*A Good Basic/Cheap Food Storage Program*
By Swabbie
OK, for whatever reason, you’ve decided that you need a little more food put away than you normally keep stocked in your pantry or on your cabinet shelves. The problem is that given the recent events, you’re worried about getting this store of extra food on hand NOW. If you’re like most of us, you make a median income of somewhere around $35,000; you have a house payment, credit card bills, utility bills, etc., etc. Welcome to the world of preparedness.
Now, the question is, you need MORE food and you’re on a tight budget. Where is that money going to come from? Well, a couple of quick guesses would be 1) one less trip to McDonald’s (avg. bill of $20) 2) skip the movies this week (up to $40 savings) or 3) skipping a restaurant lunch or dinner ($10-$50). So now you have a couple of hundred extra dollars to spend. Where to start?

Buying in Bulk

Hopefully you have a volume discount store near where you live. Something like a Sam’s Club, CostCo, etc. These places allow you to purchase food in bulk amounts that will need to be re-packaged into smaller, lighter, tougher containers. If you don’t have a membership in one of these places check with a friend or family member to see if they do. You can often go in with them and use their membership card to purchase the items you need/want. If you don’t have any of these stores in your area (and don’t live within easy driving distance of one) then you can still prepare using the local grocery store. It won’t be as cheap, but it won’t break you either. At your local grocery store you’ll just buy the basic staples in as large a quantity container as possible.

OK, now you’re in the front door, what are you going to buy?

At this time you buy NOTHING else. If you haven’t been in one of these stores before it’s like a kid in a candy store. There are tons of items and deals that you are SURE are exactly what you need/want. I hardly EVER get in there and then get out without a $300 bill. Remember you’re on a budget and you only need to get the ESSENTIALS for right now. Don’t worry you can go back and get a few other items that I’ll list later (for a little more advanced food program).

The Feed Store

Next you’re going to do something that is going to sound a little strange. Pull down your local copy of the Yellow Pages and look up the closest location for a Seed & Feed Store. This is the place that farmers go to buy livestock feed and seeds for their fields. It’s also the place that hunter’s go to purchase Deer Corn for their automated feeders (hmmmm, almost deer season, fresh venison, ooohhhhh). Opps, back to business! The item that you’re going to be purchasing here is Deer CORN (not Deer Feed), it should contain NOTHING but corn. This is also known as field corn or dent corn. This product is not your average everyday variety of sweet corn or garden corn. It is edible as a cooked corn, but barely. Now I want to re-assure you that this deer corn is completely safe for you to eat. If you like you can verify with the clerk at the feed store that it has NOT been treated in any way (NEVER buy seed, as this is almost always treated with a fungicide, etc.). You’re not going to be eating the corn as a normal vegetable. Its primary use is going to be as CORNMEAL.

Your Local Grocer

Your next visit is going to be at your local grocery store. There you’re going to buy 30 packs of Kool-Aid, Flavor-Aid, whatever it’s called in your neck of the woods. This can usually be had for 8 packs @ $1. Also at this time you’re going to purchase a GOOD brand of multi-vitamin. You’ll need enough for every member of your family for a 30-day supply. Try to stay away from the chewable unless you have children that absolutely will not swallow a pill.

Required Equipment

You’re going to require at least one basic piece of equipment to prepare your food storage items. I’m talking aside from the Pots & Pans that you would normally expect to use in food prep. That item is a GRINDER. The grinder is used to grind your corn into cornmeal (remember I said that this type of corn is barely edible). You should be able to locate your grinder at the local Sears. I believe they have a Corona Model that goes for around $27. This is a hand operated grinder (electric is useless if the power goes out).

So Far

So, what have we got so far? You’ve spent somewhere in the range of $120. You have the following items:

I can hear you saying already "What in the heck am I going to DO with this?". For those whose first thought wasn’t "What in the heck…." I’ll bet it was "Sounds like an awful monotonous diet. There’s NO variety!". You’re absolutely correct, it IS a monotonous diet. BUT, millions of Latin Americans have been living on a diet JUST like this for centuries. Most of them didn’t have the advantage of multi-vitamins to ensure a balanced diet (but they do throw in a few other veggies to break it up). We’re not talking about living life the same as it was before. We’re talking about not STARVING to death in a breakdown of normal food supply or even a breakdown of normal services (civilization as we know it). This WILL keep "body & soul" together until a somewhat normal life returns (IF it does). It’s up to you to learn HOW to prepare this basic supply into a variety of meals. I will provide a few examples later in this article.

Now you’ve got it, how do you store it?

OK, so you’ve determined that I’m not totally out of my mind. Now you have a variety (albeit a small one) of foods in various types of packaging. For the most part this packaging is short term and flimsy at best. At worst you’ve already ripped a hole in the sack of beans or rice. You now have to re-package these foods into a stronger and lighter bundle. This is to protect the food from insects (unless you LIKE the extra protein), provide a more durable package, and break it into smaller more easily portable units (just in case you find that you need to move out of a danger zone). The answer to your question is sitting right in front of your nose. Pop bottles! Yeah, those same bottles that you see EVERY DAY can be recycled into versatile storage containers. They’re everywhere, they’re tough, they’re resealable, and most important of all they’re FREE! Ask EVERYONE you know to save their bottles for you. You want 2 liter and 3 liter bottles; you want the one-gallon juice jugs, Gatorade jugs, everything BUT milk jugs (I’ll explain later). Wash these bottles out with soap and hot water. If you want you can fill them with hot water and toss in some bleach to remove odors and to sterilize them. How many do you need you ask? ALL YOU CAN GET!! When I first started I literally had hundreds of these pop bottles. Then I invested in different types of storage containers (vacuum sealers, five-gallon buckets, etc.). I still have a hundred plus of these types of containers in my garage. You’re on a budget so we won’t go into these other types of storage. After your bottles have been collected, cleaned, and THOROUGHLY dried (I mean NO moisture AT ALL) you’re ready to start repackaging your storage food. I use a funnel to fill my bottles with product. Some folks just dump everything into a clean bin/bucket and scoop product into the bottles with a small plastic glass. Use whatever works best for you. Go up to your local grocery store and get a bunch of the "banana boxes" from them, these are sturdy boxes that you should be able to get several bottles into based on which type of bottle you’re using. Be sure and reseal your bottles with the lids!

OK, Now what?

OK, you’ve followed my suggestions to the letter. You’ve acquired your extra food, you’ve located a good supply of empty pop bottles, they’ve been clean and are now filled with everything I said to buy. How and when are you going to USE this? First I STRONGLY suggest that you PRACTICE preparing these items NOW. Learn how to prepare them in different ways. Learn what type of spices and condiments you will need to fix good tasting, wholesome dishes. If you have children get them used to eating these different dishes. Here’s a "secret". In WW2 it was found out that during high-stress situations people would literally refuse to eat unknown foods. It didn’t matter how hungry they got they would NOT eat unfamiliar foods! Nutritionally you have the following: 1) beans and rice combined form a complete protein 2) rice provides a lot of long term energy in the form of starch/carbohydrates 3) cornmeal can be prepared in a variety of ways and adds essential amino acids and 4) of course the milk is high in Vitamin D and can be used as a flavor-enhancer. And least but not least the sugar can be used as a sweetener, another high calorie food source, and used in the prep of various dishes.

Some sample recipes and ideas

Of course there are the basic dishes, Beans and Rice.

Rice can be used as a breakfast cereal, warm it up, add a little sugar and some milk

The corn can be ground into cornmeal. Add water and boil until you have grits, add sugar and milk.

Take the exact same cornmeal and boil it, remove from heat and let it stiffen (in a short time you’ll swear it’s an industrial adhesive). Take the stiffened "dough", form into patties, and fry till golden brown on both sides. A simple sugar syrup (made up of one cup sugar and one cup of water boiled until the sugar is completely dissolved) to pour over cornmeal pancakes can make a hearty breakfast

Double grind your cornmeal to come up with a very fine meal. Boil it and you have polenta, served in many fine restaurants.

You can make a tortilla substitute by taking the same finely ground cornmeal above and adding just enough water to make a stiff dough. Roll or flatten out the dough into 6" circles and cook on a flat metal surface (these aren’t REAL tortillas).

These are just a few recipes. A quick search on the Internet can provide you with many more to experiment with and learn how best to use your storage foods.

I will be doing another article that will go a little deeper into a basic, simple food storage plan that will kick this program "up a notch". The next article will show you how to add a few more basic items to this plan and dramatically increase your options as to menus and recipes. With these additions you will increase your self-sufficiency up to 60 days. The above amounts should cover a family of 4 for up to 30 days.
 

Note: Plastic milk jugs deteriorate over time when exposed to sunlight. They make poor storage containers and can’t be resealed reliably

Swabbie

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