frugal survivalist digest 4 of 10

FRUGAL SURVIVALIST DIGEST VERSION part 4

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note: Wally is having their back to school sale early this year it seems.  $5 thumb drive with 16gb.  More importantly, stock up on paper notebooks and pencils.  Lots of pencils, but only the name brand.  Generics are a waste of money even if free.  Now go through my Amazon ad links and buy yourself a quality metal rotary sharpener.  The X-Acto model 1031 looks promising.  Graphite used to be a strategic commodity when communications was by delivered note on the battlefield.  You can't make your own pencils.  Stockpile on the sales!
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FOOD

Food, in our current luxurious society where the kings of old didn’t have it so good as those on welfare ( lacking central air, microwave pizzas and cable TV ), is taste and nutrition and excess.  The world we are going to return to is one in which food is, if you are lucky, enough calories.  In a civilization die-off, it is a game of numbers and those numbers, while they might barely include cyclic rate and amount of ammunition, are mostly about calories.  As simple as that.  Enough calories every day for the longest period of time wins.  Your first need is calories.  Not plastic semi-auto carbines or other Tommy Tactical gear.  Food.  You can improvise and overcome on defense, but calories are not so forgiving.  Food first, and lots of it.  Obviously you need to defend your food but that can be done in ways other than a squad automatic weapon level of ammunition expenditure. 

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WHEAT

The way to get enough calories ( you can work on nutrition later after the calories are handled ) is through wheat.  Yes, I know some of you are gluten intolerant.  That sucks to be you because corn is an inferior grain and isn’t always dried enough for storage and rice ONLY stores long term in degerminated form which makes it a “white food” ( more on that later ) which lacks almost all nutrition AND costs twice as much as wheat.  You’ll need some kind of grain for basic calories.  Wild plants and trapping can go a long ways towards nutrition and taste but you MUST have a bare minimum of calories to survive.

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WHOLE KERNEL WHEAT

The best way to buy your wheat is from a Feed Store.  Usually normal people buy whole kernel wheat for their chicken feed.  Do NOT buy any that has been treated with vet medicine.  You want to ask for Human Consumption wheat.  Do not buy cracked wheat or whole wheat flour.  Whole kernel only.  It will last indefinitely stored underground and free from rodents or insects.  Storage food companies and book authors list wheat as lasting twenty or thirty years, but wheat from the Egyptian pyramids still had some kernels that sprouted after thousands of years.  If you can’t get any wheat from a nearby feed store ( they are usually only in farm/ranch country ) you can go buy through Wal-Mart.  It is twice the price but still cheaper than mail order companies.  Look online at Walmart.com for Auguson Farms.  They ship it to your local store for a very nominal fee ( I have a link for this item at the bottom of every article on my blog ).  You need 400 pounds for a years worth of food.  One pound a day for 1500 calories ( below that amount your body is unable to fight disease plus cannibalizes itself over the long run ) plus a bit extra as you will be sprouting some for vitamins and more importantly enzymes. 

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GRAIN GRINDER

Look at Amazon for a Corona Corn Mill, or a Corn Grinder.  It should be around $40 ( or, look on my Blogger page for a photo ad on the right side of the daily article ).  Make sure it is made in Mexico or Columbia or any Latin American country.  Do NOT buy Chinese crap-they are no longer much cheaper and the metal could be inferior.  What, you want hundreds of pounds of wheat with a busted grinder?  It is a corn grinder, not a wheat one, but that doesn’t mean you need to buy a $400 grinder like the “experts” tell you.  Crank the wheels apart and grind once.  Turn the grinder wheels closer and grind again.  Set the wheels to almost touching and grind a third time.  Boom.  Flour.

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STORAGE CONTAINERS

PLASTIC BUCKETS

The standard storage container for prepper food is five gallon buckets.  Each one holds 34 pounds of wheat for three per hundred pounds of kernels, hence an even dozen per years worth.  You might be able to get free ones at bakeries, BBQ places or even deli’s ( mayo comes in three or four gallon tubs ).  If you can’t find free ones you must buy some.  I contacted the company that sells Wal-Mart white buckets and they claim they are food grade, even if you do buy them in the paint section ( any Wally I’ve ever been in either is out of the buckets or the lids, so do NOT buy a bunch of wheat and then run down and expect to find enough Wally buckets.  You might need to order ahead of time ).  I’ve used Home Depot orange buckets, and it does have the 2 in a triangle supposedly denoting food grade but of course I can’t be sure they are.  Even if I get cancer in 30 years, far better than starving because I couldn’t afford the better buckets.  The secret seems to be to NEVER have them in sunlight.  A very nasty chemical smell assaults you.  Use that bucket advice at your own risk.

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VACUUM PACKED

When I was living in a very small RV I had no choice if I wanted storage food than to use those long bags that you use in a vacuum sealing machine.  They are NOT cheap but I did squirrel lots of wheat into very tight spaces.  Of course, with both buckets and especially with bags, you can’t guarantee rodent protection.  You can place bags inside metal furniture, used refrigerators set on their back, or metal trash cans ( keep off concrete to minimize rust ) but you might run into more money that way.  Here would be a good place to tell you to NOT store your wheat in an attic.  Cooler is better.

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PLASTIC TOTES

I’ve bought the 18 gallon flexible plastic tubs for $5 and used them to store wheat.  They don’t hold up to moving after that but it is a Better Than Nothing kind of deal.  It holds 100 pounds and is cheaper than the orange buckets by a third.  Not recommended but do-able.

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TWO LITER BOTTLES

You can get free wheat storage containers if you have extra room to store them.  You should be able to scrounge up soda two liter bottles.  Wash and dry and two make a gallon of storage.  Don’t stack too high to avoid the weight on the bottom units.

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The FOOD section continues tomorrow.

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