Food

So, I brought up Water as probably being the most important thing we can figure out. I made that post mostly for newcomers that may just be getting into prepping and with that in mind, I thought I'd point out some food stuff. I would love additional input.

Food I think is second to water, and there are several layers to getting food. The first layer would be to simply get storable foods, so here are a few good deals:
ShelfReliance
Grab & Go Meals
Premium 1600 Year Supply of Food
MREs
Food Insurance
Dehydrated Food for Home Storage


If you can't get these for some reason, or you don't think they fit your particular lifestyle, just buy extra dry and canned goods when you go grocery shopping and build your stocks up slowly. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing effort. Couple of things that a lot of people tend to overlook would be vegetable oil and vinegar. Vinegar is great because it can be used for multiple things, like cleaning. If you have the Apple Cider vinegar, you can put a little in a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and punch a few holes in it and catch any fruit flies that may be annoying you.

So, those are good starts and are easy to get access to right now. But, they cost money and will eventually run out. There are a few skills it would help to start learning now. Obviously hunting & fishing & foraging are three important skills in gaining access to food. We have forums about that on siloutdoors.com that are free access, so I'm not going to spend time on them. I'll only say it's important to play to your strengths and if you are weak on any of them, that's where community comes in... which is the entire purpose of SARC. You can ask any questions you have about those in the appropriate forums.

If you are not a hunter or gatherer, but you have a savvy green thumb, then gardening/farming is also incredibly important and productive. These can be singular or communal efforts and there are a lot of different ways to approach gardening in particular. If you're in an apartment or just want to save ground space in your garden, I've used the Topsy Turvey and had great results. I've also used the Upsy Downsy and the Strawberry version... all worked well and all of which are available at Walmart I think. Here's a good blog that has some more detail on it if you're interested.

If you have a yard, but not much space, you could try a 3 Sisters Garden method that the Native Americans used. The short and skinny is that it's a symbiotic relationship gardening setup, each plant benefits the other. You can migrate this to other vegetables as well. Here's a list. There's also Tire Gardening, which I'm going to try with Potatoes this year. Although I'm planning on doing the tire stacking method.

There's also community gardening, which totally depends on your community and how much you trust the people in your community. If you think about it, we have a whole lot of public space we're paying taxes on that doesn't do anything. And then, to add insult to injury, we have to pay someone to take care of it since they changed the rules on using criminals for public work projects like that. If you live in a community that has a space that would make a good garden, you can try pitching the idea at a local townhall and see if anyone would be interested in using the space.

The idea is simple, people in the community that are interested put in time to cultivate and raise different plants and everyone who puts in the time share in the results. Now, obviously there will be those that put in more time and those that put in less and how you work out the details to make that work would be on you and those involved. A nice benefit is that it would connect you with like minded people right there near you that maybe you didn't know were there and develop good habits in case the price of food gets out of control. Not to mention, just getting kids involved so they understand where food comes from is a great learning experience.

So, ok... all of this is fine and dandy, but what about storage? If there is no electricity, how do you store all this? Here's a few methods that you may be interested in learning:
Canning
Dehydrating or Drying
Solar Powered Refrigerator

I will be honest, I'm not strong on any of these yet, but if there is someone reading that is, please add your 2 cents.

Once you get a routine down, you should check out this link. It's a list of things you probably aren't storing, but probably should be... and why. They are LDS, but not preachy, so if you're anti-LDS for some reason, maybe don't go there... but if you're interested in some excellent info, great link. Great blog really.

Also, if you aren't a meat eater, or you are unsure of your ability fish/hunt and get the protein you'll need to stay healthy, check out Quinoa as a storage items. Gluten-free source of protein.

Any other inputs or thoughts on food are appreciated.