Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
BugOut66
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Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 2:52 pm

Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by BugOut66 »

So I don't grow any of my own food. Can't due to skill and geography.

Any tips on food I can start buying up and keeping in my stock room (large spare cupboard) for when the SHTF?

I've seen these bagged meals from muscle food dot com but they only have a shelf live of 6 months. I'm looking to start stockpiling now and not have to keep changing every few months.

Thanks in advance.
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Deeps
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Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by Deeps »

First thing first, what do you eat ? There's a prepper mantra of "store what you eat and eat what you store", for me it makes sense and while I've had to tweak my normal food to 'justify' a lot more tinned stuff its not been that hard. There's a number of factors that you need to consider, are you planning on staying put or running off to the hills for starters, how long do you envisage living off these stores, will you be able to produce 'cooking smells' without issue.....

We're all different. Have a forage through the 'scran' section, there's loads of stuff that might be of use to you. I've got galloons of tinned/bottled food, rice, pasta, dehydrated stuff (dehydrators are great) and I've even been making dehydrated meals to take away up the hills (hill walking, not evading zombies and the like). We also have an allotment and grow some of our own stuff, well that's more the missus's part of ship but I do the heavier stuff. I've also got a load of frozen stuff, something I would also suggest options to cook with too.

Basically, have a think about what will work for YOU, not me or what dudes on youtube are up to although no harm in having a nose of course. :D
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shocker
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Location: cornwall, near england

Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by shocker »

Dont blow your hard-earned on miracle meals, not yet anyway! I was told by Deeps when I first came her "Store what you eat, eat what you store".

Just buy a couple of extra items, dried or tinned, of what you usually buy. What you often eat. That way you will build up a store and you will be updating it as you go.

Thats the easiest and cheapest way to start a store. Then get some staples like pasta and rice, some dried milk and flour maybe, whatever your dietary needs allow. And some old fashioned, Good Housekeeping type cookbooks...again, maybe. Experiment with dried and tinned ingredients.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how fast it builds up. And you will not have to worry about shelf life as you will be eating the oldest items first and replacing, with a little extra, as you go.

Have a look at the backpages and hit the search function - theres loads about this on here ! ;)
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shocker
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Location: cornwall, near england

Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by shocker »

Deeps wrote:First thing first, what do you eat ? There's a prepper mantra of "store what you eat and eat what you store", for me it makes sense and while I've had to tweak my normal food to 'justify' a lot more tinned stuff its not been that hard. There's a number of factors that you need to consider, are you planning on staying put or running off to the hills for starters, how long do you envisage living off these stores, will you be able to produce 'cooking smells' without issue.....

We're all different. Have a forage through the 'scran' section, there's loads of stuff that might be of use to you. I've got galloons of tinned/bottled food, rice, pasta, dehydrated stuff (dehydrators are great) and I've even been making dehydrated meals to take away up the hills (hill walking, not evading zombies and the like). We also have an allotment and grow some of our own stuff, well that's more the missus's part of ship but I do the heavier stuff. I've also got a load of frozen stuff, something I would also suggest options to cook with too.

Basically, have a think about what will work for YOU, not me or what dudes on youtube are up to although no harm in having a nose of course. :D
Doh !! He beat me to it ! :(
*** NOW 30% LESS SHOCKING!!!***
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Jamesey1981
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Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by Jamesey1981 »

Mountain house has around a ten year shelf life, so if ready made stuff is the way you want to go then have a look into it.
Few drawbacks with it though, it's very expensive, even bought in bulk, and once it's open the shelf life is a lot shorter, so if you buy the big cans to save money and space then you won't be able to dip into it and just have a portion or two, you'll need to use the whole can fairly soon unless you can vacuum seal it again. It also gets dull fast, I used to take it hiking, now I mostly dehydrate my own meals.

My own food stocks are normal stuff, but chosen for shelf life, it gets rotated as I use it, as well as stuff that I have dehydrated.
Lots of rice, go for white rice, brown rice has oils in it that turn rancid, buy it by the sack, its cheap that way.
Dried beans and pulses, cheap, stores indefinitely if kept properly and swells up when you soak and cook them, so you get more food than if you used canned beans.
Pasta also stores well, can be bought in huge sacks.
Instant mash is also cheap and stores well if you keep it sealed.
Store some dried herbs and spices too, they will really liven up your diet, look in the world foods section, it's a lot cheaper to buy them from that section than the normal spice section usually, and they're usually the same or better quality.
You'll probably want some bags of flour, and maybe some bread mixes, high calorie and you can do a lot with flour, and it's always nice to have some bread.

I have stacks of tins, fruit, (include some citrus fruit, you need the vitamin c,) veg, fish and meat, I also store ghee, it's clarified butter, comes in tins from the world foods section again and you can fry in it, use it to make pastry or even just add it to stuff for some extra calories.
When you're looking for canned meat, have a look in the polish section of your supermarket, or head to a polish shop, you can get some stuff that's a bit more interesting than a lot of our canned meats, like tushonka (that's the Russian name for it, but the polish is similar) it's pork meat cooked in pork fat, it's not massively processed like spam, and there's another similar product that I can't remember the name of offhand that's made with cured pork knuckle, I like that a lot, you can also get shelf stable pate in soft cans that lasts a year or so.

You can buy stuff online like canned cheese, which is nice to have, but it tends to be a little pricey as it's aimed at the food storage market rather than normal punters.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.
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Deeps
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Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by Deeps »

shocker wrote:
Doh !! He beat me to it ! :(
You snooze you lose homes. :P

To add to Jamesy's ghee, we store plenty of olive/sunflower/veg oil. We like to make our own pakora and bought a wee deep fat fryer to do them in and the basic vegetable oil works better apparently. Condiments etc also, basically if you use it try and have it, or at least a work round, as has been said, UHT milk or dried milk, you can even get dried eggs (again, dehydrator threads) although I've not tried them myself.....yet. We have a butter churn although its a bit of a gimmick, we need to use whipping cream in it unless you're using unpasturised milk.

The list goes on and your situation will dictate what works for you, get fired in to the various threads.
Arzosah
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Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by Arzosah »

Definitely agree with dried peas and beans - lentils too, which don't need pre-soaking. All of them can be sprouted, or grown into micro greens, which takes about 5 days, indoors.

Other stuff: for flavour, tomato puree. Doesn't take up nearly as much room as passata etc.

Dried milk is useful in all sorts of ways. Dried fruit too. Supermarket own brand value ranges: peanut butter, peanuts, cashews. They're pretty long dates, though I store them in the freezer to avoid any question of rancidity before I eat them :mrgreen:

Teabags!

But as others have said, its really about what *you* eat. You can learn a few new tricks, new recipes, of course, and probably all of us would encourage that, but don't go all out buying new stuff before you know you like the taste, and don't bankrupt yourself buying "prepper" foods.

HTH
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Jamesey1981
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Re: Food to stockpile for a non-grower

Post by Jamesey1981 »

Couple of other things that I store that I forgot to mention, but whether you store them too will depend on your level of knowledge and the environment you live in.

I store a lot of salt and sugar, the salt can be used to preserve meat and fish without refrigeration, I'm right on the edge of a coastal town so I have access to the countryside so I can obtain meat, and I have rivers and the sea close by to fish in. There's also a lot of Wild and feral fruit that can be foraged, and the sugar can be used to preserve that for eating outside the growing season, so that's a prep that can help take me beyond the point where my stores have run out, and supplement what I have, making it last longer. Even if you're in a major city I'd be very surprised if there's no blackberry bushes on a bit of waste ground near your home, and you can eat them as they are, but if you can preserve some then that's some extra vitamins to supplement and extend what you have stored.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.