Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Letter Re: Meat Prices Soar While Deer Populations Explode

Hugh, Regarding the article on deer hunting and the taste of venison: The taste of venison is highly dependent on field handling, competent processing of the meat, as well as cooking technique, as the writer noted. It is also dependent on the sex and age of the animal; younger is better, does (female) are better. It is also dependent on the diet; I have heard that sage in the diet worsens the taste. Both mule deer does we have shot in the past several years were delicious and not at all gamey. Both were reasonably clean kills (no adrenalin pumped …


Meat Prices Soar While Deer Populations Explode, by KAW

This headline could sum up a multitude of news reports over the last few years. Droughts and severe winters have left the United States beef herd size at a 63-year low. In response, beef prices have increased steadily with hamburger topping $4 a pound this year. Pork prices have jumped due to porcine epidemic diarrhea that has killed millions of baby pigs. Inflation, a growing human population, and a higher demand for meat in emerging economies also contribute to ever-increasing meat prices. Ironically, America’s deer herd has exploded in the last 30 years. The deer population in North America when the Europeans …


Letter: Costco Emergency Foods

I know you all recommend Costco Emergency Food. I don’t know if you’ve been monitoring them, but about Tuesday they had sold out of at least three items. Just 24 hours later, it was 11 sold out. (I counted.) Now it’s almost all sets. All of the expensive sets, including the $4-5K pallets, have sold out. It’s worth noting to your readers. As they sell out, they’re initially putting “sold out” over the product, then removing it totally from the website. – P.K. Hugh Replies: Costco is a tough cookie to base buying trends on. Their purchasing model seems to …


Letter Re: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

Hello, First I wish to thank you for taking the time to do the review on the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer. It was VERY informative. I do have two quick questions. Do you know if the vacuum pump is a single stage or a two stage pump? Also, do you think that a … oh, let’s call it a “Noise Muffling Box” could be built around the pump to help cut down on the noise? If so, do you think it would make much of a difference? Thank you again for the review and for the wonderful website. Respectfully – …


Letter Re: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

Hugh, I am seriously contemplating purchasing the freeze dryer that you reviewed. While your review was very indepth, I still have a couple questions before purchasing. I know that when home canning you can’t can beans, can you freeze dry beans? Is this something that I could make a batch of chili and then pour out on the trays and freeze dry? Also, is there a guide of some sort to how much water you need to add back to freeze dried foods to rehydrate without making them soupy? Is it like one to one, or is there some sort …


Letter: Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

Hugh, Based on the strength and thoroughness of your review, we bought a machine and just processed our first batch. It is everything you said it was. Thanks for the great review and helpful info. – M.W. Hugh Replies:I’m glad that review helped you. We have been running ours full bore since the review and have accumulated quite the batch of freeze dried foods that are both standard fare and those that cannot be purchased. It has made an amazing impact on our prepping. Everything from garden herbs to full meals work well. Basically, if you can freeze it, you …


Letter Re: Daily Food Requirements

Hugh, I have been reading through SurvivalBlog. I am looking for information concerning food needed per adult, per month. I can’t seem to find the information within the first five or six pages. Any idea of a site that I can find this information. Please let me know. Thanks, – R.D. HJL Replies: There really is no hard and fast rule, as it depends on who you are feeding and what type of food you are storing. Obviously, a 19 year old young man will consume considerably more food than a 12 year old girl or even a 40 year …


Staff Article: Rotation, Rotation, Rotation! – Effective Food Storage Strategies, by L.K.O.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it.” As any realtor will tell you, at least those who recite the cliché, the three most important factors in real estate are location, location, location. The three most important factors in effective and economical food storage might just be rotation, rotation, and rotation. Of course, there are other considerations, but rotation is often overlooked, and it can have consequences for both your budget and your body; spoiled food is not only costly economically, but it can make you and your family sick, or it can even be lethal, in some cases. It …


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

When everything falls apart there are plenty of plans for “bugging out”, “bugging in”, and so forth. Whatever path you choose, things won’t return to normal soon and quite possibly never. Much has been written on beans, band aids, and bullets, but there will also be a huge demand for little things that we take for granted. Of course, there will be an even bigger demand for fresh food. Decent food is a major issue; you can’t live forever on storage foods, and most people can’t live forever in the woods. The following is information from our experiences to help …


Challenge of Prepping, by R.W.

How My Insights Have Changed With Time I became interested in prepping and survival 12 years ago. It wasn’t so much an event or reading about survival, it was what I believe was a message from God. I was 49 years old and had just finished leading a Bible study in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. On the way home, my wife and I stopped at a Dairy Queen for our usual weekend treat. It was a beautiful, summer day with lots of white summer clouds floating by. As we finished and were sitting there enjoying the beautiful downtown skyline …


Two Forever Foods, by Northern Forager

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Disclaimer: The author and SurvivalBlog take no responsibility for the information or use of information resulting in or from the following article. This article is intended for informational purposes only. There is a world of food that exists outside of the supermarket– types of food that people who only get their food from stores never see or learn about. In my effort of sustainable and self-reliant living, I have become an advocate and convert to the idea of eating local plants in the area where I live, even to the point of eating “weeds”. Doing the same will greatly improve …


Letter: Fears for the Future

Hugh, First let me say “thank you” to you and the staff at Survival Blog for all that you do. I rarely miss your daily posts, and even then it is because occasionally I must work away from home. Second, I wanted to respond to something said in today’s (9/1) post from the pastor from eastern Washington. He commented about how frequent we seem to hear of people’s concerns about our leadership and of the lack of hope, the concern, and despair that seems to be echoed in faces and voices of people around the country. During my work day, …


Fishing For Survival, by M.K.

I have spent a decent amount of time fishing with my two sons (ages 7 and 9) recently. Watching them learn to go after a stringer of fish has been a real joy. You have all heard the saying, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” That thought came to my mind as I was talking my boys through our plan of attack on the little lake near our house. As they continued to cast and reel without bringing anything in, I began to wonder …


Letter Re: Another Good Reason to Can

HJL, Concerning redistributing your home canned food, the new FDA regulations for packaging or repackaging foods are onerous at best. In order to be certified to pack tomatoes, you have a couple of weeks of classes to attend now. This has made it impossible for charitable private organizations, like the Mormon church, to continue many of their programs. In fact if I give away home canned goods to friends, I am technically in violation of the law now. Personally, it means that the average two and a half tons per year of food that I was canning and distributing I …


Guest Article: Another Good Reason to Can, Process, Preserve, and Repackage Your Produce, by R.W.

As if you have not heard enough great reasons to process, can, and preserve your own foods, here is more food for thought (pun intended). I cannot speak to every state in the union, but as for the state I live in there are some very strict rules about what foods can be placed in an “official, non-profit Food Pantry”– a charity often run by a church or other non-profit organization that hands out food to those in need. Here are a few of the draconian rules that apply to organizations that are trying to get food (mostly non-perishables) to …