Emergency food supplies

[neviander]

As far as emergency food supplies go, this looks like a good deal:

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/foodpak1.aspx

This deluxe one-year supply unit, along with a multivitamin and 4 gallons of cooking oil you add yourself, supplies all the nutrients you need to stay well-fed for a full year. The foods are all dehydrated or dry, packaged oxygen-free, and in this very compact form will store well and require minimal storage space. This 802 lb unit comes in 13 cases and 9 six-gallon Superbuckets. Storage area required is just 33 cubic feet (stacking example: 13" by 74" by 59".) The Mix-A-Meal Cookbook is included with FoodPak 1 with 110 pages of recipes for cooking with dry stored foods. Scroll down on this page for itemized contents of FoodPak 1.

FoodPak 1 will also serve as a 6-month supply of food for two people, a 3-month supply for four, and so on. Sealing lids are provided for all #10-size cans, so that they may be re-sealed after opening. FoodPak 1 offers a real abundance of long lasting, flavorful & nutritious food, and represents a value we don't think is equaled elsewhere... a lot of great food at very reasonable cost, delivered right to your door!

Cost is $1241.00.  Considering what you get, that seems like a really good deal.

What experiences, with reconstituting food, do the peeps here at APS have?  Given the Marxist formula for economic collapse that our government is following, to a T, storing food and just about anything else seems like a really good idea.

[Jamisjockey]

Stored food is unsustainable.  Eventually, it will run out.
If you're really worried, learn to garden.  And, learn to can your own food.  Can ahead for storage and to help you get through lean times.  For that $1200 you could start a heck of a garden.  You could easily get set up for canning and then buy vegetables and fruits to get started. 
Look at the crisis in Argentina in the late ninties as an inspiration for your planning.  Expect to be able to still get food, but for a much higher price. 

[RevDisk]

While having a few weeks food on hand is not a bad idea (cheaper if you know what you're doing), it's not a "magic fix."  As Jamis said, gardening is good.  You'd do well to invest in knowledge and skills more than just canned food and bullets.

[neviander]

Gardening is more ideal, but while I still have a job, and my wife is schooling, there really isn't any time to tend to a garden right now.  I suppose the backup food would be a good buffer if I ever did find myself unemployed, with no prospect of a new position, while I started my new garden :)

...which raises another question.  Which has the better shelf life, canned, or dehydrated?

[Tallpine]

Beans, salt, water 

Onions are nice too 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

spam for flavor

[Jamisjockey]

Gardening is more ideal, but while I still have a job, and my wife is schooling, there really isn't any time to tend to a garden right now.  I suppose the backup food would be a good buffer if I ever did find myself unemployed, with no prospect of a new position, while I started my new garden :)

...which raises another question.  Which has the better shelf life, canned, or dehydrated?

Canned I would suspect.  You could pick up good produce at the local market and can up a decent supply for much less than that survival kit. 

[41magsnub]

Notably missing:

[Tallpine]

spam for flavor

Or a .243 and a spotlight

[S. Williamson]

Those of us in apartments don't have the opportunity for a garden... 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Those of us in apartments don't have the opportunity for a garden...  

Lots of people with houses don't have the opportunity for a garden, either.  Leastaways not one substantial enough to feed your family.

And even if you have a garden, a sizable pile of stored food is still a pretty good idea.  A man can get mighty hungry waiting for the harvest.

[Ben]

/|\
 |
 |
What he said. From "The Backyard Homstead" by Carleen Madigan (Ben Recommends), ballpark figures for a quarter acre diversified garden / livestock plot:

50lbs wheat
280lbs pork
120 cartons eggs
100lbs honey
25-75lbs nuts
600lbs fruit
2,000lbs vegetables

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Ne'er mind.  I misunderstood.

[neviander]

50lbs wheat
280lbs pork
120 cartons eggs
100lbs honey
25-75lbs nuts
600lbs fruit
2,000lbs vegetables

Good grief, a quarter acre to cultivate all that, or just to store it? 

[Ben]

That sounds overly optimistic.

Not to me. I would say she's being conservative. That's a few pigs born per year. A couple of peach and orange trees will give you closer to 1000lbs of fruit. A walnut tree will give you triple the nuts she quotes. Her grain field is 20x50', which should easily yield more than 50lbs.

[KD5NRH]

Good grief, a quarter acre to cultivate all that, or just to store it?

It's all in the usage.  For the front yard, check out how many edibles can also pass as ornamentals.  Using potatoes as a border, for example, looks nice and can give you a hundred pounds or more of extra food.

[Gowen]

Those of us in apartments don't have the opportunity for a garden... 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_foot_gardening

You can do a lot in a small space.  Potatoes can be grown in a 55 gallon drum.  Learn everything you can on a small scale, then you can apply it to something larger later.

[Desertdog]

While doing regular shoppinig at the store, just purchase a couple of extra items that you are used to eating.  Rotate your stock.  Maybe check the health food stores for certain items for long term storage, such as canned flour, corn meal, oil, and salt, in cans, not bags that would be able survive a soaking if needed.  

Salt - a very good easy way to preserve your meat from the freezer if you lose power for days.  Learn ways to capture water.  Some areas the water is not a problem but some places (desert) it can be a big problem.  Learn your area and see what you may be able to utilize,if needed.

Collect, or learn, some real basic recipes that you can make on an open fire.  Firearms of course, with ammo for food and protection, depending on where you are.

Learn some wild foods that can be utilized if needed.  

As a town dweller, I'd more or less SOL without gov assistence except for self protection, except what food and water that would be on hand.  

Learn basic servival skills.

[Gewehr98]

Learn to like Long Pork, and don't be afraid to poke your fat friends in the ribs every now and then for tenderness.   

[Fjolnirsson]

Learn to like Long Pork, and don't be afraid to poke your fat friends in the ribs every now and then for tenderness.   

And, people are both slower and less crafty than your average white tail....

[Fjolnirsson]

Tongue in cheek comments aside, you'd honestly be better off building your own one year supply yourself, rather than spending that money on a kit. For one thing, you have no idea how your bodies will react to the food in that kit. High stress can be rough on the digestive system. Eating unfamiliar food will make it worse.

When you go to the store, buy extra, and put it back. Build it up and rotate it. Write down the meals your family likes to eat, and figure out how often you eat them. Then break them down into ingredients. Multiply the amount of ingredients needed in a month to figure out a true figure for a 6 month supply, or a year(or two, or three). Build your supply as you can(though if you can shell out $1200 for a ready made supply, you can do most or all of it at once.

Meanwhile, learn to garden. A major catastrophe is not the time you want to learn to grow food. It isn't as easy as just pushing seeds into the ground. If you don't have a yard, read up on hydroponics. Lots of good info out there.

[Balog]

In the "links I never thought I'd be posting on APS" dept...

Raising catfish in a barrel:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4474959_raise-catfish-barrel.html

There are perils if you aren't careful though...

http://www.freewebs.com/clarkshomestead2/catfishinabarrel.htm

Here's a .pdf of the original 1973 article that kicked the whole thing off as far as I can tell...

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/06_Prep_tips/Raising.Catfish.in.Barrel.pdf


Speaking of backyard food...

The best scientific look at raising rabbits on a small scale I've found:

http://pan-am.uniserve.com/pg000031.htm

As others have said, knowledge>stuff, assembling your own food stores>buying pre-made. If you live in an area with a high Mormon population they have a lot of good resources for setting up a one year store.

[Jamisjockey]

That at home aquaculture barrel is pretty cool 

[Tallpine]

Those of us in apartments don't have the opportunity for a garden... 

Don't you have a balcony 

Remember to space your pots of corn thirty inches apart 

[sanglant]

if you can setup the bed system, this will save you a lot of time but you pay cash for every minute you save