Emergency food

[harrygunner]

A friend showed me his stash of emergency food, enough to feed five for six months. He had it shipped from these guys: http://www.efoodsdirect.com
   
I'm in between a squirrel and a grasshopper, keeping enough to live through road closures or week long outages. Always throw my emergency backpack in the car if I'm driving more than a day's walk from home.

But, maybe I should pick up more to keep at home. Utah, mainly due to the Mormons, is big on survival supplies.

I drive thru the Salt Lake City area a few times a year. Any stores to recommend? Might fill the back of the Jeep with emergency food next trip home.

[tommac919]

I don't stock for the end of the world... but just enough for the family to make it through a natural disater for a few weeks ( Like Hur Sandy a while back ).

FYI, there are easier way to store food which can be alot cheaper than bought... if you go the 5 gallon bucket / mylar bags / o2 depletors and fill them with legumes (beans), rice, corn, any dried grain, etc you'll have more than you need at a low cost ( or even 2 liter soda bottles with an oxgen depletor for smaller amounts )  These will have a shelf life over 15-20 years at a fraction of $.
Rice in 50lbs bags are cheap at costco.

All the items you need can be gotten online shipped to your house, no need to shop... for that matter any of the big emerg food suppliers usu have sales.

My friend buys his stuff from here ; http://www.ldpcampingfoods.com/Mountain_House_Freeze_Dried_Food.htm
They run sales 3-4x per year and free shipping ( next one should be Jan  for Mountain House type #10 cans )

After a few weeks of zombies , I guess I'll head over to his place .  His basement is a costco   

[MCQUADE]

I look at food as an investment. It's only getting higher in cost each year. I have bought from Emergency Essentials and Augason farms (long term stuff). Mormon (LDS) canneries still allow non Mormons to buy/can there although I think that the canning part has shut down east of the Mississippi. Like tommac919 said, doing the 5 gallon bucket thing is cheaper for bulk rice and beans. We also garden and can alot of stuff. We also can deer meat and make jerky. Above all else, make sure you have an adequate supply of water!! Don't rely on town/county/government supplied water.

[harrygunner]

The buckets of rice and beans plus jerky is a good compromise. If infrastructure is out for six months, it probably won't be coming back for years. That is a whole other problem to address. There are edible wildlife around, but I'm sure they will be hunted to extinction very soon after the SHTF.

I've never experienced famine or great hardship. So, it's harder for me to gauge the level of the threat, where to draw the line. Probably true for most of us alive in the U.S. We've been lucky so far. But, certainly not immune to economic collapse.

I'll start with the buckets of beans and add other supplies over time.

Thanks.

[tommac919]

snip...
I'll start with the buckets of beans and add other supplies over time.
Thanks.

Rice and beans can be a great staple... and cheap to store away.

As to rice, remember to freeze the rice for a few days prior to storage, let sit out to dry again from condensation for a few hours then store in buckets ...freezing kills any possible weevils in the rice so it will store well long term.

There are many websites to show the best ways.

[Pinsnscrews]

An emergency stash of Canned Water is a good idea. The plastic water bottles are not that safe. The two different materials of plastic expand at different rates. The soft plastic cap expands the fastests, and can create a vacuum situation if it gets hot enough in your car. Basically, the water gets hot enough to start vaporizing. The pressure pushes against the softer cap, which has expanded more than the bottle itself, and pressure is released. Then, when the bottle cools, the softer plastic actually contracts slower than the bottle. So as the bottle contracts, the water itself cools, it pulls in air from outside the bottle, along with any bacteria, mold etc that happens to be in the back seat/ trunk of your car. Every summer the news stations around here warn people to be wary of bottles of water that have been sitting in their hot cars for days at a time. They recommend not keeping water in your car for long term. What they recommend is to take a large bottle of water with you each day, and to carry it into work with you instead of leaving it in your car. That way if you should have a break down, you still have clean water to drink, rather than take the chance with the water that has turned in your car.

My wife ignores this, and every summer she carries a case of water in the car to hand bottles to the homeless that are panhandling. I make it a point of checking the bottles at least once a week and throwing out any that look or feel questionable. I have seen mold growing on the water in several bottles, so I know there is merit to what they warn against.

For you folks in the colder areas of the country, just think what happens when that water stashed in your trunk freezes and thaws repeatedly.

[wingspar]

To illustrate long term storage of the common water bottles seen everywhere these days, below is a photo of a couple of bottles that have been in a kitchen cupboard for several years.  Why they are there is beyond me.  Just something forgotten about.  There were 3 others that I just opened, sniffed, and poured down the drain.  The caps on all 3 were cracked.  There was no mold, and the water smelled fine, but I wasn't going to drink it.