Whatcha got to eat? Or, how to keep the hungries at bay...

Since this looks to be another long post, I think I’ll be splitting into two parts. Part 1, today, is just on basic purchasing and storage. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss growing your own, gardening, and a few other things as I come up with them…

There are three things you absolutely cannot live without…air, water, and food. You can make it for up to three minutes without air, up to three days without water, and up to three weeks without food. But do any of you really think you want to only breathe every 2 ½ minutes? Drink a gallon of water every third day? Eat every second week, and go without, in between? Or, more importantly, do you want your children to have to do so? This is the thing that drives many folks to prepare—the concern for loved ones. Especially, those folks who have actually seen hardship and privation first hand…

When my father was growing up, his family was poor. And I don’t mean, they didn’t have a tv, or a new car every 5 years. I mean, my dad’s family was a family of migrant farmers. Today, migrant farmers are typically immigrants, of dubious legal status. But back up until the 60s, the vast majority of them in the deep South of the United States, were poor whites. Occasionally, my step-grandfather and grandmother would do a stint as a tenant farmer, but that is as bad in some situations as being a migrant. There were many times, when they were so impoverished, that lard on biscuits was high eating. And this was in the 50s and 60s. Not that long ago.

Memories of those times, drove my father to make sure that his family—both we children and our mother, as well as my aunt and grandmother—were cared for. That we had food to eat, and food put back, just in case. My dad would work two and three jobs, when I was young, to make sure of that. It didn’t matter how tired he got, he insisted on two things. One, that my mother be at home with us children—no one else is going to be responsible to the Almighty, for the upbringing of the children, but the parents. And two, that we eat. It did not matter what he had to do, he would do it. He would not go back to living the life he had been raised in, a promise he made with his sister, and that they have kept to this day.

That mindset, of the “Do whatever you have to do, go without yourself, work three jobs, it doesn’t matter, but make darned sure your children are well taken care of, and provided for” school, has been driven into my own psyche. I do not believe that it is anyone else’s responsibility to take care of my family, but El Husbando, and I. Proverbs 22:3, talks about a wise man seeing trouble coming, and preparing for it. While I hesitate to use the term “wise” in connection with myself, I do think that being prepared for events beyond our control is a wise idea. Yesterday, I spoke of how the extreme weather is resulting in folks not being able to get to the stores, and food not being able to get to the stores in the first place, to be restocked. Eventually, those folks who bought a dozen eggs, a couple loaves of bread, and an extra gallon of milk, are going to run out. Now, if they cannot get to the store to resupply, what are they going to do? Are they going to moan and cry and fuss because some government official didn’t get the roads cleared for them to make it to the store? Or are those folks going to be able to go to their pantry, open the cabinet door, and say, “Well, dear, we have powdered milk, plenty of canned veggies, pasta and sauces, enough meat in the freezer to last us a while. What would you like for dinner?” Which one of those pictures would *you* rather be a part of, if times got hard—either for a shorter term natural weather event, or a longer term economic one?

Some folks seem to think that having a good pantry built up is an immediate, expensive process, too complicated to bother with, for the average person. The mindset of “well, that’s okay for the Mormons” or “Those crazy nutjobs next door got another pallet in today”. But the reality of building up a pantry, is that it is *not* difficult, nor terribly expensive, if one goes about it the right way, with a plan in mind before you start out, and a clearly defined set of goals set out in advance.
There are many websites out there, that will sell you a pallet of dehydrated food in #10 cans. Vacuum packed, with oxygen absorbers, and everything. But for most of us, “dinner in a can” is not really what we are looking for, when we think of building a pantry. The best way, I have found, to actually build up a pantry you know you will eat and use, is to simply buy more of what you normally eat, usually when it goes on sale. And, if what you normally eat is processed, start trying to make it from scratch. Yes, scratch. Homemade food. I know, it takes more time. Most folks reading this blog are stay at home moms, and some of you are homeschooling. It is not easy, as I well know, to cook from scratch when you’ve got one or more little people directly underfoot, two or three more at the kitchen table dawdling over schoolwork, and a house that desperately needs cleaning. But it is far better for you, and actually a good way to cover those valuable “home management skills” many of us were missing when we left home/married/had children ourselves (notice I am including myself here). I know, as much as you hate to hear it—involve the children. The mess. I know. The loud, loud talking (I know, I know..it gets on my nerves too). Believe me, this is important…

My nine year old can make bread. Seriously. GOOD bread. Admittedly, it is the 5 minute artisan bread that does not require kneading. But she can make it by herself, with little to no help from me. I generally do the shaping, or direct her to make it into rolls in the muffin pans, but she can do it all by herself. So bread baking is not this mysterious art only reserved for the properly trained. You too, can do it. With four ingredients. No joke—flour, water, yeast, salt. That’s it. We have used it for pizza dough, rolls, artisan bread, grilled it in our fireplace, made cinnamon rolls with it, cloverleaf rolls, etc. It is YUMMY. And easy easy easy. Now, if my 9 year old daughter can make bread—so can anyone of you reading this. Probably, any of your children can, too, if they are 8 or older and able to follow simple directions. If something this basic to life (bread), is so easy to make, then maybe this whole cooking from scratch thing, isn’t so exotic, difficult, and time consuming as food manufacturers and processors would have us believe.

But wait, you say. If I’m cooking from scratch, what about ingredients…??? And recipes?? A great cookbook, is the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Another good one, is that favorite, “The Joy of Cooking”. Two large, very broadly based cookbooks, with lots of good ideas, recipes, techniques, etc. Get a good, solid hardcove version—a spiral bound, flat-laying version with the metal spiral, not the plastic, is a good idea, too. I hesitate to say, have each of them removed from their original spine, and have them then spiral bound at your local office supply store, but it can be done, and is a good idea, especially for a book you would use frequently.

Now, ingredients. Those tricky little things that trip us up when we don’t plan our menus around our pantries, and instead plan whatever we’re going to eat “on the fly”. Stocking up a pantry has to involve ingredients, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now…I think you will find that if you plan ahead…and make more foods from scratch, you will find an increasing amount of money savings, not to mention better health, and a certainty that if the Hamburger Helper stash in the cabinet runs out, you *will* be able to cook something for dinner…What do you eat? Sit down, every evening after the children are in bed, or throughout the day. And write down what your household has eaten. Snacks, meals, etc. Don’t forget any lunches out, or the lunches your DH eats while he is away at work. At the end of the week, sit down and look at it. How many frozen bags of veggies, or cans, did you eat per day/per week. What about meat? What kinds, how much did you go through, etc. Once you’ve done this for a couple of weeks, up to a month, you’ll have a good idea of what you are looking at, as far as regular food consumption. This will also tell you what foods you like, are used to eating, etc, not to mention, give you a leg up on finding a homemade version of whatever it is that tickles your family’s tastebuds. There are websites, and programs you can buy, that will tell you how much food you “should” need per person, in a given month/year. That’s all well and good, unless you have growing children, in which case, the numbers need some skewing. You really need to look at your family, because your family is different from every other family out there… One good, overall, program I would recommend is Revelar’s Food Storage Planner. Here is a link to a supposedly free downloadable program…

http://ptf.com/download/food_storage_planner/601062/

It is definitely a worthwhile thing to have. And it has a number of additional features that worth investigating, when you have the time and inclination. I can highly recommend it, as we purchased it years and years ago and have updated and used it off and on ever since. This will make the next step of your food preparedness easier to handle…

So, you’ve found out what you eat. And now is when to start comparing the prices of the stores around you. What is a good price, per can, per oz, per lb? I know, for instance, that if I pay more than $.40/lb for sugar, I’m paying too much. You *can* find it for that price, you just have to look. And keep track. This is where what some folks call a price notebook comes in handy. A little spiral bound notebook, easy to stick into a purse or a pocket, a diaper bag, whatever, when you go to the store. Keep tabs on what the running price is (and keep an eye on those prices, cause they are going up). Find the best prices for the things you have to buy regularly. This doesn’t require extra trips on your part, just when you go to a given store, check and see. This is assuming of course that you don’t only go to one store, because it is ‘better’ than the others, or more conveniently located. If you do this, you may be missing some really good deals, and really good sales. Think outside of your comfort zone a bit here, and explore some newer/out of the way places, if you can.

Giving yourself some time to get a price book going is a good idea. Chances are, if you are like me, you have a stash of grocery store receipts in your purse right now…(yes, right there next to the checkbook, that ink pen that has no ink left, the wadded up tissue, the copy of your church bulletin from last month, and a business card from someone you know you should remember, but don’t). Check them out, and see what the prices were that day, at your store. That’ll give you a little bit of a start. Check those prices out, in comparison, when you go out. Where is the better deal? Simply knowing where—and what—the best prices are, enables you to wisely take advantage of good sales, and stock up. You may be able to fill a niche, just because you chanced across a sale price that was light-years better than the ones you usually see and pay.

But talking about price books, and how to go about getting the food, really glosses over, the main idea. Yes, you need to buy and stock up on what you will eat. But what you really ought to be doing, is making sure that you are not relying on store bought, processed foods, but instead are learning to make your own. Buy the basics—especially those basics that there is NO way you can grow or produce yourself. Baking soda, baking powder, sugars, salt, honey, rice, beans, oatmeal, vinegars, oils-- these are things that by and large, we cannot grow or raise on a small scale property. Herbs and spices—many of them simply do not grow in the climate zones of the US, or maybe don’t grow where you are. How many of those do we use and not think about, every single day? There are many things that as times have changed, and transportation has become faster/easier/cheaper, have come to be “standards” in our day to day lives, that have not always been available to most of the world, most of the time, if at all.

There are those who will say “But, I don't have room" line. PISH POSH! There is so much more space in the average American home than we use, that it is nearly shameful. Clean out a closet, and use it for an additional pantry. Put an extra shelf in the top of *all* your closets (you and I both know that there is a TON of space up there, that goes unused), and store things up there. Under beds, couches (especially if they have skirts). Double and triple stack things in your cabinets. Shoot, before we had children, and had to do away with such niceties as tableclothed end tables, DH and I used brand new, smallish sized plastic trash cans, with a big round wooden lid on it (covered with a nice tablecloth that matched our curtains) as end tables in our family room (not here—this was eons ago, lol). Talk about a ton of storage! Space that would have gone completely to waste, was not only put to good use, but discreet storage, as well. Rubbermaid totes store things like grains pretty well, if you make sure to freeze the grains thoroughly for an extended period, to eliminate bug eggs, etc (yes, there are bug eggs in the food. Shoot, used to be, folks had to sift the bugs out of their flours and such, which is one reason sifters came into being). No sense storing food if you are going to let pests get to it. Those lovely 5 gallon buckets that the frostings come in at bakeries nationwide, are another good resource for finding food-grade storage on the cheap. You can also find them at HomeDepot (although I am not sure about them being food grade, and would hesitate to store anything not in its original packaging in them). A set of shelves, can make for a lot of space, especially if you have a basement. Go up, not out. Keep your shelving neat, and clean. Store like with like, keep those nifty cardboard “case” boxes, that canned goods come in—they help to keep things in neat rows, and make it easier to move, and organize…

So, what did we discuss today? Well, let’s recap:

First of all, preparedness isn’t for the abnormal, paranoid folks. It’s for everyone. Because you never know what tomorrow will bring, it is best to be prepared, and able to take care of yourself (it is NO ONE else’s job to take care of you, prepare for you, provide for you and your family. NO ONEs. Got that? Okay, good). Now, buying extra amounts of food to put back for your family’s use, is not abnormal, except to someone immersed in the current “it will always be available” mindset. This is wrong, and historically proven false. *WE* are abnormal, these days, for not putting food up, for not looking down the road, and relying on a rather extremely fragile train of transportation and resupply, to take care of our food needs. How to best start building up a pantry? Start with buying more of what you already do, and put it back. Even a can or two at a time, can make all the difference in the world, if the power goes out and there’s no way to get anything more to eat. Just put it on the shelf. Pantry-building is not a one time, expensive, deal. It is an on-going process that changes and develops as your family’s needs change. Keep that in mind as you go. Also, bone up on your ‘cooking from scratch’ skills. Not just dumping food from one can into a big pot (although that does have its merits from time to time), but instead, really learning what food IS, and what it does…and how best to prepare it. Start small, but be consistent. Grab an extra sack of sugar, flour, beans, and rice, when you go to the store the next time. Go ahead and get that extra canister of salt, and put it back. Grab two jugs of vegetable or olive oil, and put them into the back of the pantry. Start *somewhere*, but start *TODAY*. It doesn’t have to be much, but doing something, is better than sitting back in confusion, doing nothing, until it is too late.

Remember the 7Ps—Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Pi$$ Poor Performance. Memorize it. Are you prepared? How would you fare if there was a massive storm to hit suddenly, and keep you in your house for a week or two or three? Go look in your kitchen cabinets. What do you see? How much of it? How many times a week, a month, do you go to the store? Do you plan your menus out, weekly, daily…at all? Spend some time really thinking about what you are prepared for…and if you come to the conclusion you are *not* in fact, prepared for anything at all, much less something extended and drastic, start to think about ways to *get* to a better preparedness level…

Now that I’ve given you something to think about the rest of today, I’ll leave you to your thoughts—share them if you want—I’d love to hear from you. Are you preparing? Do you know people who do, and do you think that they are weird? Are you some Idahoan preparedness demi-god, who can teach us all a thing or four? Please, go ahead! Visitor participation is not only welcomed, it is encouraged!

Til tomorrow folks,