Got Food? In Venezuela a Lot of People Don't!
I would like to thank @zer0hedge and @anarchospace for sharing this content first.
They started the discussion, and I would like to add to it. Because of what is happening in Venezuela, a lot of people are asking for food storage advice. It is a topic that I have studied thoroughly, and it is related to my primary passion: residential security.
Being safe in your home while you're starving isn't a good plan.
You should store a large amount of food in your house, and you should do it without wasting your money. Do not rush out and buy freeze dried food that you'll probably never eat and that requires cooking with lots of water to consume.
Do buy and store food that you regularly eat and that will never go bad. Storing foods that have the water included within the container is a plus. Most of it should also already be cooked or edible without cooking. I will share my strategy that anyone can follow.
Category One: Expand your pantry.
Buy more of what you already regularly eat on a day to day basis. Buy it in bulk and look for sales to save money as well. This category includes shelf stable food that lasts for weeks or months. Most people have a few days worth of food in this category. Expand your supply to make it last a few weeks at least. A few months is better as long as the food is rotated through and being eaten before it spoils.
Category Two: Add long term foods.
Within this category, you will have honey, wheat berries, rice, canned (tin and glass), and other long lasting foods. Honey lasts forever as long as it was packaged correctly. Wheat berries can be stored for generations as long as you keep it dry and sealed from rodents and other pests. Local farmers will sell you wheat berries in bulk that have been properly processed and filtered.
If you are storing rice, make sure you freeze the bags you buy for three days before storing them to kill pests and their eggs. Put the bags of rice in a new galvanized steel trash can and place it inside your home basement or other similar place. Rodents can and will chew through plastic buckets, so do not depend on them.
These foods do not have to be rotated through regularly, but it helps to at least check them occasionally. Inspect them for signs of rodent or other pest activity. They are an insurance policy against economic collapse. With an expanded pantry and this long term food stored, you can easily keep a year or more supply.
Category Three: Emergency Rations
This category includes MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) and other similar pre-packaged and already cooked food. Most emergency rations expire, and you will probably not be rotating through them. For that reason, do not buy a lot of them.
Avoid government issued ones, for you do not know their storage history. Pay attention to expiration dates too, but being expired does not necessarily mean they are ruined. Keep them in a cool and dry place while not being used in vehicles or packs.
There's no reason to waste your money, but you should also be prepared in advance.
Hopefully these tips will help relieve some of the anxiety people are having about food storage. The strategy I follow above is simple and actually saves me money in the long run due to buying items on sale, getting them in bulk, and avoiding food price inflation as much as possible.
If you found this information valuable, please resteem it. Also, please share your tips and strategies, and let's discuss the topic further below!
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Good post on food storage which will help against waste. Thanks
Thanks! I hate to see people starving or wasting their money. Hopefully the strategy I have will help a lot of people. It wasn't even something I planned to post about, but the topic came up in other blog discussions today.
I agree however many people tend to ignore and will never learn because they have not been in such situation. Keep steeming and hopefully some will see and change
I started prepping myself last year and never looked back. Just last weekend it was terrible in Hamburg and I was glad that I didnt need to leave my home to get to a store. I hope that everyone uses a bit of money to get at least a sawyer mini or some pills to make water safe. Water is what many forget to prepare for in times of crisis.
Yes! Access to clean water and storage of water is a huge topic by itself. I stockpile boxes of 6 x 1 gallon bottles of Deer Park spring water as one example.
NIce! Very important and very likely to be forgotten
I had a post about relocation sites and cabins. The problem with my cabin is finding land that is good enough to buy, and part of that problem is finding land with multiple sources of water. It is not easy.
Could happen anywhere.
It could happen for any reason too. I started stocking water for example when many years ago the condo I was living in lost water for ten days straight.
Not sure when being prepared became a bad thing .
Some people are nervous others will think they are paranoid. The steps above can be followed easily without that being an issue.
For sure, not caring what others think of you is the key to true freedom.
I suppose it does, in a sense, prove a distrust in the system however. To me at least, you'd be fool to depend on any outside system. No thanks!
Agreed.
One of my long-time internet friends is a hermit in the desert and has posted some reviews of 40+ year old stored Mountain House brand meals.
The stuff does last a long time, but I do not recommend food that needs water added to eat. In emergencies water will be scarce. Most of your food should not require cooking too since cooking may be dangerous and draw in unnecessary attention.
I've never tried any of the freeze dried "emergency foods" myself. But I think they could have a place in emergency preps, because emergencies won't all necessarily be the same. There may be plenty of water in some cases, and maybe everyone will be cooking in their yards. I think people make the mistake of thinking every emergency will be The Zombie Apocalypse, when most will be more mundane.
For the most part, I just buy more of what I normally buy and eat anyway. That way I don't have to say "this is emergency rations; this is the groceries".
Yeah, a lot of people fall into the trap of spending hundreds on such food, and then it goes to waste due to not being eaten. I just hope to help people avoid that situation.
Excellent article. You pulled from the previous posts's conversation tactfully, I'll sit down with my family and discuss our options. What you say about the plastic is big. My dad bought some military rations months back and the damn rodents got in there and stole our Twizzlers. And we had a big container full of oats get badly infected by little bugs.
Thanks for this!
You're very welcome! I hope to help people sleep more soundly at night.
We tend to keep, and cycle out, lots of canned foods (soups, vegetables, chili). we'll buy new and put it in the back and use what's up front. They're all edible right out of the can with no heat, though heating them is preferable.
Just years of living in hurricane alley.
I used to avoid tin canned foods because of BPA liners. A lot of manufacturers have moved away from using it now though. It is sometimes hard to get healthy ingredients in store bought cans too.