You have your food storage, now what to do with it?

[Iggy]

Okay- you have your food storage all packed away. You have all of the non-edible items too- t.paper, medicines, hygiene products, etc., etc..

You are rotating it to keep it fresh.

But, what if you lose electricity/water for a week, up to a month or more? Will you be able to cook food? Cleanse your body? Keep your home clean, dry, warm/cool?

From my own experience I can relate to you how to make do with very little to no running water. Or no electricity for a short period of time.

WordFlood, do you have links that would also teach us how to survive without the comforts of modern appliances?

[LarryKJ7YM]

Can anyone here suggest a good and hopefully less expensive Canning Sealer. I can hardly believw how much they cost. Next mont our Mylar bag sealer should arrive. We followed the storehouses lead and bought the same model they have. I think the 350.00 cost is an at cost amount, but still a large some for our humble family. However we are more than a hundred miles round trip and that adss up to many many hundreds of dollars at todays fuel prices if we were to commute every time we got a little extra food. I believe for this to work for me I will want to hammer at it every payday a little at a time for a very long time. It will certainly be a lot more convenient ant that should raise our participation level a lot. Might just be a wash though, we will see. It would be nice to put everything in Mylar but I have lost food to rodents in the past. I like the idea of putting the Mylar in 5 gal. metal buckets, but have no idea where to find such buckets. It seems the world is all about plastic these days.

Larry Casa Grande, AZ

[pam]

Originally Posted by Iggy

Okay- you have your food storage all packed away. You have all of the non-edible items too- t.paper, medicines, hygiene products, etc., etc..

You are rotating it to keep it fresh.

But, what if you lose electricity/water for a week, up to a month or more? Will you be able to cook food? Cleanse your body? Keep your home clean, dry, warm/cool?

From my own experience I can relate to you how to make do with very little to no running water. Or no electricity for a short period of time.

WordFlood, do you have links that would also teach us how to survive without the comforts of modern appliances?

Sometimes I think it's nice to hear advise from someone who has experienced it. Experience is the best teacher. I would love to hear what you have to say.

[Jenamarie]

I'm not WordFLOOD but I have some ideas.

My husband and I planning to buy a butane stove to cook with when we have no electricity. It's basically a single gas burner that you can use inside (as opposed to a propane stove or grill you have to take outside) One canister of butane lasts for 16 hours, and the stoves are very compact and easy to store. Caterers use them a lot to keep food warm, or cook small quantities of food on-site. They're very inexpensive too.

If you live in a sunnier part of the country there are "solar ovens" that use sun light to cook food, and can also be used to draw moisture from the air for water. They're a little pricey, though, and bulky.

As far as keeping our house warm, we thankfully don't live in a very cold part of the country, so wearing our "outdoor" gear inside (hats, jackets, etc.) wouldn't be unfeisable or terribly uncomfortable, and then we'd all sleep in the same bed at night, in the smallest room in the house, with the door closed. We have lots of extra blankets that we could use.

For personal hygiene we have a huge Costco-sized box of baby wipes. We can use that to clean our bodies, and reserve water for cleaning our hair.

[meredith14]

We live in an area where we lose power for days. So we use our camping gear. We have several camp stoves that use white gas along with a heater and light. We have a years supply of firewood to keep warm and we also would move into one room and not heat the rest of the house. When we don't have power we go to town to wash clothes but I do dry them on a line here at home. I don't know what would do for long term "EVERYONE" is without power kinda of thing. I can most of my food stuff to be shelf stable. I don't want to lose a freezer full of food.
Back to the water issue..we live on a well and when power goes out we lose the use of a toilet. So we have 2lt plastic bottles filled with water to use for the toilet. I store them on there side under shelf that has space. We don't use for drinking so I don't ever rotate them.

Larry- i find plastic buckets at restaurants. I ask them to save them for me with the lids in tack. I like them better cause you can keep them cleaner and move them around for rotation better. I too can have mice here and so I keep mouse bait every where and check on it.

[kishtakaye]

Camping gear is always great but remember that our ancesters used fire. My great grandmother used a wood burning cook stove to cook on until she passed away in 1989.
No cook stove!!!Coil up strips of card board and put them into an empty tuna can. Fill can with wax (parafin) no wick is needed, light and set in the bottom of the BBQ works great as a bunson burner!

[kishtakaye]

I have even cooked great meals on my car engine. Hint secure or your meal may end up as road kill lol

[Bookmeister]

Kish, that's a great idea about the cardboard and tuna can...Thanks. I've also found that if you squirt a little mosquito repellent on a spoonful of creamy peanut butter, it'll burn long enough to heat a couple of cups of water.

[kishtakaye]

but I love peanut butter thanks for the tip.
Hey another great idea is to get 5 or more 55 gal. barrels and connect them to each other with hoses and splice the first one to your main water supply coming into your home then every time you turn on the water you are rotating your water supply remember that the 1st barrel will collect all of the foriegn materials that are in the water! When connecting the barrels the "IN" hose must reach the bottom of the barrel to assure proper circulation.

[hankpac]

Several topics brought up here.
We have a 30 ft Travel Trailer that is always stocked, and topped off with propane, and on the charger. We also have two generators.
We have a large chest type freezer, but it is empty, as we have rotated out of that type of storage, long ago.
I don't use any open flame inside the house without adequate ventilation.
Notice that although you can cook with a propane or natural gas stove, that you are strongly warned against just running the flame to heat a room. It'll flat kill you in a trailer.
People have been asphyxiated in tents using butane stoves.
WE have adequate freeze dried foods to carry us for a week without cooking, then caned and instant foods that require heating, and then into our raw dry pack foods that require a lot of processing. At that point we will either be in a new area, with the means to prepare these more complicated foods or the emergency is over.
We lived on our food storage for almost a year when I went back to school with a wife and two kids, and one on the way. I thank God for a frugal well prepared wife, who knew how to do all this.
A regular vacuum sealer will seal mylar bags. You can reseal chip bags, and that is the same thing.
re-use the mylar bags and re-seal them until empty.
If you don't have access to 6 gal tins, (the green ones all the older Mormons have) just use the free plastic pails at your donut shop. I give them an opener that leaves the lid intact, and they give me all the buckets I need.
If you have to drive 100 miles to the Bishop's storehouse, you are in the same situation as I am. I obtain orders from the ward, and take my truck, and have everyone chip in on my fuel. However, that is just to obtain raw materials, the Ward can get the dry pack canner and the sealer and mylar bags on rotation from the Stake. That should be a minimum of fuss, and travel.
Check prices at the suppliers who ship, and see if it is less to order and ship to you, than to drive, even with people sharing fuel.
I brought a ton and a half of supplies on the last run, it cost 78 dollars for fuel, and I paid about 20 dollars for my share of the fuel. We divided it up according to how much weight each person had, rather than dividing it across the board.
I am shifting all my 5 gal buckets over to # 10 cans, in boxes, using the Stake's canner.
I am saving the 6 gal cans for some future possible use.
I use mouse bait, in the garage (I don't store any food out there, I just don't want them out there) and in the sheds, and the storage area. So far no problems.
We constantly use from our storage, and replace some each month.
Just bought some butter with a 10 year shelf life.