Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Letter: Confiscation of Stored Foods

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There is quite a bit of “buzz” going on that the DHS will come in and take stored foods. What might you know about this and what are the odds? I know, with this admin anything goes, but I think it is certainly worth addressing. – P.W. Hugh Replies: That is the whole point of OPSEC, but practically speaking, the DHS isn’t who you will have to worry about, unless you are a grocery store or warehouse. Anything smaller than that isn’t worth dealing with when you factor in the manpower and risks to personnel. The danger for individuals comes …


Letter Re: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

Hugh, Great Harvest Right review! It’s incredibly informative and well written. Thank you. I’m currently about to pull the trigger on purchasing one of their machines. I was hoping you might be able to share some wisdom on your experience with ice cream. You mention cream content below 1/3 worked well. Did you try various brands and something “light” like this worked best? What was the drying time? Was this one of the high liquid foods that required you to defrost in the middle of the process? Any insight is incredibly appreciated. Hugh Replies: That ice cream will work just …


Letter Re: The Pachamanca: A Survivalist’s Feast

One alternative to the pachamancha pit is the “haybox cooker”. My experience involves only foods cooked with lots of liquid, but the idea is to get the food to a rolling boil, then pack it away in a well-insulated environment for six hours or so. Traditionally, people used a box filled with straw, but modern alternatives exist, typically in the form of a simple metal pot and an insulated larger pot with a tight-fitting lid. Amazon should turn up several examples under the search term “thermal cooker”. – EQR


The Pachamanca: A Survivalist’s Feast, by J.C.

Sometimes, in survival situations, it is in one’s best interest to avoid detection when possible. However, this can be difficult to do when food preparation comes into play. Fire is often a necessity, when it comes to cooking outdoors, but fire creates smoke, which can draw unwanted attention. There are alternatives to open fire cooking, namely solar ovens, but these alternatives often require special conditions, like minimal cloud cover, to work effectively. Camp stoves are also a possibility. However, they can be bulky; often require a scarce, non-replenishable fuel source; and sadly, not everybody is going to have access to …


Letter Re: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

HJL, Hi, I purchased one of the Harvest Right units before your review and was impressed after looking over the machine. My first load was chicken, blueberries, muskmelon, and pineapple. WOW! It took a little longer, due to the moisture content of the berries, but everything turned out as the company said it would. Remember, one is none and two is one. Remember that in bad situation one will use more than 2000 cals due to stress, etc. Most of the units I have priced say they can supply those cals for 10k for one person. Oh, by the way, …


Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer, by HJL – Part 3

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Note from the Manufacture Harvest Right has been very responsive to their customers feedback and, in fact, responded to the first two parts of this article with the following letter: Thank you for using the freeze dryer, and thank you for your article. Because of your thoughts, we have made the following modifications to our unit: We have changed the riveting of the tray holder assembly. It is now quite stable. We extended the length of the drain tube. We are also using shrink-wrapped solder connections instead of electrical tape. It is much faster and looks better. (We don’t know …


Two Letters Re: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer

Hugh, Thanks for the review of the freeze dryer, I’m very interested. Just wanted to share that the first thing I thought when reading your review and clicking on their pictures is “that display is going to go bad”! And it did. Gotta worry about $4K and something major (and predictable) goes like that, with only a 1 yr warranty. – M.R. HJL Replies: I was initially worried about that, too, but the company was very responsive in taking care of the issue. While I did the repair myself, they offered to have a local appliance repairman do the work. …


Common Sense For Food Assurance, by J.M.

Over the years of taking the journey to being a better prepper, through self taught observations/experiences with myself and with others, have effected and guided me to realize that common sense had better be a big factor in all areas of prepper skills but, in particular, the areas of foods preparations (what to obtain) and food storage (both for the long- and short-term storage, how much, and the quantity needed versus available space to store). Using that guideline/method, it can be applied to all areas of planning and execution for surviving major, life-altering experiences. However, this article is geared to …


Letter Re: Grain Mills

Hugh, We searched for the perfect grain mill for years. We wanted one that did not depend on electricity, because none of us can be guaranteed that we will always have electricity. If you have one that is totally electric then if the grid goes down you have a good door stop. We wanted one that could be used by hand crank, but if we wanted we could attach it to an electric motor and one that would not heat up the grain. We opted for the Grain Maker, which is made in Stevensville Montana. It is very heavy duty, …


Letter Re: Grain Mills

Hugh, The author expressed little concern for his WonderMill’s tendency to heat the flour it milled, on the grounds that the flour was about to go into an oven anyway. This logic certainly makes sense; however, heated flour can be a problem in some cases. We once had a mill, whose brand I’ve forgotten, that heated its flour quite a bit. We make a fair bit of sourdough, and our starter quite noticeably failed to thrive when fed flour from this mill. Of course we let the flour cool before feeding, so latent heat wouldn’t kill the starter outright, but …


Scot’s Product Review: Grain Mills

Some call bread the staff of life. To make it you need flour, and that usually comes from wheat. Wheat is nutritious and can be turned into many tasty foods. Some argue that wheat made the original Old Testament cities in the Mideast possible, since it could be transported and stored so easily. Storage is of special import to a prepper, and many of us keep wheat as a key item in our long-term preparations. The part that we use is called the wheat berry. That’s the kernel. Most of the time, it is milled into flour. Keeping the kernels …


Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer, by HJL – Part 2

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Why It Works I spent quite a bit of time, over the last three years, researching how freeze drying is accomplished. I wanted to know why and how it worked and ultimately, if I could do it at home. Earlier, I alluded to some pretty bad information I had run across, and I think a short primer of what makes freeze drying successful is in order, so that the user can understand just how useful this appliance actually is. It is well understood by any high school student who has taken a physics or physical science course that there are …


Product Review: Harvest Right Freeze Dryer – Part 1, by HJL

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I have to admit, I was excited when I was first contacted by Harvest Right. A freeze dryer in my own home? What a thought! This has been a dream of my family for a number of years. I have even played around with the idea of creating my own freeze dryer several times, but in the end, the work involved and the daily grind always won out. The Dream Our food preps have always had issues, with the solutions seeming just out of reach. When we first started, the preps simply meant two things– remodeling the pantry to hold …


Introduction to Prudent Food & Health: by KM in Ohio

Disclaimer: I am not a “medical professional”, and this article is not to be considered “medical advice.” “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” Isaiah 40:29 Healthy Living is Hard Work! We, Americans, have been increasingly dependent on other people for our welfare, food, and lifestyles for a couple of generations. A company far away provides electricity to illuminate and heat our homes, pump our wells, or run the security system. City dwellers get their essential of life– water– from a city-owned pump facility. Most of us get the majority of …


Letter Re: Cheese Making

Hello, I just had a few questions regarding the article on cheese making. When storing, what tool do people use to check the percentage of humidity? Also, how do you increase/ decrease humidity? Do you use the same batch of wash or do you need to make a new batch each time? Do you just store the wash in a plastic bucket at room temperature? In a grid down, what can one use as a culture or b.linen if you can’t buy one? Thank you, – K.W. T.Y. Replies: Dear Reader, Thanks for the excellent questions! For monitoring humidity, I …