UCLA extension. Below is the best advice on food storage I’ve seen or heard, and none are paid endorsements; they’re just my opinion: A video by Wendy De Witt entitled “Sensible Food Storage”. The first 22+ minutes are on food storage; the other 35 minutes are on equipment. I believe it is the easiest, most commonsense, and cost-effective method. Also, here is the link to her free doc. Additionally, this woman has a series of ten or more videos on dehydrating that are …