*July is Grain Month*
If you don’t have a food storage plan going by now, I can’t even imagine why and I can’t imagine what to tell you to get you started.
BUY WHAT YOU EAT AND EAT WHAT YOU BUY. My thought, when I started this monthly project, was to give basic ideas and get people thinking and evaluating a single broad category of their food stores every month as I did mine. But -- Buy what works for you! If you have any spare time this month - make sure all your stock is rotated and spend a few minutes making sure nothing needs to be rotated out.
July is Grain month. The suggested goal in the literature that I’ve seen is 300 lbs. of grains per person/per year. Fifty dollars this month will buy about 190 lbs. of grain, enough for about 0.6 man-years. If you’ve been following things along when I’ve posted you should be seeing that roughly $50 will buy you about 7 months worth of food for one person for that category each month. Stick with it for a year and you’ll have a solid 3 month ticket of food for two people.
One #10 can of wheat = 5.8 lbs.
One #10 can of rolled oats = 3 lbs.
One gallon of wheat = 7lbs. so a 6.5 gal. pail = 50lbs.
Storage - Moisture and especially oxygen are the grain enemies! Tightly sealed with an oxy absorber, a desiccant pack and a consistent 65-75F temperature and your grain will last a LONGGGG time.
Whole Barley - 8 years
Buckwheat - 12 years (the largest buckwheat pancake ever made, about 12 feet across and flipped with a tractor, was made at Brickett Mills just up the road from me)
Whole Dry Corn - 10-12 years or indefinitely stored correctly
Lentils - 24 months from the store or indefinitely if resealed correctly
Rolled Oats - 7-8 years
White Rice - 4 years from the store or indefinitely if resealed correctly
Whole Red or White Wheat - 12-14 years or indefinitely stored correctly
If you’re going to store grain, do it right! Get some food grade plastic pails, oxy absorbers, and desiccant packs and do it right! Vacuum packing in Mylar works just as well with an oxy absorber dropped in! If you’re going to use whole grains you need a grain mill of some sort. Ask around and folks will point you to good ones but most simple hand crank models will get you started and much cheaper than the multi-stone electric model you will eventually have to trade in a gun to get. Also - use this grain on a regular basis. If you start using whole ground wheat for your bread making in a SHTF situation, I warn you that you will not like the results on your body!
Here’s my list for July:
Whole Dry Corn - 40 lbs. $12.00
Rolled Oats 50 lbs. $18.00
White Rice 50 lbs. $12.00
Hard Red Wheat 50 lbs. $ 9.00
You know the drill - If you’re good to go already with one of those suggestions, move the money and buy extra of one of the others where you're a little weak.
And if you’re completely good on grain then you might want to spend this month’s $50 on making sure you’re solid on alternate cooking fuel such as socking in some extra Coleman fuel, propane, or wood. All the food in the world does you no good if you can’t eat it
Hope you’re having a great summer and getting a lot of garden food stored in too!
Stryder
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