Nutrition and food storage

It is practically impossible to design a diet based on unrefined starches and vegetables that would fail to provide enough protein, including sufficient amounts of all of the essential amino acids, to support human health.

Nor is it necessary to combine "complementary" plant sources to provide complete protein.

Plant Foods Have a Complete Amino Acid Composition

Good news for us as far as food storage.

Inexpensive bulk wheat, rice, beans, and corn can produce a living diet for our families.

Add dried/dehydrated/freeze dried foods and sprouting and one could most likely live better and healthier from storage food than our current diets.

To prove this point - document everything you and your family eats every day for a month... If you were ever disgusted and afraid this will do it, I hear far too much about nutrition from the yuppie survivalists out there and never a review of the current eating standards (or lack of them). To be honest if your diet is crap now, when forced to eat (and cook) bulk storage food you would most likely have several steps up in quality!

I shudder at what my wife and kids survive on NOW, the wife and all but one child think that the food groups are what make the boxes square and what makes the colors printed on the fast food wrappers!

Nutrition, yes the sugar is different!

Listen to a real scientest explain solid research about glucose, sucrose and fructose.

Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public

Prepping, start small and simple

Beware the "mall ninja” approach& to your preparations. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much of the yuppie survivalist big-money types that fill some of the blogs.

I am a confirmed gun wonk of the first order, and the very nature of the "gun culture" can lead anyone into excessiveness. Yes buy ammo and a good selection of good firearms, but the most needed supplies will not be very "sexy”.

Evaluate your situation, at this point it looks as if we are going to have an economic collapse& and it will take some time and will be more obvious than we expect.

The time is here to stock "fill ins" such as canned goods, start with adding a few cans every grocery trip, I suggest items that complement your dry good storage, items of higher vitamin content that are not available in reasonably priced dry form.

Canned food info - storage life

A canned food storage rack

Canned foods suggestions:

Carrots

Sweet Potatoes

Pumpkin

Spinach

Tomatoes and paste

Peaches, pineapple, blueberries and other fruits

Meats (tuna, ham, and others)

Milk

Peppers and Salsa blends

Dried foods

Potato flakes

Milk

Rice

Beans

Eggs (not always available at the grocery store, try mail order)

Pasta (whole wheat)

Wheat (not always available at the grocery store, try local Health foods suppliers)

Adding small selections of items each trip will help add to the storage plan.

Long term food storage information, Wendy Dewitt of LDS

One of nine videos from a lovely woman who is part of the LDS church (Mormon), lean on the LDS - EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT LDS - I am not, and I use them for information on this issue. I don't have to agree with the spiritualism but the wisdom of the preparation is useful. The LDS has huge amounts of information on food storage.

Food storage, go to experience - LDS members.

















Food Storage Seminar, "Questions and Answers"

Rice for long term storage and more with the rocket stove

I always thought long grain white rice was tasteless mush, I prefer the nutty taste of short grain brown rice, the problem for storage is that brown rice will go rancid. White rice will easily go for five years in storage without massive change in taste. In our store of rice I did note a change in taste with our 10 year old storage rice in vacuums packages, they had all lost their vacuum seal but the taste was not offensive except for a few packages that had absorbed moisture from sloppy packing in the bulk 55 gallon barrels in the barn (the grain of the rice broke the packages open when rubbing together).

My favorite way of (I should say the only way I truly enjoy) eating long grain white rice is for breakfast or a snack with sugar and cinnamon in a bath of hot milk (or soy milk)...

1 cup of rice cooked

1 cup of milk

1 tablespoon of sugar (or more to taste, for a snack this can be lots more)

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (or more to your taste - I often use more than a tablespoon)

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla if desired

Cook lightly and serve or throw into a blender for total mush.

Add rice to your packaging for a change of taste with your carbohydrate food storage.

Simple, long lasting, and easy to cook rice is a great addition to your storage, sadly it is also low in nutrition and taste.

Use of a pressure cooker for TEOTWAWKI

Grandma was not an idiot!



In the days before the microwave a faster way to cook was invented and the low tech nature and fast times make the pressure cooker a must for preparedness.

Our family plans include lots of dried bulk goods and portable propane tanks (propane, safe for indoors as long as you keep an eye out - I suggest a battery operated carbon monoxide detector - you need one with a wood stove anyway).

With the availability of inexpensive propane tanks and inexpensive cook tops (camper style) there is no reason to forget the pressure cooker.

Two burner table top propane cooker

Save time, save water, save propane! They can even be used over a simple wood stove or campfire.

Camping folding stove

Years ago we learned, when we moved up in altitude to the mountain west that dried goods particularly beans don't like cooking in altitude, in fact our favorite crock pot became almost useless - beans do not cook at altitude - but with a pressure cooker not only will they cook but fast...

We use the 5-7 minute pressure cooker "pre-soak" (don't forget the salt from the start)- that is start timing when the pot comes to pressure (that chugga, chugga with the steam whistle) then off the heat until it lowers in pressure to be safe to open, add spices, then bring back to pressure and cook for 7 to 15 minutes - DONE!

Get a good quality stainless steel model and extra gaskets! The cooker and gaskets are not expensive.

Don't use an old used cooker, they can be dangerous, the new models almost all come with a break out safety, and a pressure lock. Keep them clean and in good shape and they will last decades.

Pressure Cooking

Primer

You do not have to break the bank with the expensive units like the The Kuhn Rikon Duromatic from Switzerland, Presto, Mirro, T-fal, Wearever, Fagor, and others are tested, safe, and do their jobs.

They even have small 1.5 quart and lighweight models that can be used for backpacking!



Cute little thing!

Sprouts for variety and nutrition in your preparedness storage

Sprouting makes a superior nutritional product, for easy transformation of carbohydrates into other nutrition.

Simply sprouts are a LIVING plant, and LIVING plants as do all LIVING things change their surroundings by the NATURAL processes of LIVING creatures.

As much as some may want to attribute this to some "grand mystery" that "no scientist can understand" this is no mystery! Of course the simple minded may want to think that with a little mind control propaganda this is something that could "shame scientist and skeptics" it is far from that, in fact it is just several simple natural processes that have been well known for MANY years.

LIVING things in the form of sprouted seeds or beans change stored carbohydrates (and at least 8 times the water content) into other nutrients.

Carbohydrate molecules are broken down by the plant during sprouting growth and mix with absorbed atmospheric and water suspended chemicals into new chemicals.

The standard dumbfounded 'merican will have huge problems with a fast turnover from the typical poisonous fast food diet to a natural one, they will suffer, learn, or die! Tough stuff, I have lost my desire to want to convert the stupid, it is time better spent sleeping.

I have been a whole food eating vegetarian for over 25 years and a, a vegan for the first 15 of them. Storage foods are just standard! For my variety, I keep 12 different beans, rice, spices, canned goods, and some oils. The typical meat eater could simply add a few meals with small game and even the average 'merican could be satisfied (especially when hungry).

A single meal that combines the meat of a bird, fish, or small mammal, or plant proteins three times a week with the standard dried storage foods, sprouts and other small additions is better nutrition than what 98 percent of americans get NOW!

Cooking with less materials - the rocket stove concept

Showing the construction



Aprovecho Research Center

Rocket Stove information

Five Earth-Friendly Cooking Technologies and How to Build Them (PDF)

For heating

Food storage use and DIY links

Food storage use and DIY links

A helpful young woman from the LDS church providing more information for storage.









Link payback for her nice videos Every Day Storage

Youtube link