Hello Jim,
Of [your oft-mention triad a of] Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids, I want to share some thoughts about the “Beans” category
I read that a lot of folks prepping for the future. That’s great, we all should. The day after Hurricane Ike, I saw people in huge lines to get into grocery stores, hours of waiting. The day after! They did not even have one day worth of food in their homes.
Then I read lots of info and blogs about people getting their emergency supply of food stored. There is a place for the MREs, beef jerky and all the dehydrated food in cans. It is a very important part of food storage and preparation. I personally don’t want to live on it, and quite frankly I can’t afford it. I am a strong believer in the “store what you eat” concept. My family and I have a supply of red and white wheat, but we eat some fresh made wheat bread every week. Therefore it gets rotated. We are using it.
Does someone really want to wake up one day after the SHTF scenario, open a bucket of wheat and ask, “now what”? The food that you store should be a part of your regular diet. About five years ago we started home canning. This almost forgotten art. It is a wonderful way to store food you actually want to eat. Stews, soups, meats, chicken, chili, spaghetti sauce with meat can all be canned in glass jars by any average joe. And for a lot less money than the freeze dried emergency foods. And it will be rotated regularly because it’s good and therefore you will eat it.
I hope people don’t have a false sense of security because they have a bunch of boxed-up dehydrated food under their bed [that they have never used]. Store what you eat, eat what you store, and continue to stock up! – T.