Emergency Food Supplies

[Cosmoline]

I agree that sanitary measures and WATER are a first priority. For foodstuffs I don't rely on specialty items but instead stock traditional and easy to prepare items with a high intrinsic shelf life. These include oats and oatmeal, honey, certain canned meats (sardines, for example), vegetable oil (not virgin olive) and cheap freeze dried food. I also like to stow plenty of canned soap, as it comes with its own water. I keep at least 12 gallons of fresh water on hand and refresh it about every 6 months. For sanitation figure on using a honey bucket and keep the litter handy. SCENTED litter thank you very much. Also keep a supply of household chemicals for cleaning. There are other considerations but there's a moritorium on extensive SHTF threads here now so I'd suggest going to Near Death Experiments:

http://neardeathexperiments.com/smf/index.php

You will wish that you died in 3 months without love/companionship.

Bah. Overrated.

 

[brickeyee]

"the oil seperated from the soilds"

Mix it back together.

 

[gazpacho]

I got a 5 gallon bucket stuffed with those Emergency Food Bars. Enough to feed me and the wifey for 25 days. Sitting right next to it are 2 cases of bottled water. I've got a second bucket filled with rolls of 5 gallon trash can bags and a snap on toilet lid. Forget the kitty litter. Do your duty in the can then tie off the bag. I think I have about 500 bags in that bucket, so if the calvary don't arrive before I've taken my 500th dump, then the S hasn't HTF, it TEOTWAWKI Time!

I'm a big fan of the 5 gallon bucket. It stores stuff pretty air tight, and if I need to, I can dump the contents and fill it with water.

 

[hso]

Only if you could get outside easily (think cold/dark/curfew).

Line the pail with garbage bag, put 3 or 4 cups of kitty litter in, use, toss a cup of kitty litter or sphagnum moss on top, repeat.

 

[Cosmoline]

You really don't need to tie off a bag after every use, you know. Most honey buckets I've used have gone a lot longer than that between emptying. Kitty litter or some other moisture absorber and odor neutralizer is a nice addition. Folks from more civilized regions tend to live in abject fear of their waste products, but there ain't nothin' in there that you didn't put there. The disease concerns become a factor when you've got massive numbers of people--some with contageous diseases--using the same overflowing facilities. If it's just you and your family, don't worry too much about it.

 

[silliman89]

What brand of PB are you buying? I left a jar of PB out of the refrigerator for a month once, and the oil seperated from the soilds. It didn't look that good. The brand was Jiffy or one of the popular brands sold in grocery stores.

PB separates at room temperature. Don't let that bother you. You just stir it back together and eat it.

 

[Larryect]

My understanding is separation of peanut butter is not a problem. The oil will separate, especially in the more natural types. Just stir it back in.



Edit: - Wow - you guys are too quick

 

[ilbob]

You've peaked my interest. Exactly how would you make a toilet for people using kitty litter? How much of waste would a family of 4 make per week? Would it be better to dig a hole outdoors and use that?

I think an outdoor facility is a good idea longer term. But for a few days an expedient potty works OK.

Put a garbage bag in the five gallon bucket. After use, throw some kitty litter on top to keep down the smell. After the bag gets full "enough" change the bag. Guys can easily urinate outside or into some kind of container that can be dumped outside. Girls are a little more picky.

You can also get various kinds of campers potties at wally world or other camping supply places. The flush models actually work pretty well. I think the one I had once had a 1.5 gallon flush reservoir and maybe a 3 gallon holding tank. It needed to be emptied about once a day when used by several people while camping. The flush models IMO are better then the ones with just bags. More like a regular potty.

 

[wdlsguy]

For sanitation figure on using a honey bucket and keep the litter handy.

Any reason I couldn't just flush the toilet with water from the "cement pond"?

 

[Ferrari308]

My understanding is separation of peanut butter is not a problem. The oil will separate, especially in the more natural types. Just stir it back in.

The fat won't go bad?

 

[Sawdust]

Any reason I couldn't just flush the toilet with water from the "cement pond"?

Nope; I've got 25k gals out back for that very purpose.

Sawdust

 

[mrmeval]

Mormons store a year of food per family member, used to be two years. If you contact them they'll be more than happy to tell you when the next canning session is. They dry can corn, beans, wheat, etc, and have all the stuff needed. You can do the same by putting an oxygen absorbing pack and a water absorbing pack in a jar of dried goods and flooding it with nitrogen.

I bought 500 pounds of corn from a grain mill. Me and a friend sealed part of it in 5gal buckets and the rest in glass canning jars that way. It made exceptional corn bread. He kept a minimum stock he could rotate through and sold what he couldn't for more than was rational but that was pre-Y2K.

Old fashioned pressure canned goods will last. I've eaten green beans, corn and tomatos canned for four years. Cheap canned goods from a place like Aldi have a very high shelf live if you don't grow your own but want long term storable food, just rotate through either regularly.

 

[ilbob]

Any reason I couldn't just flush the toilet with water from the "cement pond"?

Assuming the sewer or septic system is working. It will not work in a flood situation after it goes underwater.

Get yourself a couple of nice 5 gallon buckets to bring in water and refill the toilet tank as needed. That way you don't have to keep going outside. If you don't have a pool, you can collect rain water from the downspouts (plastic garbage cans work ok for this) and use for flushing and washing.

if you don't have a 25000 gallon storage tank (aka pool) save your wash water for flushing as long as the sewer/septic system holds out.

Five gallon buckets are like duct tape as far as I am concerned. An absolute essential both for modern life and in cases where you might be without the modern conveniences for a few days.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

Home Canning

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned home canning. Maybe because it is becoming a lost art. We do it as a hobby. By the end of September we'll have probably 300 jars of food in the basement pantry, plus sweet corn and meat in the freezer.

Granted, dill pickles and salsa aren't exactly "food", but they sure make life nicer. And while I can't hardly stomach commercial canned beans or corn, my home grown and canned beans make a nice meal with just some potatoes and meat chunks thrown in.

Its not exactly cheap to get into, but not really expensive either. You need a good pressure cooker (ours holds 16 pints and cost about $100), and a big stainless steel stock pot (buy a good one, about 20 quart, $70), plus jars, lids and some other little gadgets that make life easier.

You don't need to grow your own food either. Get on a first name basis with a local farm market by being a good customer. The farmers I buy from know that I'm a knowledgable gardener, so if I ask them for something, I usually get it fresh picked when I need it. A bushel of green beans costs about $20, and will make about 32 pints. If you buy sweet corn later in the season and by the sack instead of the dozen, it's so cheap it's practically free.

When Pueblo was shut down for a few days in the blizzard of 1997, people were hungry because their power was out and they couldn't cook what food they did have. We were living like kings, with stew simmering on the woodstove.

 

[Cosmoline]

I think an outdoor facility is a good idea longer term. But for a few days an expedient potty works OK.

The honey bucket can be set up in a batthroom or outhouse and last for as long as it needs to last. Many settled parts of this state have never had plumbing, and digging a septic hole is an exercise in futility esp. in the Y-K delta. I lived on the HB for several years, it's really not that bad.

I've got 25k gals out back for that very purpose.

Why waste it trying to flush your toilet?

 

[silliman89]

My understanding is separation of peanut butter is not a problem. The oil will separate, especially in the more natural types. Just stir it back in.

The fat won't go bad?

It's peanut oil, not animal fat. It will go rancid eventually, but it should have the same shelf life as a bottle of peanut oil which should be similar to other oils.

I know we've kept unopened PB on the shelf for over a year, and as you noticed it separates in a day or two. Once we open it, it's gone in a couple of weeks, but I'm sure it would last for months.

 

[cyanide]

SunMar compost toilets or just dig a hole and cover.


http://www.sun-mar.com/

 

[torpid]

What brand of PB are you buying? I left a jar of PB out of the refrigerator for a month once, and the oil seperated from the soilds. It didn't look that good. The brand was Jiffy or one of the popular brands sold in grocery stores.

Wow, I have never refrigerated open PB ever.
(same w/ketchup and mustard)

I must be superhuman!

 

[rustymaggot]

ferrari, as everyone has said , mix the oil back into the pb. pb, specially the commercial kind that doesnt seperate easily, will stay good unrefrigerated for many years. unopened pb is good for approx 10 years.

 

[Sawdust]

Quote:
I've got 25k gals out back for that very purpose.


Why waste it trying to flush your toilet?

Why not? Not much good for anything else, except for bathing.

I guess that I could purify it, but I have enough drinking water already to hold-out quite awhile.

Sawdust

 

[Cosmoline]

Because water is the most precious thing in the world, and it's crazy to waste it on flushing your toilet.

 

[benEzra]

--Cooking oil

My wife was reading over my shoulder, and pointed out that not all cooking oils are created equal as far as storability goes. Some oils oxidize and go rancid very quickly, while some keep indefinitely. The most storable is definitely coconut oil (difficult to oxide and keeps practically forever), but there are several kinds that resist oxidation pretty well.

 

[RioShooter]

Do what the colonists did

When there's no potable water, drink beer and rum.

 

[gazpacho]

For a good chuckle, look at the expiration date on a can of Spam. Corned beef too.

If there is one true sin that America can be blamed for it's Spam.

 

[Griff]

As Skunkabilly posted earlier, there's a different approach than to buy a bunch of pre-chewed, pre-digested food-like objects to sit on a until THE BIG ONE: Rotating stock. Use 1 can of Chicken Noodle, replace with 2. Buy the stuff that you really use in bulk when you can. Have more than you need at the moment. Build up a pantry in a closet, etc.

If you're really set on getting a load to squirrel away, just think back to your "broke food" days of Mac N Cheese, Ramen, Gator-Aide, Spam, Red beans and Rice, generic mixed veggies, etc. No need to load up on MREs unless you really want 'em.

(for a really good read about the realities of post-SHTF living, read up on FerFal's stuff over at Frugal's)