Stockpiling Food

TheWizard said:
Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...
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I've mentioned before that some of us live in areas that are several days from resupply. So when stores empty in anticipation of a natural disaster, they don't restock for as much as a week (and for some items a lot longer.) Do you remember when they were flying in baby formula because one supplier shut down? Imagine that NOTHING is getting in and you live 2500 miles from closest resupply. YMMV
 
Wondering how much consumer stockpiling of food contributes to the real issue of Food Waste. USDA estimates that food waste in the USA at the retail and consumer levels is around 31%, amounting to 133 billion pounds and valued at $164 billion annually.

https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs

Having thrown out too much food in my lifetime, I’m hesitant to stockpile excessively.
 
I agree that stockpiling excessively probably isn't a great idea. Nonetheless, I think it is prudent to keep a decent supply, especially with goods that have long shelf lives (like paper products). We have a decent supply of goods that would keep us clean/fed for about 3 months. Anything beyond that, well...I don't know that I would want to be around, anyway.
 
I went to Costco, to buy a few things as we were running low.

I was so SHOCKED by there being no roast chicken until 5pm , that I forgot to buy a pack of TP..
We are down to only a 3 month supply now of TP :eek:

Have others noticed Costco is limiting the roasted chicken ?
 
No, we were just there the other day and their warmer section was full, with more being roasted. The whole store smelled like BBQ Chicken! And we didn't buy one:facepalm:
 
Where to find Sailor Boy Pilot Bread

A minor thing I just learned --- I had opened and my family consumed a package of "Sailor Boy Pilot Bread" that I had with emergency food supplies. We had never actually eaten these kind of crackers, and I wanted a personal gauge on how well it tastes after a couple of years of storage (it was fine).


But then I just couldn't find any more. Online sources seemed rare and expensive. But then it turned out that my local QFC store carried it !

Best if used by date on the purchased package was sometime in 2023. I wish these guys would also imprint the date that it was packaged. Over time I'll derive my own idea of how long to keep it before replacing.
 
Canoeboy said:
Wondering how much consumer stockpiling of food contributes to the real issue of Food Waste. USDA estimates that food waste in the USA at the retail and consumer levels is around 31%, amounting to 133 billion pounds and valued at $164 billion annually.

https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs

Having thrown out too much food in my lifetime, I’m hesitant to stockpile excessively.
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Yeah, I hate wasting food as well. I remember times when food choices in my family were slim. We never did without, but we ate side meat instead of bacon and Spam (back before it was a delicacy) instead of ham.

Now we rarely throw expired canned food out. It loses flavor but is quite safe if the cans are intact.

I guess each of us has to decide what is "excessive" stockpiling. Having lived "low on the hog" I probably stockpile more than others but YMMV.
 
One thing I have read is that stockpiling for food interruptions requires some research - especially what you and your family will actually eat. You can have tons of food, but if people don't want to eat it, they generally will not. I've heard that cats will starve rather than eat food they don't like. I think humans are almost as bad. Also morale is closely tied to food well-being. 200 cans of sardines will keep you alive, but would you want to live long enough to eat that many sardines?

I've always thought that peanut butter was the perfect stockpile food. Exceptions are for those who have peanut allergies and those (few) who actually do not like peanut butter. PB has a fair amount of nutrients, it will keep for quite a while and best of all, it has what is most important in long-term shortages. Namely, lots of calories. Calories are the single most important nutrient when it comes to survival. And PB has a boat load of calories. No expert, here, so YMMV.
 
Just added to our stockpile.... cleaned and cut up 2-gallon bags of green peppers and 4 of yellow squash for the freezer...
Got a box of Eggplant and zebra green tomatoes to go.
Got to love free food.
 
Koolau said:
One thing I have read is that stockpiling for food interruptions requires some research - especially what you and your family will actually eat. You can have tons of food, but if people don't want to eat it, they generally will not. I've heard that cats will starve rather than eat food they don't like. I think humans are almost as bad. Also morale is closely tied to food well-being. 200 cans of sardines will keep you alive, but would you want to live long enough to eat that many sardines?

I've always thought that peanut butter was the perfect stockpile food. Exceptions are for those who have peanut allergies and those (few) who actually do not like peanut butter. PB has a fair amount of nutrients, it will keep for quite a while and best of all, it has what is most important in long-term shortages. Namely, lots of calories. Calories are the single most important nutrient when it comes to survival. And PB has a boat load of calories. No expert, here, so YMMV.
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Just remember mass-market brands of PB add sugar...it's not just peanuts (& emulsifier) & salt.

On a per-serving basis it's not a huge amount, but those who want (or need) to avoid added sugars should be aware.
 
ncbill said:
Just remember mass-market brands of PB add sugar...it's not just peanuts (& emulsifier) & salt.

On a per-serving basis it's not a huge amount, but those who want (or need) to avoid added sugars should be aware.
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Yes, and peanut butter is perishable.
 
Koolau said:
200 cans of sardines will keep you alive, but would you want to live long enough to eat that many sardines?
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I dunno. When people are hungry enough, most will eat worse, much worse things than sardines all day.

But then, why do it if you can plan so that you don't have to?
 
NW-Bound said:
I dunno. When people are hungry enough, most will eat worse, much worse things than sardines all day....
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That's what I learned by going through survival school when I was in the Navy - you can eat anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies. And when you get hungry enough, you will.
 
Canoeboy said:
Wondering how much consumer stockpiling of food contributes to the real issue of Food Waste. USDA estimates that food waste in the USA at the retail and consumer levels is around 31%, amounting to 133 billion pounds and valued at $164 billion annually.

https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs

Having thrown out too much food in my lifetime, I’m hesitant to stockpile excessively.
Click to expand...

When stockpiling food you have to be aware of how much you really need and rotate properly. It's a waste to buy too much of anything and then have to throw it out. Virtually all of our stockpiled food is dry, canned, or frozen and date labeled if required.
 
old medic said:
We go through our stock about every 6 months to keep from missing stuff.
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I go through our pantry regularly and anything getting close to the best buy date that we aren't likely to eat up by then goes to the food bank. Many of the stores here have food bank bins in the entrance way. When something nonperishable is a really good deal, I also buy extra for the food bank.
 
Gumby said:
That's what I learned by going through survival school when I was in the Navy - you can eat anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies. And when you get hungry enough, you will.
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And I learned in survival school that I can go a good 5 days without eating ANYTHING at all...especially the "food" that we could scrounge up. Now of course, once we made it back to civilization, I ate an entire large pizza in one sitting and slept for almost 2 days straight. :D
 
ExFlyBoy5 said:
And I learned in survival school that I can go a good 5 days without eating ANYTHING at all...especially the "food" that we could scrounge up. Now of course, once we made it back to civilization, I ate an entire large pizza in one sitting and slept for almost 2 days straight. :D
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Yep. As soon as we got cleaned up three of us went to a UR Cooks and each had a big steak and all the fixin's. We all enjoyed the first steak so much we had another. For desert we went to a nearby pizza joint and shared a large pepperoni.

Didn't realize I could actually eat that much food.
 
REWahoo said:
Yep. As soon as we got cleaned up three of us went to a UR Cooks and each had a big steak and all the fixin's. We all enjoyed the first steak so much we had another. For desert we went to a nearby pizza joint and shared a large pepperoni.

Didn't realize I could actually eat that much food.
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I thought it was funny that I ate the ENTIRE large pizza (as did my "evasion buddy" with his own pie)..we were warned that over the week in the woods and "resistance training lab" (gotta love that name; that's where we were "POWs") that our stomachs would shrink. So much for that.

Another very odd thing about that experience was that when we ordered our pizza, it was delivered by one of the "enemy" trainers we had in the resistance lab. And no, he did NOT get a tip. :D
 
Not a prepper, but you would think we are. We have the house fridge, and when Mom wanted to upgrade, I took her old one and put in garage and use for grapes during wine season. It's freezer is full of ground meat from our last "cow" purchase. DMIL's 1945 International Harvestor fridge was/is my original wine/grape fridge, and still works. We have always had a upright freezer for our annual "cow" purchase, but DW panicked when this freezer started making some noises during the pandemic, and bought a replacement freezer that Home Depot didn't know they had.(It was in storage in back of store when they used to stock appliances in store; now they just ship from warehouse.)
About 10 years ago, we started buying whole hogs from the "cow" farmer's grandkids, who raise them for 4H. No antibiotics in either, not that we haven't ever bought store meat before. We garden, can/freeze any surplus only because it's fun to eat your own fresh food. We have our own herb garden and 2 apple trees. We drank a bottle of wine a day between the two of us, and we have enough home made for at least 1200 days.
We bought a whole house generator several years ago after a tornado ripped through my late DMIL city and power was off for 10 days during August. We had to rescue DMIL who was in her 80's and was suffering from heat stroke. When she finally realized it was best for her to move up here close to us, we had to make sure we would have power.
We do have water stored, and that's only because when we were first married, the water company would shut off the water to us because we were in the next county, and found out we were just buying surplus water after the first shutoff. It happened twice to us in 7 years.

Whole large Pizza? Who doesn't eat a whole pie at one sitting?:)
 
Gumby said:
That's what I learned by going through survival school when I was in the Navy - you can eat anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies. And when you get hungry enough, you will.
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True, but you'll lose a lot of weight even though you have "food." You will not be happy either. My point: Be sure what you stash for emergency is something you actually like. YMMV
 
Koolau said:
True, but you'll lose a lot of weight even though you have "food." You will not be happy either. My point: Be sure what you stash for emergency is something you actually like. YMMV
Click to expand...

I'll bet you are staschin' pre cooked BACON!:baconflag:
 
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