What food to store?

[taylor94]

Will have a look and see what I can find.

So I put the food in the bag with the oxygen thing, then freeze them?

Can i take them out the freezer after a certain amount of time or do they have to stay frozen?

Also I am about to start growing crops in my garden. Away to build my first raised bed and grow some good rooster potatoes. Once they are ready for harvest can I store them in the same way? I heard that you can use a pressure canner to preserve them for a solid year. Can do anything to extend that?

[Cromicon]

One thing I do as well as procuring water and food is to look at vitamins.

Water, we have regularly refreshed tap water stored in dark containers to avoid algae growth. As an ongoing source we have water butts filled via rain water that we will use in conjunction with water filters.

Food, we are currently storing tinned goods, rice and some pulses. The tinned stuff are the stuff we don't mind eating now so we rotate the stock (as per rice and pulses). However in recognition that fresh food provides a good amount of the RDA we need it's relatively inexpensive to maintain a stock of vitamins that would last years should fresh food not be available.

[vassili]

Delard, bet someone on here would gladly take the out of date tins of you if you were local and the tins were sound.

[delard]

Delard, bet someone on here would gladly take the out of date tins of you if you were local and the tins were sound.

Well I've got tins 5 years out of date now - I won't throw then away until they are say 10 years out of date. Would you really want to stockpile tins that old - knowing you might not need them for another 5-10 years - so they might be 20 years out of date before you use them? I know tins last a long time but there has to be a limit?

Yes I know people have found tins from many decades ago that were fine - but I wouldn't want to chance that unless there was no other choice.

The real lesson there is to be more disciplined about rotating stock. I'm sure I've bought new tins of those types and consumed them in the intervening years. I should have used the old tins first of course - but some got a bit lost in amongst the stockpile.

Vitamin pills is an interesting point. Somewhere I have a load of vitamin pills that are all way way past their date (bought like 2006 or something like that). They are all in their original sealed packaging and have been stored in a cool, dark place all these years. I wonder if they are still effective? I guess they won't hurt you - but may not do any good now.

I should probably bin the old vitamin pills and buy some more? Anyone know the details on vitamin pill effectiveness vs storage time?

- Delard

[Devonian]

I wouldn't worry about keeping Vitamins, there is so much debate about whether fresh ones even have any real benefit, let alone 10 year old ones.....

[delard]

I wouldn't worry about keeping Vitamins, there is so much debate about whether fresh ones even have any real benefit, let alone 10 year old ones.....

I'm not a big believer in taking vitamins in general - but if I ever had to live off supplies in my long term storage then they might be a good idea. i.e. I don't take them now - but if I was living off rice and spam etc for 6m then they might stop you getting sick.

In the days when sailors would live off supplies for months or years at a time they would get very ill from lack of vitamins.

In a TSHTF situation I guess you might have to live for a year or so on food with very little vitamin content (until the next harvest is taken) - so having a few bottles of pills might make a big difference. However I guess 10 year out of date pills will be little help.

[Devonian]

The difference with sailors being they were stuck on a boat out at sea and couldn't get fresh food. In a SHTF scenario you still have the option of picking wild (edible) plants, a copy the Collins Gem Food for Free book may be a better option to allow you to supplement your spam with dandelion leaves or marigolds?

[Cromicon]

The difference with sailors being they were stuck on a boat out at sea and couldn't get fresh food. In a SHTF scenario you still have the option of picking wild (edible) plants, a copy the Collins Gem Food for Free book may be a better option to allow you to supplement your spam with dandelion leaves or marigolds?

But do you really have that option though? I'm prepping for when you don't. If you're in a situation where you feel comfortable picking dandelions then more power to you. I'm not going to go out foraging for dandelion leaves when marauding gangs of looters are looking out for activity. For the cost, a couple of quid for a couple of hundred tablets, it's worth it.

Then, when its all goes a bit quiet and it's safe I'll be out there picking dandelion leaves with everyone else. And planting my crops.

[KrisWard]

The difference with sailors being they were stuck on a boat out at sea and couldn't get fresh food. In a SHTF scenario you still have the option of picking wild (edible) plants, a copy the Collins Gem Food for Free book may be a better option to allow you to supplement your spam with dandelion leaves or marigolds?

Must admit it is a great skill to have, I have started myself some time back, and found it really difficult trying to identify certain plants, there are general ones I now know, but to be proficient in forriging I think it takes a while..

so hats of to you for being so proficient, a state I hope to be in a few years lol

[Devonian]

The difference with sailors being they were stuck on a boat out at sea and couldn't get fresh food. In a SHTF scenario you still have the option of picking wild (edible) plants, a copy the Collins Gem Food for Free book may be a better option to allow you to supplement your spam with dandelion leaves or marigolds?

But do you really have that option though? I'm prepping for when you don't. If you're in a situation where you feel comfortable picking dandelions then more power to you. I'm not going to go out foraging for dandelion leaves when marauding gangs of looters are looking out for activity. For the cost, a couple of quid for a couple of hundred tablets, it's worth it.

Then, when its all goes a bit quiet and it's safe I'll be out there picking dandelion leaves with everyone else. And planting my crops.

If there are marauding gangs of looters around, I certainly won't be hiding watching them out of the window waiting for them to visit my house!!

The difference with sailors being they were stuck on a boat out at sea and couldn't get fresh food. In a SHTF scenario you still have the option of picking wild (edible) plants, a copy the Collins Gem Food for Free book may be a better option to allow you to supplement your spam with dandelion leaves or marigolds?

Must admit it is a great skill to have, I have started myself some time back, and found it really difficult trying to identify certain plants, there are general ones I now know, but to be proficient in forriging I think it takes a while..

so hats of to you for being so proficient, a state I hope to be in a few years lol

I wouldn't say I am that proficient, but I'm working on it and you'd be surprised just how many edible plants there are around us everyday, its just we are not aware of them. I guess it also depends where you live, here in Devon its obviously easier than if you live in Glasgow or Birmingham, but yes it is a skill worth developing, as also, you do not know how long your preps will last - what happens if your stash is stolen or destroyed, or you are unable to get to it for whatever reason???