What Food Prepping Have You Done?

[CC1]

Most of my emergency food purchases for storage up to this point has been canned goods and other staples with a shelf life of 1 1/2 to 3 years.

I bought a lot of canned white chicken breast meat from Sams Club along with SPAM, tuna, etc. Also 25 lb boxes of rice and quite a bit of salt.

Also found that spaghetti sauce in jars sometimes has a long shelf life with expiration dates a couple of years out so stocked up on that also.

Now that I have a decent stash of short term emergency food I am starting to buy "real" emergency food that has a very long shelf life so I don't have to worry about using it every couple of years before it expires.

My first purchase was twelve 28oz cans (21lbs total) of canned hamburger meat with a 15 year shelf life. My second purchase has been a 38 lb bucket of corn meal and 45 lb bucket of red wheat that both have a 30 year shelf life. Sams Club has started carrying emergency food at their online store and even with pretty expensive freight due to the weight the pricing was great.

I plan on buying more of those two items along with bulk sugar, beans, rice, etc that all have a very long shelf life.

I also plan on buying the buckets of freeze dried emergency good that efoods, Wise foods, Mountain House, etc produce along with some high calories emergency food bars.

Not actually food but related to it are a couple of other things on my to buy list. One is a Big Berkey water filter and another is a solar oven. Both are big ticket items so I will have to budget for them over time ($260 for the Big Berkey and around $200-250 for the solar oven)

[ILG]

Hey, CC1! For some reason, I had the idea you would be a bit critical about prepping. Glad to see that is not the case! What made you decide to do this?

[Roagiesgal]

Sounds like you have a good start...there are so many web sites out there...if your a milk drinker we found through our own taste test of 4 different brands we liked "Provident Pantry" to be the best tasting and next "Thrive" brand. I have both powered and instant, powered from "Thrive" powdered we use for cooking, it has to have hot water to dissolve and doesn't taste as good as the instant.

For me and our prepping I built a big pantry...most anything I want to prepare I can get my ingredients from there, and not have to go to the store. We only need to shop about every 10 days for bread and fresh produce...every time I shop I look for things I might need to add or bulk up on...canned goods will keep longer than a couple of years if they are in a dry and cool location, also we keep our supplies in as dark a place as we can, we have opened cans that were more than a few years old. I got can rotators for our canned goods so I don't have to restack every time I get a new can of an item...you can build them yourself which I had not seen till after I bought my racks...

We have a snack rack also which I keep chips, crackers, candy, nuts, dried fruit, etc on because you need variety and treats to keep your spirits up if your in a long term stress situation.

You really need to take into account your family size, your likes and dislikes...prepping is fun and can be addictive...LOL! I will post a couple of pictures of our pantry later today if I get a chance.

[mizpeh]

What are you prepping for?

[navygoat1998]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

What are you prepping for?

Dinner

[Praxeas]

You gotta wonder about canned hamburger meat with a shelf life of 15 years....whats in it?

[navygoat1998]

Canned bacon and powered eggs.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by navygoat1998

Canned bacon and powered eggs.

Powdered eggs and milk is one thing but canned bacon? How much sodium is in that? What preservatives do they use?

BTW after you all get cancer from eating that food, will there be any doctors around to help you during this "crisis" you are prepping for?

[navygoat1998]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Powdered eggs and milk is one thing but canned bacon? How much sodium is in that? What preservatives do they use?

BTW after you all get cancer from eating that food, will there be any doctors around to help you during this "crisis" you are prepping for?

Don't know???? I am not a prepper. My experience with powdered eggs and canned bacon was in the Navy. Along with canned pork-chops. The bacon was really salty but it is good.

[RandyWayne]

That is a good start CC1. I have 6 buckets of Wise stuff along with several from other companies just to mix things up. I also bought a few cans of powdered butter and powdered cheese, both with a shelf life of 10+ years. In addition I am building up a good stockpile of SPAM, canned chicken and corned beef hash. I've been doing some research on shelf lives and those last three SAY they are good for several years but the actual useable life is a LOT longer -we're talking 15 years or more. Regardless we do plan on rotating them out as we use them in our regular cooking (unlike many, I do not find SPAM that distasteful!).

I'm also bought several buckets of white rice that Walmart started carrying. I looked at the expiration date and it actually said 2030!

THIS is just our long term emergency preps. My wife is in charge of the pantry where shelf life isn't AS big of a deal and we just rotate through things with the idea of having 2-4 weeks worth of food at any given time.

Water is the thing that concerns me. Living in the desert there isn't that many ways to gather it should the electricity quit and the utility water pumps stop working. I have over a dozen cases of bottled water that we rotate through and I'm adding a rain catchment system to our roof -hopefully soon. With enough notice, I have several large containers that I can and will fill up to give us a 100+ gallons of emergency storage, along with a nice water filter that I could stick into any rancid swimming pool and get potable water out of.