FLYED LICE 2
*note: free books. Zombies https://amzn.to/2Ls1K2b . Another https://amzn.to/2J4yfoo . And yet another https://amzn.to/2LlLakp .
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Rice and beans, the poor
boys survival food. A myth and/or
practice that needs to go the way of men’s hair oil, top hats and corsets. Don’t get me wrong. Rice has a few tasty dishes. Perhaps you put it in a stew or soup kind of
thing. Whatever. Have some stored for more variety. But rice every day, several times a day? (
and yes, I’m aware most Asian dishes use other varieties besides Long Grain,
which might be tastier. But remember,
you develop food preferences in the womb.
Most of us are born either liking rice or something much better ).
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If you are pasty white
like me, you probably like wheat as your grain of choice. Because we grew up with wheat, it tastes good
and there are a variety of dishes for it.
So, why not FLOUR and beans? Why
rice and beans? Remember, both are white
foods and white foods are just starch.
They don’t have nutrients as those were milled out. You don’t even have a choice about rice. You MUST mill the utter hull. There is no other way to store it. At least with flour you have the option of
storing the whole grain, or storing the white flour ( don’t store whole wheat
flour if possible-you will be eating rancid food. By all means, try the whole flour from the
store to introduce it to your diet, but don’t use on a regular basis or store
it from your own milling. Only store
fresh flour a few days, preferably. You
can survive on somewhat old whole wheat
flour-I wouldn‘t try the same with old brown rice ).
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So, you ask yourself,
self, what am I supposed to do with flour and beans? Rice and beans are easy, I just boil both of
them. Have you ever heard of the chuck wagon
on the cattle drive for old timey cowboys?
Beans and flour. Not rice. No, they probably didn’t have a whole lot of
variety. Biscuits and beans. But they at least had the option of
variety. Flapjacks, bread, dough on a
stick ( roasted over the coals ), tortillas.
Bread is a bit tough without an oven, but you can probably make a
passable imitation with a cast iron Dutch Oven.
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When you are looking at
taste fatigue, at least get some kind of variety going with the same
ingredients. Now, I’m a bit leery of
MOST claims of taste fatigue. You don’t
hear about too many folks refusing to eat food during the War Of Northern
Aggression or the Great Depression. I’ve
talked to old fellows who weren’t in the Depression, but they were on poorer
farms where there was extremely limited variety in store bought foods as they
only ate what they grew and raised.
Varying the recipe of the same staple and spices pretty much eliminate
the claimed taste fatigue. Mostly, the
scare comes from an affluent society that never really saw true hunger.
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Not saying you won’t have
some mild symptoms. If a child is
already sick or has low body fat, it might be dangerous to allow them to skip
enough meals until they get hungry enough to eat nasty slop. The way to do that is to have storage food
that can be prepared in a large variety of ways. As in with flour, rather than rice. You COULD always buy a Victoria grain mill
and grind up the rice and use it as a flour.
It won’t taste as good as wheat, but at least you can make noodles and
such out of it. Otherwise, you risk
flirting with taste fatigue to some degree, because JUST boiled rice is going
to get extremely old very, very quickly.
*
So, yes, taste fatigue is
largely overblown as a concern. Hunger
makes the best sauce, as has been said.
However, you don’t go courting disaster, either. And rice is a fifty car pile-up waiting to
happen. Rice, de-germinated corn meal (
NOT the whole grain Mesa tortilla flour ), even instant mash potatoes can be
stored as a minor percentage of your storage food ( in this case, I’d include
sugar as a spice rather than a starch or carb.
A flavoring with lots of calories, by the way ) to combat taste fatigue.
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Just keep in kind that
taste fatigue while not totally untrue is also largely overblown as a
concern. You know how the shoe factory
screws you? They need to pay off those
expensive machines. The same with the
car companies. They screw you to pay off
the factory quicker so that the CEO can have a second mansion in the Hampton’s
( along with extra hookers and blow ).
Well, guess what, the freeze dried food companies screw you too, and it
isn’t just all that extra salt ( if you want extra salt in your storage food,
just brine everything as a preservative-it is much cheaper ). They need to pay off all that expensive
equipment ( and get the CEO an extra wife-ha! ) and they are more than happy to
perpetuate that food fatigue myth. Hell,
they might even believe it themselves.
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Going back to the Diet For
A Small Planet food combining for protein, the recommend ratio of grain to bean
is about 70%. 7/10th grain
and 3/10th beans. You might
even be able to get away with 20% beans.
Which is good, as they are no longer very cheap, relatively
speaking. The cheapest, due to the
oodles and gobs of Latinos, is pinto. I
would caution you that those are very difficult to grind in the mill. Lentils are much easier. You might have no choice in milling or not,
as old beans can sometimes refuse to soften up with boiling. You need to grind and then boil the bean
flour to make your paste. And make sure
to boil long enough ( I would guess at least five minutes ), or you won’t
process the bean long enough for the body to assimilate the nutrients.
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Lentils also taste much
better when turning them into Bean Meat.
Try both lentil and pinto. The
cheaper price might not be worth the grinding difficulty, not even factoring in
the taste difference. With meat flavor,
you can boil your bean paste, then spread on a sheet and allow to harden. I like to dry mine after that, to get a
texture closer to meat. I was just using
sugar and soy sauce to get a teriyaki jerky, but I’m sure beef and chicken
bullion would get you in the ballpark also.
I never could get the hang of making wheat meat, but bean meat works
great. Boiled beans might be boring, but
bean meat might be all the needed storage “meat” you need to vary up your menu
even more.
*
Already have way to much
rice? Get a grinder. Add rice flour to other grain recipes and you’ll
go through it quick enough. I think that
should just about do it.
END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2Iq2a70 )
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
There are attributes to rice as a storage/stockpile. I vacuum seal up @ 6 cup quantities with a packed date little cook instruction note in the bag. This is a week/or two ration portion and is in forever storage mode. It is also in a bartering size and packaged already for it's trade appearance. Not stored in hemp sacks in a tunnel like viet-cong. Rice can be used as bait food for birds to catch-net. Doves and pigeons can be literally trained to come daily for a little portion in the same spot. A trap-net can bag a few for some meat in the cook pot. Same as leaving a little sack and spillage on a road or trail frequented by your old neighbors, bushwack 'em, get the barbecue/fire pit going for long pork and some smoked meats that will last weeks. Post apocalypse "everything" has it's use.
ReplyDeleteI can see saving for trade. It will get more and rare as time goes on.
DeleteUse rice as a laborer-slave food. Keep them fed long enough to get your slit trenches dug, parapets built up, new outhouse holes/leach field trenching dug in,etc. After they are no longer useful, you know what comes next.
ReplyDeleteBut, again, price difference. Rice can easily be double the cost.
Deletei want to know where anonymous lives so i can stay away.
Deletei am old and tough but i bet he has a pressure cooker.
!
Ah, pressure cooker. The new exploding underwear or toothpaste tube. Good gravy. Well, it is our own fault. As soon as you believe a few flaming office memo's floating on the wind can bring down a third world trade center building, you'll believe anything.
DeleteDH-sorry, I know you were joking. I was just expanding on that making fun of the general public. Not you. I reread and it might have been taken that way.
DeleteI am glad you mentioned lentils, they cook up quick, something to keep in mind when you don't want a fire going for hours and firewood gets harder to find.
ReplyDeleteI have lived off of rice and lentils for a few weeks at a time and you are right, it gets old, but doable.
I sometimes get extra blinded with finances. Lentils were about the most expensive and so I ignored them for the longest time. One would hope, lesson learned. Now I don't want to go back to pinto, the cheapest.
DeleteI rat hole wet canned beans as the price pays for it being cooked and canned for storage. Also some beans have higher protein calorie counts (kidney,etc) and are seasoned already like chili beans etc. Use the rice or hardtack biscuits as filler. Just pour it on some dog or rat meat, and minions are fine dining.
ReplyDeleteHave you drained and weighed the beans? It would be interesting to see the price per pound verses dry.
DeleteYa for sure, there is a bit too much liquids. Buy the off brands great value/kroger etc, to save money. The only redeemable points are it is cooked (bunker-b-pod/no fuel source eating) and the can is industrial packaged. The pull-tab cans seal integrity can be compromised if rough handled. Dry beans have their own storage and rotation considerations for those shop and forget yuppie preppers. Awaiting the agri-conglomerates to introduce the "people pellets" ot "soylent crackers".
DeleteI don't think canned beans are a bad deal, for the same reason you like. It would just be interesting to see the cost differences. Avoid pull tops whenever possible. The guy who invented them should be shot.
DeleteBeans after long storage get very hard. Rats will hardly eat them. You can cook them with a pressure cooker, even when soaking for days doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteAfter microwave ovens can't be powered, the pressure cooker does the same thing. And they are only about the price of a Victoria grinder.
DeleteI've eaten twenty-year-old pinto beans. They do, as you imply, required extra handling, but taste the same as 'new crop.' But then my interest in food is purely utilitarian.
DeleteAnd the pressure cooker people tell me never to cook beans in a pressure cooker. It is something about foaming and possible over-pressure. I've never tried blowing up a pressure cooker so I don't know for sure.
Cheers
I'm told the best pintos come from around Dove Creek, CO; high plains, no irrigation.
Think that comment will spark an argument? Goodness I hope not.
Cheers
My Presto pressure cooker instruction book says beans are okay but you must presoak and you can only fill half as full as other items.
DeleteHuh. Fascinated by bean jerky! I've never tried it so thanks for mentioning it. I have about 10 lbs of old lentils sitting around so I may give it a try over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteFood combining for "complete protein" was determined unnecessary years ago and even the "Diet For A Small Planet" author, Frances Moore Lappe, corrected herself a few years after the book was first published. It turns out that if you get enough calories to survive from just about any whole grain or legume, either combined or alone, you will get adequate quantities of all essential proteins. Wheat by itself is just fine, as are pinto beans or lintels. Same goes for potatoes, both white and sweet.
This even works with white wheat flour. There is no need to combine flour with beans. 1.5 lb of enriched white flour contains about 2,500 cal and over 60 grams of protein, including adequate quantities of all essential amino acids (based on World Health Organization guidelines). This would otherwise be cheap complete nutrition, but it is lacking in fiber and fat.
One may still want to include rice, bean, corn, etc., both for a wider balance of other nutrients as well as to fight the dreaded "taste fatigue". I store and eat them all since I like them all. But if I was looking for a minimum cost, minimum effort approach, I'd stick with sprouted wheat as my goto feed-stock for simple complete meals. Taste fatigue is one thing, but I'm far more concerned about muscle fatigue resulting from cranking the old Corona trying to make flour. Sprouted seed is SO much easier to grind and a very coarse grind is preferred. I use an old hand crank meat grinder that's been in the family for over 100 years and its still going strong.
BTW - I played with wheat meat (seitan) for a while and it was interesting, but I'd advise against making it after the apocalypse since over 65% of the precious calories in wheat are washed away while isolating the gluten.
Appreciate the heads up on wheat meat calorie waste. Good to know, and I didn't. I'll try to find my article on bean jerky. I think I posted last spring. If I find I'll attach a comment to this one. I'd be a little leery of NOT combining bean and grain. I'm not certain, but WHO is a suspect organization to begin with, and they might have a financial reason for declaring grain only. Corn only is a lot cheaper to slop done the Skinny's throats, if you are a relief agency acting as a front for the CIA or a globalist org. Also, your body might not agree it got enough protein. You could still have cravings. Like, if I eat too much chicken, I start craving beef. I don't know why. I do know not all calories or all protein is created equal. You could be correct. I don't doubt that. I'm saying, perhaps you should err on the side of caution.
DeleteHa! I found your original post on bean jerky (July 19, 2017). I even responded to it, but it still never made it into my mix of things to try. Damn! In my response however I mentioned course grinding sprouted beans. This suggests that maybe the way to use pinto in your jerky would be to cook them first, then mush them up, add flavor, and dehydrate. This would avoid the trouble trying to grind hard beans in a Corona. I make bean burgers this way with kidney beans, oatmeal, rice, tomato paste, and spices. Tasty, healthy, and the ingredients store well.
DeleteI hear what you are saying about believing WHO. I actually kind of cringed when I typed it. However, the original research that determined which proteins are essential and how much of each is needed was done way back in 1942 by a Dr. Rose at University of Illinois. He used people instead of rats and reduced each protein in sequence till subjects had problems in order to find minimum requirements. The actual values he recommended were twice these minimums. He doubled the amounts to be on the safe side. As a result I feel pretty confident that I get adequate and complete protein by following his guidelines (mirrored by WHO).
For reference and at the risk of putting a big target on my back, I started transitioning to an all vegetarian diet about 2 years ago and have been all vegetarian for a little over a year. I did it for health reasons and am happy to say that my health and my blood test figures are excellent, especially for a 68 year old. A nice thing about being vegetarian is that prepping is a lot easier since I store what I eat. The bulk of my calories come from grains legumes and potatoes, supplemented with green leafy vegetables and other produce.
As for getting enough protein, I understand your caution, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting more than I need, and my blood test numbers back this up. True vegetarians, at least those that eat minimally processed foods, are the longest living populations on the planet. I'm sticking with the program till someone shows me a better way.
Damn, I love how you did the research to get to the primary source material. Do you know how rare that is? I read voraciously on health at one time and I've never encountered that fact. 99% of "alt health" info is completely dogmatic. I assume your potato storage is root cellar and canned? I don't think I've ever encountered a commercial product that wasn't skin removed, other than freezing which doesn't count. I tried a lacto-vegetarian diet for quite some time and my blood test was NOT favorable. We are all different, something neither the alternate nor the conventional "wisdom" wants to factor in.
DeleteOh, BTW, much appreciation on the date of the original article. I looked through the whole year and couldn't find it.
DeleteI store potatoes in a root cellar and also dehydrate them (sliced, skin on). I've never stored dehydrated for more than 2 years before using it. I've grown potatoes successfully as a trial but don't do it currently. I figure its a skill to be used later. Right now I can buy potatoes at 13 cents a pound. 1,000 lbs of potatoes = 1,000 calories a day for a year. Between root cellar and dehydrated potatoes I could probably last about a year at 1,000 calories/day, supplementing with other stocks to bring calories up to what is needed.
DeleteI swear I will never preach dietary choice unless someone begs me to. As you point out everyone is different and has their own priorities. I selected pure vegetarian because I felt it was the best option for long term health. So far, so good. No animal products whatsoever, and no isolated vegetable products like TVP or vegetable oil. What people call "whole food plant based" these days. I'm surprised vegetarian didn't work out for you. Perhaps it was the lacto part. Anyway, if push comes to shove it will be calories from any source that is important. A long life will be less important than living till tomorrow. I will revert to carnivore in a second if need be.
That must have been my problem with drying-I went with cubes rather than slices. Do you need to blanch, or is that just cosmetic? I actually think it goes beyond preference to what your body type craves. Some folks can do vegetarian, they feel better, to others it is an ordeal and they feel weak.
DeleteNicus- be careful about the converting to carnivore too quickly. The vegetarians I grew up as friends with were *quite* sick the first few times they tried red meat of any sort. Eventually they were able to tolerate a little but initially they lost more calories from meat than they gained in nutrition.
DeleteI would think any diet change upsets the digestive system. Like going from white flour to whole wheat. Or fatty foods from lean.
DeleteYes I blanch. I've never tried dehydrating without blanching but I've heard the results aren't pretty. They are still OK to eat but they turn an ugly grey and black. I either slice on a mandolin to about 1/8" thick or coarse shred. Either way its important to toss them into cold water IMMEDIATELY to prevent them from discoloring. I slice and shred directly over a bowl of cold water to eliminate this problem. After slicing, strain them out of the cold water and toss into boiling water to blanch for 4-5 minutes. Then into the dehydrator. 10-12 hours later they are translucent and crisp. To reconstitute, soak in water for about 15 minutes, then cook as you normally would.
DeleteJJ Grey - thanks for the caution on switching from vegetarian to carnivore, though I have no immediate plans. I understand our gut critters are very different depending on diet. I never thought much about how rapidly they can be exchanged for other varieties. Its no wonder long time vegetarians and vegans get ill if they start eating meat. I've read our intestines are too long for efficient meat digestion. The transit time is long enough that undigested meat can start to rot. Scavenging dogs on the other hand have relatively short intestines so they pass questionable meat before problems develop.
The intestines argument has been used by pro-vegans since the hippie days, if not before. Our guts aren't long enough for vegetation as in apes. Evolution robbed the gut of energy to supply the brain instead. And that is where cooking comes in. It substitutes for some digestion. You don't want to eat raw meat, we aren't meant to process it. You lose far too many nutrients. Whatever diet your body thrives on, but humans are meant to be able to handle a wide variety, not just one or the other. I love vegetarians. They keep meat cheaper for me to buy.
Deleteexcellent article and great responses by nicus and jj.
Deletehave read that the figures on nutrients in plants from the 40's are not the same as modern plant figures unless you are growing your own organically. reading matter posits that the modern soil is too depleted to give the better nutrient numbers found in crops from that era.
going to look up bean meat article. daughter is vegetarian because she has lyme disease and am looking for a way to store beans that will keep and be tasty and easier to use than old dried beans. thanks.
It used to be that you couldn't get me to eat beans and rice unless you put a gun to my head. But I did a stint as an over-the-road trucker and discovered that the Southerners know how to make 'em delicious with mild Cajun seasoning. Popeye's fast food chicken joints are a good place to try 'em and then you can adjust the seasoning to your own liking when cooking them yourself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that talk about storing seasonings of all kinds is not emphasized enough in survival forums. The diets of our northern European ancestors was so God-awful bland that ships sailed to the other side of the world to procure spices. After the ragheads nuke us, and you are wandering the vast Nevada empty places (where you have, undoubtedly, many remote cache sites of food and water!) the 2 things you will kick yourself for forgetting about will be spices of all kinds and a mirror to gaze into for the trimming of your perfect head of hair. Remember to store both.
I used to eat quite a bit of ramen, but had an objection to the high salt in their seasoning packets. I began cutting down using the amount of seasoning into 1/2, sometimes 1/3, saving the rest of packet for a future meal. So I began having a foil packed season packet I could use later, for ANY dish. I've flavored mash potatoes with pork - spicy beef - spicy chicken packets for example, creating another flavor from the dish. These packets have flavored different meat dishes - anything.
DeleteAnd they are virtually free, because the low cost ramen package is providing it. Foil packaging is tough, light and fits virtually anywhere. Better than bullion cubes in fact. Check them out - you may find them as useful as I have.
Excellent! And true. I too discovered red beans and rice at Popeye's and then tweaked them for myself.
DeleteSpices and herbs indeed make the world less bland. Rural King has a large inventory of inexpensive spices and I have stocked aplenty over the years and rely them for our meal processing.
Though I have never tried it, I've heard a large bottle of Sriracha sauce will make even the most foulest roadkill highly palatable. So we have a few bottles in stock.
I religiously saved all my packets. Just as you used them, plus for the apocalypse. Then I started eating less and less until I'm down to literally one pack a year. Almost completely burned out on ramen and peanut butter for my lifetime. A shame too, as they seem to be more filling compared to the same calorie count in white bread. As for bullion, I wish I could find some affordable without salt.
DeleteHave you ever looked into the Chickpeas? (Aka Garbanzo beans) I see that you can get a 5lb bag of them for around $15 at Amazon. I have no idea if that’s good or not, but the reason that I mention them is that this is what is used in making the hummus. And the hummus strikes me as being a super survival food, with its high protein content.
ReplyDeleteI myself am on a low carb diet, so I don’t eat things such as grains, beans (legumes) rice, etc. That said, this is what I will be stockpiling. The reason of course is that it’s really the only food that is cheap enough to practically buy and stock in bulk. That, and of course, anything beats starvation, even if it’s a less than ideal diet.
https://www.amazon.com/Garbanzo-Chickpeas-Verified-Non-Irradiated-Certified/dp/B001PEWJWC?th=1
Kroger had about $1.40 lentils and about 75cents pinto the last I checked. I wouldn't Amazon bulk items like that. Let the retail pay for the semi truck delivery on heavy items. Much cheaper than Prime, UPS, USPS.
DeleteI think everything said made a great deal of sense. However, think on this,
ReplyDeletewhat if you were to write a awesome title? I ain't
saying your content isn't good., however suppose you added a title to possibly get folk's attention? I mean "flyed lice 2 of 2" is kinda boring.
You might glance at Yahoo's front page and note how they create article titles to grab
people interested. You might try adding a video or a
pic or two to get readers interested about
everything've got to say. Just my opinion, it might bring
your blog a little livelier.
That is conventional wisdom and it just might be correct. However, as I am pretentious and refined, I think of my drivel as the Wall Street Journal rather than "USA Today". No flash. No gimmicks. Straight up print information. I trust my minions are too intelligent to be dazzled by unicorn farts. I leave that to the other prepper publications.
DeleteThis topic has come up before, and it’s not that it’s bad advice, just that it’s probably not good advice for this particular site. If this site were to take on a lot of traffic it would probably be shut down. I’m actually surprised that you haven’t already got into hot water over some of the things that you post (Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s funny as hell. But we live in an age of hypersensitive political correctness run amok, and few folks share my sick sense of humor it seems :D)
DeleteToo many folks have NO sense of humor. I think those are the only kind I meet :) If I'm shut down, just subtract the "BlogSpot" to get my web site:
Deletewww.bisonprepper.com
I'll post there until I set up a Word Press site. Don't want to, it costs up to 10% of my monthly income, but if needs must...