high value foods

[wareagle69]

ok folks, i have been talking to some people who usually never plan or prepare ahead who are a little buggered about this swine flu, even the wifes twin who is a nurse says at her clinic in southern ontario they have set aside two isolation areas and stocked up on medical supplies, and she is stocking up on food, as we all do, but i think sometimes as i purchase whet is on sale it sometimes takes up valuable space in my refer or freezer, now i have lots of dry storage space, but i look at the buffalo wings that i bought on sale and realize that i would rather utilize that freezer space for more important foods. so what do you see as high value foods, yes old man i know french vanilla creamer, but that aside what food is high value to you and yours that is worht tossing out the comfort food for?

[LostOutrider]

Dried beans and rice for certain. Good shelf-life and can keep you going a long time. Powdered milk. In the event of a shipping/supply disruption, then coffee will be a good thing to have squirreled away for sure.

Not sure about how long you can store up flour and sugar, but I count those high value.

Salt.

[SARKY]

Nuts of all kinds have protein, fats and amino acids. Not to mention most of them are quite tasty.

[wareagle69]

Dried beans and rice for certain. Good shelf-life and can keep you going a long time. Powdered milk. In the event of a shipping/supply disruption, then coffee will be a good thing to have squirreled away for sure.

Not sure about how long you can store up flour and sugar, but I count those high value.

Salt.

how much beans and rice do you eat? how about powdered milk? i am often amused by how many folks store this but is not part of their regular diet and by regular i mean not once a month but a couple times a week or everyday for the milk(i have yet on any site found anyone who can make that taste good)
sarky nuts are great i store allot of them

[Canadian-guerilla]

how about powdered milk?

back in my weightlifting days, i used powered milk as a cheap protein suppliment
in the summer time when i was looking for variety
i would use kool-aid to make a paste with the powered milk
and then freeze up some mini ice cubes and popsicles

assuming of course the power stays on

[Alpine_Sapper]

how much beans and rice do you eat? how about powdered milk? i am often amused by how many folks store this but is not part of their regular diet and by regular i mean not once a month but a couple times a week or everyday for the milk(i have yet on any site found anyone who can make that taste good)
sarky nuts are great i store allot of them

I make a 1lb pot of pinto beans about twice a month. Great nutrional staple. Especially since I match the lb of beans with a lb of ham, which dehydrates/rehydrates ok if you use the turkey ham and don't let it sit around. The ham goes great with powdered eggs. I don't do rice with my beans though, I do cornbread. *shrug* I grew up in North Louisiana. Rice only goes in beans if'n they's red or your to po' to afford corn meal. But I put back lbs and lbs of flour for biscuits, bannock, bread, pancakes, etc. Yeah, the rice and beans thing, tuna, tuna, tuna. I just got done eating some brown rice with one of those vacuum sealed packages of chicken. I also stock salmon the same way. Since all of them range from ~$1.25 - $2 for the more expensive ones, I tend to buy a lot of the flavored tuna and toss in the more $$$ salmon or chicken for variety.

My family doesn't do the Spam thing (*GAG*) so the only thing I see it as good for is funky smelling grenades. I stock a lot of white sugar for the wife and kid, vanilla, brown sugar, and the powdered dairy for cooking/baking. I also dehydrate a lot of stuff like terazzini, spaghetti, chili, refried beans, taco meat, all complete if I can (noodles and all mixed into the dehydrator it goes). I just have to make sure I have cheese powder and the stuff to make tortilla's preportioned and prepackaged with the taco meat and beans. I dehydrate salsa for it too.

Basically I looked at the same question you asked up there somewhere about "How much beans and rice can you eat?" and realized I'd be fat and sassy while the rest of my family was flat refusing to eat anything after the third week on beans and rice. So I sat down and figured out a way to store 6 months worth of food that we eat, put that back, and then simply re-stocked as we used it and put the new stuff in the back to rotate.

You can get really creative though, ya know? I mean, if you go to the farmers market and buy a bushell of apples, slice'em on a mandolin, and put them all in the dehydrator. A couple days later, pull some out and make an apple cobbler or apple pie, whatever for desert, but do it with all powdered stuff, etc. That way you can get your recipes down before you HAVE to, and it helps rotate the stock. Stewed apples (basically seasoned/sugared like for an apple pie but simmered until soft in a skillet with a little butter) don't last long either. Pears are the same.

Remember ranger pudding from an MRE? You can do the same for your dehydrated fruits. It's all about creativity and what you like. Like potatoes au gratin? Pull out the mandolin and the dehydrator, start working on your cheese sauce.

Oh yeah, and I make salmon/chicken/turkey snacks, just like you do beef jerkey. Never tried to jerk pork since everyone says the meats got to much fat or something. Always wondered about boar though....

Anyway, backpacking is a great time to test some of this stuff out as well. But I usually make a big pot for dinner, and since we are eating it for dinner anyway I know we'll eat it later, and just toss the leftover's in the dehydrator, package, label, store.

[Smok]

Do what the Mormons Do and buy what you eat and just rotate it

[LostOutrider]

how much beans and rice do you eat? how about powdered milk? i am often amused by how many folks store this but is not part of their regular diet and by regular i mean not once a month but a couple times a week or everyday for the milk(i have yet on any site found anyone who can make that taste good)
sarky nuts are great i store allot of them

Well, the rice and beans I end up refilling my stores about once every two, three months. I cook a lot of creole, picked up from living in or near Louisiana most of my life. We go through a ton of rice. As for beans - red beans, black beans, and black-eyed peas tend to be the ones we use the most. I have a few pounds of navy beans that I'll soak up about two or three times a year. Dried beans are cheaper than canned and store longer, so I always keep them around in great number. I tend to go through them more in the colder months since that's when I start hankering for the richer stews and bean soups. Other than the eternal 5 lb bag of navy beans, I never keep dried beans on the shelf longer than 2 or three months.

As for powdered milk, I find use for it considerably more often than I expected I would. I backpack and camp regularly and I have a several uses for powdered milk in those situations. Powdered milk tastes just fine mixed into campside oatmeal, coffee, or even oreo pie. (see some of my backpacking threads) I tend to buy it in the 1qt packets rather than the big boxes. We're all milk guzzlers here, so someone is always draining the last of the gallon before someone else gets to eat their cereal. It isn't anything to crack and stir up something to get us through until the next paycheck and grocery run.

Because of the way money flows, we tend to plan our 'regular' diet by the month instead of the day or week - so as the family cook, I tend to think in terms of months when I buy bulk or store food.

Edited to sound less snarky and to add: One thing you have to remember is that most folks setting aside food like this are preparing for potential disruptions in daily acquisition of food. Regular, daily diets will change in those situations. One example, here in the South, is when adverse winter weather threatens to drop more than 2 inches of snow on the ground - the locals will swarm the grocery stores and completely clean out milk, bread, and other staples. We had a week-long ice storm this past winter where I ended up digging into the dry storage because even if I could make it to a store, it would be another week before it was stocked enough to provide what I wanted.

[Sourdough]

Salmon, Trout, Sardines, Peanut Butter, Powered Milk, Pilot Bread, Corned Beef Hash, Krusties Pancake Mix, Spam, Raisins & Craisins, Canned Tuna, Canned Ham, Pasta, Tuna Helper, Ramen Noodles, Dog Food.

[Rick]

Smok is spot on for this one. Why deny yourself the things you want to have? Why stock up on things your family doesn't like just to say I'm prepared? And how far do you take that idea? Do you rip out the back seat of the car so you can store more stuff there?

Buy what you normally eat and keep the stock rotated. Let's face it, the odds you getting hit by a drunk driver are a LOT higher than you succumbing to swine flu.

[erunkiswldrnssurvival]

The trick to making powdered milk taste good is to mix it double strength and serve it freezing cold.otherwise it has funny aftertaste.I also streatch whole milk by mixing it half and half with prepared powdered milk. I use powdered milk regularly,its a good way to conserve

[Rick]

So that gives you 2% right? Or something around there. All you are doing is reducing the fat content in the whole milk by adding no fat powdered milk. Whole milk is at least 3.5% milk fats.

The reason you notice the taste of the powdered milk is because you drink whole milk. If you switch to 1% or skim (which is WAY better for you anyway) then you won't notice the taste of the powdered milk nearly as much.

I always keep powdered milk around. I drink it all the time. If we are running low on milk and I'm too lazy to run to the store then I'll drink the powdered stuff and leave the "real" milk for the grandkids or my wife.

[Alpine_Sapper]

If you switch to 1% or skim (which is WAY better for you anyway) then you won't notice the taste of the powdered milk nearly as much.

That's highly debateable. It's only the fat content that really changes, and the taste. For an adult watching their weight, yeah, the skim or 1 or 2% is better for you. However, kids metabolisms are much different and giving your kid that "diet" milk will rob them of some essential fats that they need. And then you get these idiots that wanna put their kids on the same "low-fat" diet they are on and then wonder why the kid does nothing but lay around lethargically watching TV. "You're gonna get fat if you don't go outside and play!" "Mom, I'm tired." "Here, have another slim-fast. It'll give you a boost."

[Rick]

You're right, of course. I was thinking in terms of adults. Still, if he is mixing whole milk with powdered milk he's dropping the milk fat content anyway. Diluting it as it were.

[erunkiswldrnssurvival]

I like the powdered milk too, the best gallon i ever had i made on a creek in on a mountain in NC. the flavor of it is ok with me any way i can get it! its a good food

[mountain mama]

We do the beans, ham, and cornbread here, too. But we DO spam, as well. The kids love it (what can I say? They're weird)!
Additionally, my best friend is Mormom and I get a LOT of ideas from her. I kinda like their potato pearls, too. I have learned to rotate my pantry and buy double (canned and dried foods) when it's on sale.
I also keep the dry milk in stock. It isn't too bad used in recipes, but drinking it plain *BLAH* Better start stocking up on chocolate mix too if I'm gonna have to drink the stuff one day.
As for the fat content of the milk...children over a couple years old are old enough to go down to 1%. As babies, their brains are still developing and they need the extra fat source, but after that, it's all just gravy. Plus, not too many of today's kids are lacking in fat and sitting around watching tv and playing Nintendo and computer have taken over their outside time. I limit my kids on electronics and then push them out the door (especially in the summer time).

[Pict]

how much beans and rice do you eat? how about powdered milk? i am often amused by how many folks store this but is not part of their regular diet and by regular i mean not once a month but a couple times a week or everyday for the milk(i have yet on any site found anyone who can make that taste good)
sarky nuts are great i store allot of them

When in Brazil we eat rice and beans every day. I like to keep a decent stock on hand, we normally have about a months supply. It really is a very healthy diet. Mac

[mountain mama]

According to "Making the Best of Basics" by James Talmage Stevens, Basic In-Home Storage Categories, in order of importance:

1. Water-emergency supplies & treatment
2. Wheat, other whole grains, flours, & beans
3. Powdered milk, dairy products, & eggs
4. Sweeteners-honey, sugar, & syrup
5. Cooking catalysts (salt, oil, & leaveners)
6. Sprouting seeds & supplies
7. Medical care, medications, & first aid kits
8. Basic supplementation-vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements
9. Fuels, energy, & camping gear
10. Personal, family, infant, & pet care essentials (clothing & toiletries, etc.)
11. Canned & dried fruits, vegetables, & soups
12. Kitchen staples-condiments & seasonings
13. Meats & seafoods
14. Domestic maintenance & preparedness
15. Pleasure foods-snacks, beverages, sweets, & treats

[Alpine_Sapper]

According to "Making the Best of Basics" by James Talmage Stevens, Basic In-Home Storage Categories, in order of importance:

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[mountain mama]

AS, dear, you are what we commonly refer to as "a hoot an' a holler" lol