Price of flour going up?

**Rick** · 09-30-2010, 08:20 PM

Now I have this picture of you, a bear and the attack geese all drunk and sprawled out in the yard.

**LowKey** · 09-30-2010, 08:43 PM

I'm with YCC on the gold. I don't covet it now and certainly wouldn't exchange food for it in a situation where more food may not be forthcoming.

For a moment, let's go back to the wild foodstuffs. When you make cattail flour, how much have you ever really made? How large a stand of cattails would it take to sustain you for a year? How much do you put back in the swamp so you have some for next year?

Same with other foraging. In my travels I've rarely found a bonanza of food out there for the taking. And when other people get hungry enough, there will be even less of it.

What I can grow in my garden? It's about 25' x 25' now and will not sustain two people for the year. There's certainly not enough space on the nearly an acre property to grow wheat for flour and though possibly enough for corn, certainly not bushels of it. Some of you, I'm guessing a very few, could actually put enough vegetable seed in the ground to make it through the year and save some plants aside so you have seed for next year.

I've looked at a couple of survival seed storage cannisters. Most say they are good for 1/2 acre of land. Do you have that tilled and ready to go or at least under a cover crop? What do you do with 5oz of corn seed? According to one of my old books here, it takes on average 10lbs of seed to get 100 bushels of corn out of one acre. And I'm sure that is under optimum growing conditions with fertilizer and pesticides on previously conditioned, tilled ground.

Buy several cans I guess.

Then there is protecting what you have. Even today, the community gardens around here get raided. It isn't by kids doing vandalism. One can only hope the thieves are truly hungry rather than just someone stealing because they can (I can forgive the hungry person, not the one out for the thrill). In dire times, if people are really hungry, that rabbit fence isn't going to stop them. And if they have starving kids at home, fear of your rifle may not either...

I recently met a man down in Florida who lives pretty much off the grid, doing it on a little under 2 acres of land, with a wife and two teenagers. If you've seen the Have More Plan book, that's about what he has. Chickens, rabbits, a beef critter staked out on the grass, had some piglets but sold them, an acre of garden that he can rotate nearly all year round. He has a small freezer with assorted meat, fish and venison in it and nearly a whole room as a pantry where he keeps the put up goods in canning jars. He had store-bought canned stuff but not to the extent I would guess some of you might have (judging from Ken's and Rick's lists). It sure put a different light on the whole thing to see someone actually doing it because he has to in order to survive, not because he is playing at it or does it on weekends. As I've said, I'd go down swinging, but seeing the amount of work this man does to keep food on the table while still being able to use the modern conveniences of tractors and electricity was a real wakeup call. It really made me doubt some of my so-called preparations.

**Sourdough** · 09-30-2010, 10:05 PM

LowKey, that was a nice post, Rep point sent, thanks.

**beetlejuicex3** · 10-15-2010, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Winnie

Rank-Hovis Millers has added £89 per tonne to the price of flour. This rise came into effect on 6 Sep. It's basically all due to Russia having a export embargo because of their poor harvest. Canadian harvest was also poor. Other EU countries are also reducing the amount they are putting on the open market.
What's got my Goat, is there's still perfectly edible Wheat going to produce BIOFUEL!! Arrggghhhhhhhhh!!! It's obviously more lucrative....oops, environmentally important than feeding your citizens for a reasonable pice!

Is wheat made into biofuel? I thought it was corn.

"Food Inc." The US runs on corn. And Monsanto.

**Rick** · 10-15-2010, 03:58 PM

Here is the Midwest its primarily corn. They are working on some other grasses. Switch grass, I think, is one. No reason wheat couldn't be fermented into alcohol. Seems a waste of good food and gasoline, though.

**Wise Old Owl** · 10-15-2010, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by Sourdough

I like LIQUID Assets. (Gin, Vodka, Whiskey, Scotch, Tequila) If I had $50,000.-- worth of each I would not care what the Dollar or Gold did.........

wow that is so close to what happened in the first years of the USA, People bartered with whiskey and they proposed a tax! it backfired.

**Winnie** · 10-26-2010, 01:46 PM

Had a nasty shock today. I needed to swap out the flour in my stores and the price of flour has gone up from 65p for 3lb to 98p!

So the price increase that was talked about has filtered down to the shops now.

**Old GI** · 10-26-2010, 02:11 PM

"Precious Metal"?

If you can't shoot, eat or grow it; where's the value? Although, buy high, sell low has been my practice in the past; it worked so well.

**canid** · 10-26-2010, 03:04 PM

i'm glad at least that the prices of honey and peanut butter have started to drop recently.

with the savings on a big jar of PB, i can easily offset any extra cost in flour. just a few months ago it was around 8 bucks for the generic stuff.

**tipacanoe** · 10-26-2010, 07:16 PM

I don't know a lot about all the different flour's, but a store in town has their brand (IGA) for 99 cents per 5 pound bag. My wife usually buy's Pillsbury, but for the price I think a couple of bags here will do just fine. I wonder why they don't sell flour in tin cans, or even just in plastic pails. I would think it would last much longer and never have bugs to worry about.

**LowKey** · 10-26-2010, 07:20 PM

In a tin can or plastic you'd pay more for the packaging than the flour. A cheap commodity has to have cheap packaging or no one would buy it. Besides, you can put it in your own cannister at home (kicking himself again for not recognizing grandma's old cupboard as the Hoosier it was, dammit.)

Emergency Essentials has #10 cans of flour in various flavors on sale for $5.99 a can. Near as I can figure it's about 4 pounds in a can for that price, not the 5lbs you get in a bag.