Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Four Letters Re: Hurricane Sandy After Action Reports

Hello, I’m a long time reader of your blog and books. I live in Philadelphia. We have a house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Please look at Seven Mile Island Times and Stone Harbor on Facebook for an idea of our situation there. The whole island was underwater. Our docks washed away and our boat is on the sidewalk, still chained to the trailer.  We lucked out, the house is fine and built high. We still have electricity and water in Philly. What I took away from this experience can be seen in this …


Six Letters Re: Hurricane Sandy After Action Reports

James, I’m located in central New Jersey not far from the Delaware River. In the days prior to the hurricane hitting, everyone packed the supermarkets, warehouse clubs and home improvement stores to stock up. At the home improvement stores, the people who had best luck getting generators were those who purchased them online and selected in-store pickup. There were lines of people 100+ deep from the front of the store to the back waiting for new shipments of generators to arrive. The only people who were guaranteed anything were those who had already purchased and paid online. For those lucky …


Dutch Oven Cooking, by Louie in Ohio

When I think of Dutch Oven cooking I usually have visions of campfires and Scout Camp, of apple cobbler and savory stews. But as I further my preparations for TEOTWAWKI I realize that I want my Dutch ovens at my retreat. Any heavy pot with lid can be used and called a Dutch oven. But when I say Dutch oven I am referring to the three legged cast iron (or aluminum) covered pot that is normally used outdoors.  Much of the information I give you is basic and you may wish to explore these topics in depth. One of the …


Letter Re: Testing 20 Year Old Home-Canned Tomato Sauce

Jim: To follow up on a recent post: According to canning sources, it is the Vitamins A, C, B1, B2 that are the most susceptible to degradation over time with  33%- 50% losses immediately upon canning and additional losses of 5-20% per year (based on storage conditions).  Let us look at best (33% loss at canning and 5% per year ) and worst case (50% loss at canning and 20% per year) losses per year for five years. Percentage of Remaining Vitamins: Storage Period Best Case Worst Case Year One 62.7% 40% Year Two 59.5% 32% Year Three 56.6% 26% Year Four 53.7% 20% Year Five 51% …


Letter Re: Testing 20 Year Old Home-Canned Tomato Sauce

James Wesley, Rawles: Sometime in the middle 1990s I put away four litre (quart) jars of tomato sauce. Now, at least 20 years later I opened, processed and consumed this tomato preserve. The storage was in a cool, dry, dark and undisturbed location. The product was cooked, skin-removed italian tomato. The canning process I had used was simple: cook, skin, fill, bottle, water bath, etc. The result was acceptable.  Although I had to cut away the ring with a can piercer to loosen (destroy) the ring on the jar – the cap (lid) was intact. There was no bulging or …


Three Letters Re: Survival Uses For Stretch Wrap

Hi! I liked the article [by James M.] on pallet wrap. In it, the author mentioned that he wanted a source for narrower rolls of shrink wrap. I’m writing to mention that ULINE sells 2″-wide rolls. Regards, – Trysch JWR: This was an excellent, informative piece.  There is an additional use for this that Mr. M did not mention: My wife is a high school earth science and biology teacher who has her students build solar ovens every year using cardboard boxes, aluminum foil and shrink wrap.  The box is lined with aluminum foil and covered in shrink wrap.  The …


Survival Uses For Stretch Wrap, by James M.

Not Saran Wrap, I’m talking about what is commonly referred to as pallet wrap. I thought there was no way possible that something as versatile and useful as stretch wrap could have been overlooked in the survival community, but after hours of searching it certainly looks that way. I’ve only found a few vague references to other possible uses for it. Today I hope to enlighten you and further prepare you for TEOTWAWKI. Firstly, it’s a lot of bang for your buck. You can pick up an 18 inch wide roll of stretch wrap that’s 1,500 feet long for less …


Letter Re: Long Term Yeast Storage

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Jim: I did some research on the storage life of yeast. I started with this article: Red Star Yeast which sates: “Each package and jar of dry yeast is stamped with a ‘Best if Used by’ date.  This date is two years from the date the yeast was packaged.  The month and year reflect when you should use your yeast by.  The last 4 digits are for manufacturing purposes and have nothing to do with when to use the yeast by. “Example of code: FEB 2010 08 09 – Use by February 2010 “Unopened  packages and jars should be stored in a …


Prepping for Newbies, by M.G.D.

If you’re just now catching on to the need to prep, it’s not too late, but to be done effectively, it will cost you some money up front. There are plenty of suggestions and web sites galore for the budget-challenged to prep ranging from buying a little extra each week—see the LDS shopping list for newlyweds—to hunting, fishing and foraging on state land. At the other extreme are those who can afford survivalist-consultants to build and stock extensive underground bunkers, which require the employ of a staff including farmers and Blackwater-type security. But, since no one else is, I’m going …


What’s in Your Pantry?, by Cathy H.

I wish I could remember the exact moment I became a “prepper”, although I would much rather use the term “aware”.  I’m sure everyone has that “A-ha” moment that sets them on the path to enlightenment, and that brings me to the subject of the day.  I would like to re-introduce canned food to all of those food snobs out there, because I once was one. Yes, it’s true – for me it was always “freshly caught”, “freshly killed”, “never frozen”, “minimally processed” and most especially “organic”. As a child of the 1950s I was the unwilling guinea pig of …


Letter Re: How I Built My Own Rocket Stoves

James, I recently fabricated my first two rocket stoves using $25 in parts per stove, and gave one to my local volunteer fire department fundraising auction.  It takes just over an hour to make one and it works great.  The fuel/vent stand is key for ensuring air flows under the fuel for maximum combustion.  The pot grill is key for ensuring maximum heat transfer to your cooking pot without choking the fire.   It was pretty nice the other morning making scrambled eggs without having to use propane, electricity, or the fire pit.  The rocket stove is one of the …


Letter Re: U.S. Midwest Drought Continues

JWR: There was a very interesting article in my local newspaper yesterday regarding soil conditions here. We have had so little rain of and consequently that the soil here is turning to stone. Farmers are working at feverish pace to harvest this years crops that are yielding far less volume than normal and of poor quality. However they say that the ground is too hard to till and plant over the winter crops such as wheat. This sound pretty ominous to me If this condition is more widespread the impact on food availability that therefore prices could be very serious. I …


The Importance of Healthy Eating and a Readiness Lifestyle

Lately I have begun speaking, teaching, and writing on topics such as How To Eat An Acorn; Ancient Food Preservation Methods Today; Permaculture, How and Why; and Edible Common Landscape Plants. I have also been writing on Christian Culture, and various things concerning our time, from first-hand experience. In 1999, we suddenly became aware of Y2K.  We had a two-year old child, and were horrified [at the prospect of a power grid collapse.] I borrowed from my Dad to get out of bank debt, and sold antiques in order to stock up on foods and other items that made me …


Letter Re: Food Stockpiling is a Lifestyle

Dear JWR: Stockpiling food has been performed for centuries.  Our earliest ancestors were hunter gatherers.  If they didn’t save up food for the winter, their existence would most certainly be doomed.  It has been recorded that in hard times throughout history people have re-learned preservation techniques that would ensure their survival for the months and years ahead.  I believe we are in a similar trend at the moment. Most everyone has a reasonable supply of food in the pantry for convenience purposes.  On the other hand some people, like our neighbors who we have affectionately named the “Pod People”, exist …


Let’s Talk About Calories Per Dollar, by Mississippi Girl

With the current economic climate and the recent drought, there is a lot of concern about an impending increase in food prices.  As I browse through homesteading blogs and review comments from recent news articles, more and more people that have not been a part of the “prepper  movement” in the past are now starting to open their eyes and see a need to increase their food stores.  When you first begin to build your pantry, it is helpful to think about the purpose of food storage:  The true goal of storing food is to be able to provide enough …