Re: Storing food for an emergency

[Guest guest]

>I was looking at those sites that have information about buying food in

>bulk for an emergency. Like 6 to 12 months of food and supplies for

>your family.

>

>Most of the stuff was not all that good for you. I live in the

>northern climes, so in that sort of case I'd be easily looking at 6

>months of stored food.

>

>Anyone have good ideas for storable food that is more native nutrition

>oriented?

1. Salted beef and fat. Really easy: get a bunch of salt, pack meat in

salt. It turns into something like proscuitto and keeps forever, and

the fat turns into lardo. You can use half salt, half sugar and spices

if you want to get fancy. Salted anchovies are good too.

2. Kimchi/kraut. Keeps a LONG time in a cold cellar. Fermented

tomatoes make a killer spaghetti sauce, I hear, tho I haven't tried

that one yet.

3. Root vegies keep in a root cellar. Carrots/potatoes you can

just leave in the garden all winter if it isn't too cold, or mulch them.

4. If you want to store grains, all you have to do is keep them dry.

100 lbs of rice will go a long way. You just have to keep the bugs

out (plastic sealed bags are good for that). Alternatively, learn

to eat the bugs for extra protein.

5. Dehydrate anything and it will keep. I'd love a solar dehydrator,

but my lil American Harvest works good. You can also buy

dried fish and shrimp at most Asian stores, and they are just

loaded with good stuff.

6. Wine. Wine was the preferred method for storing fruit juice

(or cider). Wine, properly prepared, keeps for years and is loaded

with vitamins. If it goes " bad " it turns to vinegar, which is useful

also!

7. This isn't " keeping " food, but if you have a little pot or two of

collards or kale, you have fresh greens any time you want,

which are FULL of vitamins that are hard to get otherwise. Parsley

and other herbs too. Herbs go on forever, and parsley and collards

grow for 2 years.

8. Nuts. They keep best if they are cool or vacuum packed (they

go rancid) but they are really good food.

9. Eggs, stored properly, will keep a year at room temp. One easy way

is to pack them in salt. Of course if you like the " 1000 year old egg "

style you can eat them fermented too. Or keep boiled eggs in vinegar

( " pickled eggs " ).

The book " Keeping food fresh " covers a LOT of food storage

as it was used in France for just the purpose you talk about.

Tons of ideas, all NT-friendly, most very easy. Life on a farm

was all about keeping food over the winter.

My Mom always claimed you should have enough food in the

house to last 2 or more months, and I agree with that! Actually

we store enough to last a year or so, but much of it is frozen

so it wouldn't last through a *real* emergency. I think if you

are planning though, laying in a few hundred pounds of salt

is the way to go. You can buy " animal grade " salt for $5 per 50 lbs,

and it seems fine to me (might have a little dirt in it, but it's safe

enough).

Heidi Jean