Friday, April 3, 2020

four storage plan book 7


FOUR STORAGE PLAN BOOK 7
Chapter 4
Bug In Plan
This is where most people began, and then ended, their food plan. Easy to prepare convenience foods. There is nothing wrong with an MRE or three ( the issue comes from eating them more than a day or two, when your body starts to crave carbs and fresh foods, and then when you try to pass a massive turd after a week of constipation. And I'm not even talking about a loaf like you might occasionally impress friends and family with but one that breaks records both in length and girth ).
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Well, the price is a bit insane, so one doesn't want to get too crazy in how much they stockpile, but that is a minor consideration for a short term food. When you just buy a week or two of food, for bugging in or bugging out, a stealth food or a no cooking food, price isn't going to matter all that much. The problem today though isn't price. It is availability. Freeze dried foods are no longer available, as they've had their Ammo Drought moment. The crap is all gone and won't be coming back any time soon.
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MRE's are still available, but at surf and turf restaurant prices. And you'll only be able to find a few cases. Even my old “alt MRE's” are gone, which were instant rice and canned beans. Good luck finding any rice. I mean, you probably can. Most people just want a few pounds, and if the grocery store is out they give up. Few will go around to jobber suppliers or ethnic food stores to look. You MIGHT find rice there. You know what Minute Rice is, right? Cooked rice which is then dried. You can make your own.
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Bug In food doesn't need to be no-cook. It is nice, because the whole point of the food is to be quick and easy and ideally without dishes. My recommendation for that would be hardtack and beef jerky. Some people would recommend pemmican, but that is not something I'd care to mess with*. But it is an option. The thing is, jerky might be considered expensive, but it isn't if done yourself and even store bought is currently cheaper than an MRE. For a carb, I'd use whole wheat and make hardtack. White flour hardtack lasts forever, but I'm not sure about the whole wheat variety. It might need to be rotated, as you do the jerky.
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[ *pemmican is basically half ground jerky and half rendered fat. It is suggested that if you can't stomach that, make peanut butter pemmican. Ground jerky mixed with peanut butter. Just beware that today's peanut butter-at least the lower price generic brand-goes rancid a LOT quicker than it used to. The usual culprit is probably companies going cheap on product to increase profits. I used to get five years out of a jar. Now, it is more like one year past expiration date. So, while pemmican lasts many years, I'd rotate the peanut butter version yearly ]
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If hardtack doesn't float your boat, go with parched wheat ( or corn, which was the historical norm. Even brown rice should work. And you might actually find the whole grain rice for sale. Yeah, sorry, this whole book is Beer Virus specific. Sorry about that, but this is when I'm writing it ). Parched grain is actually a taste treat. I wouldn't eat it regularly, as I image it would be a bit hard on your teeth, but for a treat it is delightful. In a dry skillet, place your grain ( each kernel touching the bottom ). Heat to low medium. Stir on a regular basis.
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This isn't “Corn Nuts”. That is oil fried kernels. This is a dry cook. Some kernels will pop, but without a full fluffiness like popcorn. Most will just start turning brown. The more you cook it, the more flavor you get ( almost popcorn flavor-even wheat-but almost nutty flavor ). BUT. The more you cook it the more likely you burn it and then that is exactly what it tastes like. After you cook to your preference, let them cool. You can eat as is, but don't shovel them down too quick. It is very filling.
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If you take your parched grain and grind it ( you don't need a grain grinder. A coffee grinder works-it is a course flour, not a fine one ), you now have “pinole”. You can eat that raw, but I find myself chocking on it. I tried placing it in a glass of water, AND chasing with water, but that was a nasty almost greasy feel ( with a queasy stomach after ). Reading further, I find it was partially dissolved in hot water historically, if you care to drink it ( you must keep stirring and you'll still find a lot on the bottom when done, but it is much better than when cold. And better than Cream Of Wheat ), or used to thicken stew.
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You could also make corn cakes out of it ( hot water to thicken, fried in grease, but to prep that you must boil it down to get it to stick together. If not, just moisten with double the water as the pinole. Fry that up. It still tastes pretty darn good. If you want it to taste close to Sex On A Stick, add some pancake syrup over the fried crumbles and mix together. Dag! Also try sweetener in that pinole “tea”. That makes it slide down even easier, and it already tasted pretty darn good ) which tastes different than regular dried grain ground up for flour.
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You can even buy frozen corn ( if you cannot find dried whole corn anywhere ), then dry it in preparation for parched or pinole. If you don't own a food dryer ( I highly recommend, but your mileage may vary depending on how long you think the electrical grid stays up and running ), you can just dry in the oven, lowest heat with the door cracked. Just like you'd make beef jerky. The great thing about parched grain or pinole is that it is dirt cheap, delicious, healthy and a ready to eat ( mostly ) meal. It might not be a grease and protein bomb you get from an MRE, but it surpasses them in many ways. And as most of us survivalists are older, you need to baby your digestive system anyway.
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Continued tomorrow
( addendum: the day I wrote this I took some pinole from my BOB and played with it as I described, making the tea and fried crumble.  In 24 hours I was cleaning my innards out-and a good thing I'm using a bidet now or I would have run out of the TP.  It could have been a coincidence, because Conehead Junior had just visited and was getting over a stomach flu.  Or, it could be this course grind wheat is much more reactive than fine grain I normally eat.  Just a warning )
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click HERE .  And, BTW, after you view these, note they are the cheapest-HA!  Near out of date, and at that price! )
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note: free for today books, PA road trip HERE and zombies HERE 
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note: a nice overview article you might want to share with unbelievers, covering why unsustainability is the root cause of the current crisis HERE.  This was a suggestion from Green Mountain Dude HERE 
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23 comments:

  1. Off Topic:
    "States Ban Sales of Seeds, Meat Packers Closed, Food Shutdown" by Ice Age Farmer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2nUB_TFL0U

    Starvation coming your way if you don't have food stored. Grow a large garden!

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    1. I tried watching Ice Age a few more times. I still think something is off about him.

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  2. One other thing folks can put in the larder that I consider no cook and is easily transported would be oatmeal. I hate cooked oatmeal, but if you just soak it in water for a couple of minutes and maybe add a little sugar, it is pretty dang good to me. Instant can be used this way, but regular rolled oats gives me the same results in my opinion. Back when I was homeless, I shared this with a couple of others and they agreed this was a much better way of eating oatmeal.

    I shudder at your peanut butter pemmican recipe, mostly because it involves peanut butter. I still plan to try it though, there has to be a way to make it edible to me, lol.

    A word of advice for those going the MRE route, there is a reason laxatives are ones of the most requested items for care packages in letters home. I worked some music festivals where the bulk of my meals were MREs, at least I didn't have to stand in line for the porti potties very much.

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    1. The first week in the field we ONLY had MRE's. I didn't crap until the end. Then they brought in one hot meal a day, breakfast, and we got grits. That helped a lot the rest of the month. As far as cravings, we were scrounging for a second or even third MRE a day. We didn't need the calories, sitting security, but we wanted to keep eating trying to get the nutrients we were lacking. It was winter, but we lived 24/7 in our gear and I wasn't cold, so I don't think it was fat craving.

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  3. 130 a case, ouch. m.r.e.s are now yuppie unicorn cavalry rations only afforded by redoubters wearing rolex timepieces, while brandishing pre-1899 armaments. Maybe some beard boy operators dine upon them for waxing nostalgic of days gone by while serving the Empire's occupation forces. For the money a lot of life boat type ration kits can be assembled easily and in more quantity. It would be a great marketing ploy to create and package easy to make meal kits and label them with some outlandish deplorable names for impact and impulse buying. Call 'em "quarrantine dinners" "bunker lunches", "hermitage hoagies", "shelter in place soups", "apocalypse sustenance sauce", etc. There will now be aisles reconfigured in grocers supplying gayed up prepper supplies. The black eye and welts from this fiasco is going to leave a mark and stick in normies heads for a long time. Candy assed millenials will be lying to their grandkids in the future about how they persevered and thrived through the great covid pandemic depression of 2020. Angels are weeping at this shit show.

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    1. A little optimistic about the future, aren't you? :)

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  4. Would corn by the bag be as good as wheat because that's what the farmers grow down here not wheat

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    1. I had an issue in more than one bag of corn getting moldy in storage. A home grown corn dried rock hard on the cob is one thing, but I think the commercial stuff has too much moisture. If you have a giant solar dryer ( the ramp of hot hair leading to the stacked trays ) that might work, but I'd be leery. And I bought it when the bags were like $4. At $7-$8, the low protein and moist doesn't compare to $10 wheat. I'm sure farmers can offer something superior to the feed store. Perhaps ask if their stuff is suitable for long term storage.

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    2. I looked up the nutritional content of the cornmeal it's about the same in protein content as wheat and you cant get get wheat berries locally here we are pretty far away from where they grow it I'm in florida. The corn they sell at the feed stores is from local farmers we can grow corn just not wheat here

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    3. I seem to recall rice as half the protein as wheat, and corn in between those two. I could be wrong. Although, soft wheat is less than hard wheat. That might account for it.

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  5. “You could also make corn cakes out of it ( hot water to thicken, fried in grease, but to prep that you must boil it down to get it to stick together.”



    I think the pioneers referred to that as “Johnnycake”. I can’t imagine that it was very palatable though (Then again, I can’t imagine that relations with the opposite sex, in an era of weekly bathing, and airborne manure clinging to your skin, after sweating in the hot sun all week, was a very tantalizing option either :D It’s a miracle that anyone was born back then).

    Yes, the pinole was widely used by the natives in long treks. They carried a small bag of it, since a little went a long ways. I believe they placed around a teaspoon under the tongue, and held it there for a while, before swallowing. It expands, and is very filling, so the finer you grind it, the better.

    Good point on the no clean up meals. I was searching for some Uncle Ben’s rice meals. The particular version that I came across was a meal made in its own package, thus, no clean up. Unfortunately, no one had it. But as it turns out, it wasn’t all that cheap, so it was a deal breaker in the end.

    I think I’ll look for some Au Gratin potatoes in bulk. Hopefully I can find something that can be cooked in its own pouch.

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    1. I think its in an upcoming article, I mention those microwave meals. Not sure if they are in stock-I didn't check out that section in any of my trips.

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    2. Just as a follow up, I didn’t have much luck with the au gratin potatoes in bulk either. Though I did find the link below. 25lbs for $50. That’s not too bad of a price I suppose, but it’s only the potatoes. Any condiments such as cheese, are extra. I’ll keep looking. It’s looking like the old standby, top ramen, is kinda tough to beat. The other key, is to ideally find a way to get something that cooks in its own container. Clean up, when you live in the high desert, where water is at a premium, kinda sucks.

      https://allbulkfoods.com/25lb-Scalloped-Potatoes-Dehydrated/

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    3. Another thought that occurred to me, was a possible way to cook the dehydrated potatoes. If you had one of those wide mouth thermoses, you could place the entire plastic package inside of the thermos. Cut a small opening in the center at the top. Add the cheese, or whatever else you need. Add boiling water, seal, then wait a half hour so. The potatoes don’t cook as easily as noodles, so you’d need the thermos. I don’t think there would be a problem with chemicals leaching from the plastic, since technically, it has to be food grade. Of course I’m talking about the individual box servings, and so far, I haven’t found a good price on those.

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    4. Kroger was $1 a box, but that might have been a long lost sale ( time is flying here ).

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    5. Desert food clean-up DOES suck. It is a steep learning curve, but it is largely doable.

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    6. $1 a box sounds pretty good. I’ll check it out. I suppose the goal here is to find something that’s tasty, and that I can buy enough of in bulk to last for a year at a time. That way, when the next virus comes along, I’m hunkered down, and largely unaffected by it. I’m not in the desert yet Jim, but current circumstances are just about guaranteeing that I will be sooner, rather than later.

      Fortunately for me, if I really like something, I don’t suffer from taste fatigue very easily. For years, I ate my old standby of baked potato with butter, stuffed with broccoli, and smothered with cheese. Ate that almost every night. That’s about as complicated as my meals get too. I need to find a substitute. Something like that, that’s real easy, cheap, and tasty.

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    7. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I do plan on buying more long term survival rations, such as more wheat. But in the short term, I’d rather eat something that I enjoy, while I still can.

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    8. I'm trying to do the same thing, eat as tasty as I can before an all wheat/bean diet. Treating myself a little more. Tonight the burrito's had fajita meat instead of plain old hamburger. And an actual desert, jello. About the height of excitement. And the movie excitement is the new on Netflix Angelina Joleen action flick. Flying too close to the sun now!

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  6. Pucky and rumors.

    This morning 5am, I watched a YouTube video of empty hospitals in Hawaii, Ireland, brit-land, and all over fUSA.
    I clicked to get a link for BisonPreppers, and that quick... POOF!
    Gone.

    A search for the video gets only results for Caucasian heterosexual males with firearms fetishes creating fake news, and all the ways TheMainStreamMedia is dis-crediting them.
    Because fake.

    Irregardless, the twelve-minute video showed dozens of empty hospitals in big cities.
    Empty parking lots.
    Security guards confused by all the questions about 'where are the patients?'.
    No lines of desperation.
    No mass hordes of near-death staggering coughers.
    One guard said 'take all the masks you want, nobody here is using them'.

    *****

    How many remember the rumors of FEMA concentration camps?
    "The barbed wire faces in to trap detainees!"

    How many remember rumors of the al Qaeda crisis?
    Rumors of the inevitable destruction of the electric grid by terrorists crisis?
    The Greta-Gore Warming crisis?
    Rumors of the sleeper cells crisis?
    Rumors of the Ebola crisis?

    My suggestion to avoid a horridly awful lingering death by the latest crisis:
    Mute the volume and mask all televisionprogramming.

    *****

    Are virus rumor quarantines designed to 'FEMA camp' everybody without the bother of box-cars?
    Designed to get survivalists to consume our supplies prior to The Next Crisis?
    Diabolical!

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    1. Empty hospitals as all non-emergency treatments canceled. Empty tourist spots as everyone is unemployed. I don't know who is lying and who is right. Not sure I care. It was always about economics, though

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  7. I’ve made a lot of backpacking dinners by using instant potatoes, jerky and dried veggies to make a shepherd’s pie type casserole. Just add boiling water and stir, wait about 10 minutes and stir again. Hot dinner is ready. Not sure how those potatoes compare in cost to other carbs.

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    1. I think the tators kept going up in cost over the years, until it was too expensive to eat what normally tastes like crap. Kind of like tuna, in my opinion.

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