Wednesday, September 27, 2017

freeze dried dingus


FREEZE DRIED DINGUS

Have you all heard the phrase “a bag of dinguses”?  Okay, it’s the other “D” word, but I don’t wish to offend those of the gentler constitutions and more refined sensibilities who wouldn’t say “crap” if they had a mouthful of it.  Probably the same types that slavishly lather antibacterial gel on their hands, then take an antibacterial wipe and clean the shopping cart handle, then go walking around the store touching everything else other, dirtier, more unrefined and of the lower classes people already touched as they picked up a product, looked at the ingredients, disliked what they saw or noticed the price and then placed it back.  If you touch anything in a store, you’ve just negated the whole antibacterial wipe process!  Hell, the cart was just out in the sun or freezing cold, which did more to kill germs than you did with your stinking wipe, and all the germs are lurking inside.  Or, on the bottom of your shoe.  Do you take your shoes off with an antibacterial wipe?  No?  Why are you even reading this?  You are going to DIE!  Germs will KILL you!  Run!  Run away!

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Anyway, a bag of dinguses is most emphatically NOT a good thing.  When you are told to eat a bag of them, or when you exclaim, hey, what just happened now is a big old bag of dinguses, you are expressing a very undesirable state of affairs ( or wishing it upon another ).  And yet, people go buy several cases of #10 cans of freeze dried dinguses, and think it is a good thing.  A #10 can is FAR, far worse than a bag of dinguses.  It is more expensive and lasts longer!  Now, I’m not here to shrill an all wheat diet like I normally do.  I want to talk about what is in a years supply of freeze dried food and offer a much better menu, consisting of more calories, and far more meat, for the same price.  Freeze dried foods are not the worst survival supply you can buy.  That horror would be a $5,000 fifty caliber sniper rifle or a FLIR scope.  They have a niche purpose ( the freeze dried foods, not the rifle or scope ).  If you are older than the hill Jesus was buried in, they weigh  almost nothing.  So if you are crippled you can carry around the cans easily.  Me?  If I was all crippled?  An AR-15 with a butt ton of loaded magazine ( or better yet, an AK-47.  You can’t see very far, so you might as well get the one that won’t jam ), a nice supply of beef jerky ( not that weird turkey or pork jerky, that they now sell because beef is getting scarce-thanks a lot, Texas!, but perhaps a few cases of that shelf stable bacon too ), and a few bottles of whiskey.  Come the time, kill as many as you can and go out with no pain.

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Freeze dried does last thirty years so at the end of that three decades you have actually saved money, usually ( from buying the food at lower prices due to inflation, and lack of replacement cost of other methods ).  But, oy, the up front costs.  For $300, I could have a year supply of butter.  Granted, it is half the amount as fresh, but considering how much longer the grid is going to last, still not a bad trade-off.  So, yes, despite all my spoofing, freeze dried isn’t worthless.  But it is a very expensive convenience food.  Convenience being the operative word.  By mixing a bit of labor to replace cost, you get much more for your dollar.  Because you know what you are getting for convenience?  A near vegetarian diet.  If I wanted no meat in my diet, I’d rather spend $300 than $1500.  Which is what the cheapest yearly supply is for freeze dried ( with one case of #10 cans of wheat kernels ).  But there is no real meat and no fat.  So I’d be better off with $300 worth of wheat and shortening.  The only thing you sacrifice is a bigger range of food.

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The freeze dried food isn’t even healthy!  Oh, sure, there are plenty of fruits and vegetables.  And then they give you TVP!  Textured vegetable protein is the worst thing to eat!  It is soy, and soy, if not fermented, is terrible for you.  Remember my acorn analogy?  Eating soy without proper preparation is like eating acorns without removing the poisons first ( tannin? ).  I don’t even think the soy is cooked long enough, which is a minimum with all beans or they pass through your digestive system without releasing their nutrients.  So, you take the worst bean and prepare it the worst way, and you call that sufficient protein.  Hippies had a lot of good ideas going for them philosophically, but nutritionally they were morons.  Soy is poison.  If that isn’t bad enough, the menu includes margarine, fake cheese, and white foods such as instant potatoes, pasta and cream of wheat.  But they throw in oatmeal and soup, for variety!  Wow, why that is certainly worth the extra money!  I’m not saying freeze dried foods are bad, but I am saying commercially packaged survival one year foods are full of crap and a lot doesn’t need to be at freeze dried prices.

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The pasta, cream of wheat, rice and oats, popcorn and instant potatoes, do they really gain all that much from being nitrogen packed in a #10 can?  Are you really worse off by placing the dry goods in a Mason glass jar and vacuum sealing it with that jar attachment doohickey on your bag sealer/vacuum packer that is around $50?  It is convenient to have all these in #10 cans, but is it necessary?  Do you even want all those foods in your one year food supply?  If so, why not go in bulk and Mylar bag them in buckets?  Why #10 cans?  Unless you are THAT old and weak, or crippled, and we already covered that plan.  Jerky, whiskey and semi-auto.  See, I’m not completely opposed to semi-auto.  And if you are planning on moving, and want the light weight of #10 cans, aren’t you worried about damaging them?  If you damage a can, there goes $15-$20.  If you damage a whole case of Mason jars, every single jar, it is the same loss, more or less.  Is a five gallon bucket of pasta all that heavy?  I suppose the spaghetti noodles might poke through the Mylar.  Are other noodles acceptable, instead?

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All these questions should be highlighting how you have been hoodwinked into buying convenience alone, at the high price of dollars, the high price of nutrition-less foods and the high price of elimination of animal protein from your diet.  Sure, you can get higher priced plans with freeze dried meat.  But isn’t $1500 high enough as it is?  How many years of food can you buy at $2k each, or $2,500, or $3k?  I’m not discounting the $1500 a year.  I personally would not pay that much.  But if you are going to, don’t buy a crap menu.  Buy much better food.  For the same price.  The freeze dried menu is ONLY good for the fruits and vegetables.  All the other food is calorie only white foods, or worse, fake soy meat, with only a little fat, and that the worst fat of all-margarine.  You would be better off just buying shortening.  Both shortening and margarine are made with the same hydrogenated process, turning fat one step away from plastic.  You might as well buy the cheaper one so you get more of it.  Margarine is mostly flavoring, water, texturing and a smidge of fat.  Shortening is all fat.  Which you need, especially after the apocalypse.

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The one thing the freeze dried menu doesn’t have is wheat.  If you are not gluten intolerant, it is a good thing to have.  Not to the extent I recommend, perhaps,  but enough to give you plenty of energy ( carbs alone, nor protein alone, doesn’t necessarily work for most people, but a combination is wonderful ).  One pound of wheat a day, plus a pound of meat, with fat, is going to get you through most days unless you are actually digging ditches ( my wheat only diet is a core calorie, emergency only, better than nothing diet.  It requires you to sprout some kernels, and forage and trap if possible, with a minimum amount of fat from shortening.  $20 in fat could make the difference in you surviving the winter.  Another $10 in vitamins would also make a huge difference.  In theory.  I’m not sure how many people have been forced to rely on mostly just vitamins to actually test their performance.  For all we know, they could be placebos ).  The freeze dried menu is 1500 calories a day ( actually, something like 1460, but I’m being extra generous ).  I’m suggesting a 2500 calorie diet.  For the same price.  Full of meat.

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For $275 you can buy feed store wheat kernels and put them into buckets, for 400 pounds ( a pound a day with extra for sprouts ).  If you are forced to buy through Wal-Mart, the Aguson Farms buckets at $36 for 25 pounds, the cost goes way up to $575.  Some of you have no choice, given the lack of feed stores in your urban areas ( heck, even in Podunk Texas I had to drive thirty miles to find one, pre-Y2K.  But once there, damn!, $5 for a fifty pound sack.  The good old days ).  Now, for meat, as per previous discussions, you are going to need to Mason jar pressure can.  Sorry.  No convenience there.  But REAL meat.  Every night!  I’d rather have meat every night than soup and TVP nuggets.  Once you buy your jars, a one time purchase with just occasional replacements due to damage, then you merely need new lids every year.  What I would suggest is buying the years worth of jars and rotate.  Use a weeks worth of meat, can another batch every weekend.  You rotate and hence always have a years worth of meat.  No, it won’t last thirty years, but you aren’t paying the inflation tax since you are eating as you are buying.

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I’m not sure if you can buy a pallet and get a discount, but most times you can get a case at the grocery store for $11.  Less than a buck a jar with lid and ring.  $365 for a years worth of jars.  It will take up a lot of room.  But you double duty here.  You don’t need a freezer of meat ( just enough to buy sales and can as needed ).  You don’t have to worry about a power outage ( saving on buying a generator ), nor power to cook your meat that night, nor stocking freeze dried meat.  Two bucks a pound the average price ( at least for now, buying family packs on sale ) gets you a years worth of meat for $550.  Now add your fat.  Twelve cans of shortening, one a month, is only $40.  Go hog wild canning butter with $160 ( three pounds a month, the extra jars included in the price ).  I would, personally, feel safe enough pressure canning my butter.  But that is a call you have to make as it is not recommended.  There is the issue of fat corroding the sealing ring, but other than that I think you’d kill all nasties.  Let me tell you a short story.  True story.  I was just at my B-POD and ran across a stick of salted butter.  At the end of summer, the temperature down there is around seventy degrees at most.  The stick has been down there a year and a half.  I wouldn’t try eating it, but it had no mold and no smell.  You tell me that isn’t some storage hardy food!  I thought I had to eat up room temperature butter in two or three weeks.  I guess I was pessimistic.  Now, if you are boiling that bitch under vacuum for a half hour or whatever, do you really think it won’t store long ( as long as the seal lasts )?

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If you are really paranoid about canned butter ( to be clear, the old discounted for safety reasons method was a bath canning.  I’m saying, go with pressure canning ), you can buy that in freeze dried form.  $24 buys you four pounds of reconstituted butter, so $6 a pound.  Under this budget, you can get seven cans, a half pound every other week.  Not bad.  You can it yourself, three pounds a month.  Freeze dried, a pound a month.  Not great, but you have plenty of other fat either plan.  So, our totals are $575 for the expensive wheat.  $365 Mason jars.  $550 meat and $200 fat and butter.  That is $1700.  Sorry, slightly over the $1500 for the freeze dried, unless you live near a feed store, then your total is $1400 ( I would NOT recommend Tattler re-useable lids to save money, as it seems a 10-20% seal failure rate is common ).  If you average the two, the one Wal-Mart wheat the other home canned wheat, you average about what the freeze dried costs.  I call it close enough.  And remember, many more critical calories and the right kind of calories, no processed foods other than shortening.  Granted, very little variety.  No comfort foods like fruit out of season.  But the one thing preppers are supposed to be wonderful at is gardening.  And gardening, with spouting and drying getting you through the winter, should be how you get your produce.  Fresh, not out of a can.  You might claim you need the cans in case your garden fails, but ask yourself what you are eating.

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Commercial produce is grown with artificial fertilizers in dead soil, heavily sprayed with chemicals.  Then, you don’t know how much of any marginal nutrients ( remember, USDA nutritional recordings were from decades ago when the soil was much better than now ) survived the freeze drying process.  Really, how much worse off are you just taking a vitamin pill?  Add sprouts to that for the unknown micro-nutrients and the needed enzymes, and you are no worse off nutritionally.  So you rely on fresh produce grown in your healthy soil and just use vitamins and sprouts as your emergency source and you are still better off.  And the price is much better-like close to free.  For fruit, just dry your own and consume it like the meat, replacing it as you go so shelf life isn’t an issue.  And all this isn’t even touching on the “store what you eat, eat what you store”.  My plan is your actually diet.  Their plan, being freeze dried, means you CAN’T eat it daily.  My plan is for a meat fueled worker, their plan is for a bunny food, processed food fueled couch potato.  Same price.  Your choice.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xCacYU )
 
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47 comments:

  1. Freeze dried food is a poor return on your dollar. Yet, I've got a 30 day supply in the van and another 30 day supply in the boat. Plastic square buckets, not #10 cans. Space and weight were big considerations. If I have to backpack, that's what I'm taking. Of course, I only got freeze dried after my regular home storage was squared away.

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    1. I haven't done a cost comparison, but I'd imagine freeze dried is much cheaper than MRE's. So that is one consideration for short term food.

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  2. A friend of mine is driving up to Ohio . So I asked him to stop by the Keystone canned meat factory. They sell one lb cans for $88 a case of 24. Shredded beef, Burger, Pork , Turkey or Chicken. All quality stuff. You can get Werlings a better brand for like $8 a can. The only difference between the two brands is the higher prices is guaranteed non GMO, no hormone organic with no salt added. Whereas the less expensive is normal feedlot stuff with added salt...
    I've used both in the past during my sailing days and cannot tell the difference. To me the added salt is a good thing come shtf ! Your gonna need that salt !
    They also sell 28 ounce can at a reduced price over the smaller cans too.
    Since my buddy is going right past the place, couldn't pass up saving on the shipping !
    If anyone is interested I'll post the address...they ship anywhere.

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    1. That really isn't a bad price at all for raw meat, let alone the can added.

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    2. Keystone Meats
      419-225-9600 ext. 3
      joanie@keystonemeats.com

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    3. Wertz $10.57/Lb. on Sale at 7.93/lb. Highest Quality, GMO Free, Anti-biotic and Hormone Free, family farm in Ohio – Beef and Sea Salt
      Werlings Canned Meats $8.83/lb. Beef and Sea Salt unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator Ohio
      Lehman’s $6.67/Lb. Ingredients listed but claims not artificial ingredients, unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator Ohio
      Internet Grocer $8/Lb. Ingredients Beef and Salt, unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator
      Troyer's Country Market $7.08/Lb. Ingredients Beef and Salt, unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator Ohio
      Yoder’s Canned Meats $5.71/Lb. Ingredients include many artificial preservatives and flavorings unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator Ohio
      https://keystonemeats.com/ $3.57 Ingredients Beef and Salt unknown on GMO, Anti-Biotics, Hormones – Aggregator, Dorely Family Ohio

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    4. Thanks for the meat links.

      FWIW, I recently bought a small can of the beef at Walmart as a test run. While the flavor and texture of the beef was acceptable (tasted good and was tender -
      not grainy and tough) the other stuff included was not. At least 1/4 of the content was water and 1/4 of the solids were thick gristle and blobs of solid fat. Disgusting. At first I almost threw the whole thing out as the visuals were horrifying. But I cut all that stuff out and went ahead with the meal prep (beef stroganof) and it was very acceptable. I don't remember the cost of the can but when you factor in the waste and the water it is not such a good deal, though not a deal killer. I guess the fact that you can walk right into walmart and buy it off the shelf has some merit, rather than dealing with the mail order unknowns and hidden costs.

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    5. Hey Spud, thanks for the info!

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    6. Yes, thank you. I can't do all of the work around here:)

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    7. GS-that is the thing I love about Emergency Essentials-no hidden costs in shipping. I try not to buy any more food from Wally-the quality difference is starting to be too obvious. Like the canned milk being far less than average evaporated.

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    8. I can vouch for the Werlings products, very high quality products yet a bit high priced.
      The Keystone is probably the best bang for your buck.
      Here soon I'll be getting three cases of keystone burger and pork. Plus a couple samples of each Turkey, chicken and beef chunks.
      I'll let y'all know what I think about each.

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  3. If you go down that freeze dried or dehydrated route it is best first to have knowledge and experience with cooking in general. Rather than getting the ensembles (mac n cheese, or beef stew, or chicken noodle soup, etc.) get the individual ingredients, like cans of corn, peas, onions, etc. Then you can prepare any type of meal you can imagine, your way.

    I started going down that road but got hung up in internet details that couldn't be resolved. For me, purchasing that stuff must be done in person, eye to eye, with a salesperson.

    I purchased, on amazon, a #10 can of diced mixed vegetables and another of diced peppers and onions. I wanted to use these things in meals I regularly prepare around here and if they were worthy I'd get a bunch in bulk. (don't wanna blow a bunch of coin on stuff I don't know if I like)

    The mixed veg's were about 50% minced potatoes that had mostly turned to powder and it seemed to be heavily salted, almost inedible so. The peppers and onions had the pepper seeds in there and that simply will not do.

    If I purchased the stuff in person I could at the very least open the stuff in my vehicle in the parking lot and get a visual on what the content actually looks like. In the above 2 cans I would have seen the potato powder and the pepper seeds, then I could have taken them back in for a refund or exchange.

    BTW, if it's not a "box of big, fat, juicy, drippin' dinguses" it ain't worth mentioning.

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    1. I've heard some on the salt issue elsewhere. Not sure why freeze dried needs ANY salt, other than to rip you off.

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    2. Because even freeze dried stuff is edible to bugs and bacteria. The salt acts as a preservation agent preventing this.

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    3. I thought that was the whole point of nitrogen atmosphere storage. If you need salt, I guess you don't need a #10 sealed can.

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    4. How do the bugs get into a sealed can?

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    5. They are present within the meat, nitrogen takes care of the aerobic bacteria. Anaerobic bacteria thrive in an oxygen free environment, same bugs which produce methane in a digester. The salt kills both type bacteria for the most part so far as I know.

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    6. Not trying to be argumentive, but I am confused ( as usual ). If heat kills that crap in unsalted canned meat, doesn't the cold do so in freeze dried? And if all moisture is removed also? ( Does the food actually get cold enough? I watch a YouTube on that home unit that freeze dried but I'm not recalling details ).

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    7. Heat and cold kill most but not all bacteria. Hell there are some of those lil boogers which survive the vacuum of space, with its extremes of hot and cold to include extreme radiation. The salt is just one more preventative measure, also extends the usable life once opened.

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    8. Okay, this ONE time I'll allow my cynical nature to rest and acknowledge perhaps this one industry isn't out to triple screw us (only double ). You talked me into it :)

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    9. Hardly Jim, you keep up that cynicism. Of course all industry is out to screw us in all manners ,any which way they can lol.
      The art of the steal, dontcha know...

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    10. Paladin Press is going out of business. Uncle Humpers, sold their soul on censorship and screw you on almost every title, either low quality or padding or just plain overpricing. The one silver lining in the collapse-asswhores get some comeuppance.

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    11. I’m still sorry to hear of this news. I think it was Paladin Press and Delta Press that took over the remaining publications from Loompanics, after they went out of business. I have fond memories of Loompanics as a young man in the 80’s. We didn’t have internet, but we had cool books to read thanks to them.

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    12. I spent a god awful amount on Loompanics, more than I usually do on Amazon ( % of income ). They were indeed the coolist. If I recall, Paladin might have taken and sold inventory, but they only kept X amount in print. Not sure about Delta. Tomorrow in the notes I'll list the books I think you should buy prior to them closing up and the books going for even more money come next year. Hint: not that damn many.

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    13. I suppose as long as most of the publications stay in print (which many of them no longer are) and available elsewhere it doesn’t really matter. Travel Trailer homesteading under $5k, Rancho Costa Nada, and many more, all came from Loompanics. It was my first introduction to Kurt Saxon, and where I got my first copy of The Poor Man’s James Bond.

      I even bought a few publications from that commi, moon landing hoax dude, Bill Kaysing. One of his books “Great hideouts of the West, an Idea book for living Free,” was a great inspiration to me, and about the time when I decided that I would not be happy living in a conventional manner.

      It’s kind of sad to see these last vestiges from my younger, happier days, disappearing right before my very eyes.

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    14. The ended of the last vestiges from happier days? To me, that was the 80's ending. So I've had a long time getting used to "crappier crap as business as usual". It saddens me that with e-books and Print On Demand that ANY book goes out of print, but most do. Loompanics was always a slight premium, but never as bad as Paladin ever was, and they kept so much arcane stuff in print. They were a great influence on me during the military, an antidote to the Kool-Aid, so I'll always love them.

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    15. “The ended of the last vestiges from happier days? To me, that was the 80's ending.”


      Yes, that’s what I really meant to say. Even without the internet, that era kicked butt. Funny, but at the time I sorta felt that life sucked. But looking back, I realized that those were the best times of my life. We also still had freedoms that we took for granted at the time, and no longer have now.

      Now I just want to go out in the middle of no where, perhaps even sever my digital footprint, and just try and pretend as hard as possible that I’m back living in those simpler, happier times. The internet’s pretty much turning to shit anyways, with SJW types pretty taking over that venue as well, and silencing all opposition as they have in the public square.

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    16. The Internet is crap, due to the Nancy Boy BS and feminization, but also as the pipes get overloaded and the ad revenue dries up, back to dial-up days. Go to site, go get a cup of coffee while it loads. Plus, all the hobby closet professionals giving advice have been drowned out by trolls and scam artists. Leaving the Net would be a addiction withdrawal but it won't be long now and it will do us all good.

      Delete
  4. Interesting article on potatoes

    https://www.popsci.com/nutrition-single-food-survival

    Idaho Homesteader

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    1. Ass bites pimp for soy. Danger, danger will robinson!

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    2. Probably the best line in that article: "He quit eating most food to train himself to get comfort and joy from other areas of his life."

      Since back in the day when you could get 5 McDonald's hamburgers for a dollar and get change back, there has been a steady tendency for people to equate the act of eating with everything you can imagine. Who hasn't seen thousands of TV commercials of a group of people sitting around the table at Applebee's/Chili's/Olive Garden laughing, interacting and stuffing their already obese faces? What other daily bodily function is celebrated so?

      Can you imagine bathrooms of the future where mass marketing has caused trillions of people to lose their minds and install 8 or more toilets and then the whole fambly and all their friends get together for a joint poop-a-thon, slapping each other on the back, and laughing, having a grand ol' time where poop garnished tissue paper is the main event? Or 20 person showers for the same reason?

      About 20 years ago my wife and I had submitted to the mass market brainwashing and were sitting in an Outback paying more for 1 meal than a weeks worth of groceries and a still came over me and I just sat there an observed the old guy in the next booth over blowing his nose, the young mother whisking her screaming brat to the restroom for a changing as it's poop-vapor filled the air and an 8 yo ran unsupervised up and down the aisles while the obese waitress taking our order paused and wiped her hand across her french fry greasy mug.

      Seriously, in the average restaurant a whole lot of DNA is being swapped with the participants completely oblivious.

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    3. I last ate at Outback around 2003. Stepdaughter started acting out, got us both so aggrevated we couldn't finish our food ( or, really, even begin eating it ). Never could go back again, not out of embarrassment but the pain and suffering of losing good money on good food. Bitch!

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  5. Warning!!!!

    I bought some of the cheap generic canning jar lids from Wal-Mart (and some cheap canning jars with the lids included), and had a LOT of failures.

    I've been canning for over 20 years and have never had the majority of jars fail in me like I did with the cheap "made in China" jars and lids. I thought I could save a little money because lids can be pricey.

    Spend just a tiny bit more money and buy the Ball or Kerr brand.

    Idaho Homesteader

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    1. Bulk lids through Amazon don't seem too bad, although I'm sure there is a better deal elsewhere.

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    2. I've had good luck with Tattler lids. It's all about correct headspace and careful processing. Re-use is a good thing

      Old "rule of thumb" for jars was 250 quart jars per family member on the shelf before the first snow most years got to the thaw with some remaining, even to late May. About half of these quarts must be meaty, but I do love peaches and pears.

      pdxr13

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    3. I should do a cost comparison with 20% tattler failure rate compared to all throw away lids. Yes, re-useable is definitely better.

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  6. Regarding freeze dried foods...

    The freeze dried mozzarella cheese from Emergency Essentials is surprisingly good. It makes a really great pizza. The flavor of the mozzarella is actually better than cheap mozzarella from the store IMO.

    Pretty expensive but they usually have it on sale a couple times a year for under $30 a #10 can. I can make 10 Boboli sized pizzas from a can. (That's using extra cheese). I figure $3 of cheese per pizza isn't that bad.

    Add in a few cans of powdered tomatoes (for sauce) and a can of freeze dried sausage crumbles along with your flour and yeast and I'll be eating pizza while watching the apocalypse ;)

    Idaho Homesteader

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    1. And therein lies the incedious appeal of freeze dried! Kidding, comfort food is more important than I admit.

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  7. You should try a Swanson Hungry Man TV Dinner, give it a try. Cheap calories. Try the chicken, it ain't bad.

    Al

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    1. I used to love those TV dinners in the red box. Around a buck, two of them filled me up. Then they went all salt. Every food item is like licking a salt block, and I have a high tolerance for salt in my food. The fried chicken is the worst. Tried other brands, I think they come from the same factory.

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  8. WTF!

    re:

    A lot of homes in the desert SW don't have enough insulation for 110 temps.

    Sometimes it really is a toss up as to who is the farthest gone in La La land. You or the "Expert" editor of that other survival website.

    110 degrees???? They are going to DIE!

    I know! I know! Let's re arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic! That will fix things right?

    HOLY F***!

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    1. Not sure what your issue is. I was asked why I advocated extra insulation, so I gave examples. I never said they would die at those temps, but I sure implied it wasn't a habitable shelter. I'm going to assume you haven't been laid for a year and forgive you comparing me to other doom writers. I'll even forgive you failing to praise my hair. My benevolence is boundless.

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  9. Packet of potato chips just decreased in weight by 14%

    To hide this they're on "special" and with "special limited time" flavours. But you know they'll go back up to normal price.

    I don't know what their end game is. Surely at some point we will pass the point of absurdity?

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    1. Chips already passed the point of being eaten. They don't taste too good anymore, god knows the poisons, and even not eating as much of them anymore, the packs are barely a nibble. "Family" pack is below the size "normal size" used to be at.

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  10. i figured beef is so expensive because hillary and her cronies were murdering, jailing, suing and terrorizing all the ranchers so the mineral rights to the land could go to our enemies while the politicians rake in the $$$.

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    1. Ranchers are being victimized on behest of the BigAgra meat factories. Not sure if Clinton has her snout in that. No, the southern end of the aquifer ( the Big Daddy one, running up to the Dakota's ) is completely drained-a huge hit on Texas beef, and they were the major producer.

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  11. another excellent post. info on canned meat very useful. thanks.
    your filaments are fabulous!

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