Dear Jim,
I live in the Los Angeles area. I have been searching for the best place to purchase several hundred pounds of grains and legumes. I have read your course and all the SurvivalBlog article (I think). I have searched for a local place where I can pick up the product in person. The local Costco has all the White Rice and Pinto beans I need. However, I am at a loss to find a place to purchase Hard Red Wheat, Black Beans, Kidney Beans, Lentils, etc. I have found several businesses on line, including the SurvivalBlog advertisers, but surely we are not so “advanced” that I will be forced to pay shipping fees which near triple the cost. Any stores or warehouse type businesses that might sell bags of grains and legumes that I can repack for long-term storage?
Thanks for you time, sir. Blessings, – MB
JWR Replies:
Honeyville Grain currently offers a flat UPS shipping fee of $4.49, regardless of the size of your order, anywhere in the continental United States. They have four warehouses, including one that is in Rancho Cucamonga, California. In a phone conversation yesterday, I was told by a manager at Honeyville that if you pick up your order in person, you can get a discount price. (The prices quoted at their Internet web page must have some shipping costs built in.) The other advantages, of course, are that if you can pay cash, you can avoid much of a paper trail, and you won’t raise any eyebrows with your local UPS driver.
For rice and beans, don’t overlook ethnic food stores. There are lots of them in Southern California. (Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, and so forth.) Not only do they have very competitive prices (recent immigrants are often on a tight budget and they look closely at prices!), but they also often have rapid turn-over of inventory. This means that there is less likelihood of getting bags of rice or legumes that are a year or two old. This is particularly important with beans. Even if stored under ideal conditions, beans harden with age. After around six years, this hardening gets to the point that they are inedible even after days of soaking. In my experience, if you are trying to cook eight+ year old storage beans, the only viable alternatives are to either grind the beans, or cook them in a pressure cooker. Otherwise it is like trying to eat pebbles.