canning meat

CANNING MEAT

I went to see if the Survival Acres guy was going to keep publishing his blog and for three days his site was inaccessible.  On the forth you just got a redirect back to the food sales site.  Okay, no big deal, he’s taken vacations from writing before as it seems his audience doesn’t quite share his aversion to Gore Warming.  I thought he was great, one of the few survivalists concerned with real systematic collapse-not just some pussy prepper concerned with preaching soft collapse to make a buck ( I finally had to remove Rawles from my bookmarked sites.  I just couldn’t stand it anymore, after a dozen years.  The blog has been in marked decline for a long while but it just got too contrived and mediocre even by my loose standards where I’ll read almost anyone if they can deliver ideas for my writing ), and so I happily read him, or wait for him, as he might wish.  But while I was at the food site I was looking around, seeing if perhaps he had hidden his newsletter in another format and I decided, hey, my blood pressure hasn’t spiked for a few minutes, let’s take a look at the cost of canned meat.  WOW!

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The cheapest freeze dried meat was $35 and most went from $40, $45 and up.  The fresh wet packed was $7 a pound.  I’m not sure how much reconstituted weight you get from freeze dried, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it is more than $7 a pound.  You are paying for that “Thirty Year Shelf Life” ( as long suffering well sodomized readers might recall from my earlier work, after Y2K the Food Bank received a lot of still very fresh freeze dried foods as donations.  Across the board they did not taste at all like real meat, nor did quite a few even turn back into an edible product.  Hungry homeless hippos did not care for the dishes, and they were drunk half the time so as to have very low standards.  But you feel free to ignore that warning and buy away ).  For the life of me, I can’t understand why folks want to buy this commercialized mockery of meat.  You do understand that in a wet can, the net weight INCLUDES the broth it is in, yes?  You do recall me telling you of the Great Can Reduction Scam whereas the dry weight of ingredients shrunk ( a can of corn from an earlier date would contain, say, thirteen ounces of kernels after the water was drained, and a newer can only containing eleven or twelve.  The NET weight on the outside of the can didn’t change )?  I worked in the food bank for over ten years, if you include the total time in the Carson City as well as the Elko one.  I think I have a better handle on some of these things than others.  Such as being an indicator of both general costs and general economic conditions.  Gaze upon my wisdom and tremble, oh unworthy minions!

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That was a joke, by the way, you humor impaired bastards.  If you can’t enjoy yourself during the collapse you are going to die miserable.  Hell, you’re going to die anyway.  Stop fighting it.  Prepare like you won’t, just in case, but live like you are.  You want to act all superior, fine.  Me, I’m going to see the humor in my enemies crushed alongside me.  Anyway, let’s take $7 a pound as the bare minimum.  That is five times what fresh meat costs, and twice what it costs to can it yourself.  Twice.  I know most of you don’t care about that, gladly trading the money for the extra longevity of a metal can and a professional process, but remember that is a MINIMUM price disadvantage.  More likely you will end up paying a larger price premium.  If you buy your own pressure canner, which will also can that butter by the way ( rather than using a potentially dangerous bath can ), you’ll easily get its cost down to twenty five cents a can at most.  Even with quality control going out the window on most things these days, you should be able to can three hundred jars prior to a gasket replacement, and it shouldn’t cost that in propane ( I was getting 110 hours per five gallon tank, which only holds about four pounds of gas, on my heater, a mere ten cents an hour ) per jar.  It isn’t unreasonable to count the cost of canner, cans with lids and gas at under $1.50 total.  That isn’t even buying in bulk.  And I live in a higher cost location as I’m remote.

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I can buy brown meat chicken all week long for under $1.00 a pound and waiting for sales I can find boneless pork for half again that.  Sometimes even hamburger.  But even splurging, a can of meat from your kitchen isn’t going to go over $4 a pound all costs added.  $3 is possible at least some of the time.  If you pre-cook the meat in the microwave, that cost is probably so negligible it isn’t trackable ( six minutes being 100 watts, so figure one and a half cents a pound ).  Now, I understand this isn’t a metal can.  It is glass, a bit more fragile.  Are you planning on juggling the cans, or the ceiling caving in?  The fact that you can reuse the jars should make up for their fragility ( no one advises re-using the lids, but if you must-setting aside the issue of having the specialized units which are re-useable, or not-boiling the lids to soften the rings might work at times.  I’ve even read of adding baking soda to that water but cannot vouch for that.  I’d seriously look into Tattler brand lids however.  It seems a shame to not be able to reuse the jars other than for dry goods ). 

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I’m in no hurry to invest in home canning myself, but I also acknowledge the inevitability of a near future being one of vegetarianism.  If you have the resources, why not go for it?  Why would you settle for canned meat being so much more expensive?  Yes, commercial cans are a good ten years shelf life ( at a minimum.  Without a climate controlled storage area they will start to get serious rust about that date.  Otherwise, wet canned meat should outlast a freeze dried product.  Wet canned food doesn’t go bad, it only loses vitamins.  Meat should lose very little ).  I understand that home cans don’t last nearly as long.  But even if after just two years you have issues with its longevity, you can simply rotate the meat in your daily diet.  You can’t call that an extra cost, not really, as it also serves as a replacement for a good amount of freezer meat.  It is an insurance policy if your freezer dies.  You are only paying for a new lid and gas costs, only a quarter to thirty five cents to replace the meat at the end of its life ( you’re not paying for new storage meat as you are eating it anyway for dinner ).  So, every two years you pay a penalty.  A buck every six years.  You are still then only paying $5 a pound rather than $7 plus.  While having a large meat stash for a dozen years. 

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You can look at it as stocking up on dinner meat for two years, yet also having two years of storage meat from day one of the collapse.  Granted, that is a huge investment.  A thousand bucks in equipment and processing and another two grand in meat.  But if you are thinking of it that way, how many #10 cans of freeze dried food can you buy for that?  Ninety cans-that is it.  Fifteen cases.  That won’t last you two years of nightly eating.  You don’t need the money up front, just the canner, a case of jars and ten pounds of meat at a time.  $100 or under up front cost, then $25-$35 at a time.  A good steak costs $20 a pack for raw meat for a barbeque, and here for about the same you get two weeks of dinner meat, now or after the collapse.  If you spend $3 a day in two years you have two years of worth of cooked canned meat that doesn’t need refrigeration.  I’m not suggesting you spend that prior to the $300 it will take to buy two years of wheat, but later as a very nice supplement.  Amortized costs will add almost no recognizable cost increase, and you have peace of mind ( plus a new skill ).

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