Posted on 01/04/2013 8:22:02 PM PST by Kartographer
Weekly Preppers' Thread to post progress, good buys, DIY projects, new products, new ideas, questions.....
DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON FREEZE-DRIED FOOD.
You will continuously feel unsatisfied. It is really strange: Your belly will actually be full, but you will remain ravenous for food. There is something missing in freeze-dried food over the long haul. I found that taking supplemental vitamins helped somewhat, but the addition of a little ‘real food’ made the difference. Throwing a cooked potato, sut up, into a dish, or adding a can of beans, coupled with the taking of a vitamin, seemed to satisfy.
The first few days, before I figured this out, I would eat and eat and eat, and still remain starving. I got all the effects of not-eating (A growling stomach, diarreah, and constant hunger) even though I ate.
I constituted the meals according to the directions, so I was not remiss.
Freeze-dried food feels almost like imaginary food. I had no such experience living on MRE’s before (although you tend not to ‘eliminate’ on those MRE’s). DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON FREEZE-DRIED FOODS.
PLAN TO SUPPLEMENT!
Potatoes and Mac and Cheese would be two sides that can go far in fill the void. Also BREAD! Many restaurants specialize in excellent breads and rolls to fill dinners up before the entree and it WORKS!!
Preppers’ PING!!
If my freeze dried foods are mac & cheese, what shall I do different?
Change of diet is the problem not nessecarily what it is you are eating. We go through a ritual of gradual introduction when we change from one grass hay to another grass hay for our horses. You can kill a horse with colic by changing feed too rapidly. People have the same problem but generally not as dramatic.
I have CHEESE, REAL CHEESE stored for my MAC and CHEESE, big difference.
I was being facious about the mac & cheese. The guy said mac & cheese saved him from his (other) freeze dried fude.
I also have real cheese. I also make real cheese. It’s the change of diet that gets most people in trouble. What’s the saying, store what you eat and eat what you store.
I will get a vertical hydroponic system put together in April and see if I can grow veggies. I have a small garden area and it’s not big enough for regular veggie growing. There is also a large deck out there and that takes a large amount of the space. Going vertical will be easier for me since bending over again and again to the ground is bad news for my lower back.
I’m starting off with 10 vertical pots and if that is successful, I’ll add another 10.
I get most of my good storage food tips from FR. I’ll look into that Bega. Thanks
The gardeners among us applaud your decision. LOL
Regarding the freeze dried food, I wonder if the problem is not using enough water to rehydrate and cook it. When he eats it, if it isn’t fully rehydrated, it will pull water from his digestive tract, making him feel thirsty or empty?
Stuff I eat on a regular basis. An occasional dehydrated product here and there to break monotony is ok, but I want to eat real food not that dehydrated or freeze dried stuff.
I just finished putting up 7 quarts of chickens in the pressure cooker. That's about 14 lbs of chicken we got on sale. It will make lots of chicken and noodle soup, chicken and dumplings, chicken pot pie, chicken and rice casseroles to name a few.
And yes I know how to make noodles and pie crust and dumplings all made out of some of those staples that have very long storage life. Granny called this cooking from scratch, and she taught all of us how to do it. I try to rotate the canned foods out every year, but from what I have read, the meat could actually be quite tasty even after 2 or 3 years.
Tomorrow we are canning pork roast, another special at the market this week. I got in some of my food storage supplies, but I am still waiting on Mylar bags to be delivered so I can get some of the cheap rice I got on sale socked away.
I have started reviewing my new cookbook: Homade Pantry - 101 foods you can stop buying and start making. They have a recipe for wheat thins, and I have some wheat I grew that is just begging for me to try out my wheat grinder.LOL>
“The gardeners among us applaud your decision. LOL”
Well, I’m sick of hearing about your wonderful growing aptitude/ability and your wheat and your..and your..and your...- all growing.
It is my weak link and I know it. If this method works, I’ll be super glad I did it. Son Wayne will put it together for me next time he comes from London to here which is in April. It will be a good project for the two of us. I’ve already shown it to him as he is here now and he laughed. He laughs at a lot of things I do - I wonder why?
Don’t know how many people have Shoprite stores in their area; but they’re having a great sale on canned goods. Corn and green beans are 33 cents a can. Beans (black, red, white, pinto), carrots, beets and potatoes are 47 cents a can. Large cans of tomatoes (sauce, peeled, crushed, puree) are 12 for $6.48.
The best price I found was on ebay here:
http://compare.ebay.com/like/190620543161?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar
I brought mine from this vendor.
King Oscar: In Olive Oil Two Layer Sardines, 3.75 oz Buy from Walmart Online $2.52 -FOUR YEAR SHELF LIFE
Nuts.com carries deydrated cheddar cheese - which is OK. The main ingredient is a dehydrated blend of cheeses, including blue cheese.
If you want recipes for it, I can provide those: Mac & Cheese, potatoes au gratin; and once you get used to using it I’m sure you’ll think of other combinations. An omelet made with powdered eggs and filled with cheddar cheese sauce...yum!
First, though, I made a mistake and bought a dozen cans of cheddar cheese mix from one of the Utah companies that make #10 cans of “food” for preppers, and was it awful! It tasted like that fake cheese Kraft uses for their Mac and Cheese boxes. In fact, the main ingredient seemed to be an additive - maltodextrin - and lots of salt. Any cheese was strictly minimal and an afterthought.
So be careful what you buy, and remember that making dehydrated cheese is possible. You can find directions online.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned here is how combining different foods that contain complimentary amino acids can boost the amount of digestible/usable protein in the food. The classic book for this approach is the book, Diet For A Small Planet. (I used it in college as I couldn’t afford to eat meat - my grocery allowance was $30 per month!)
Beans, rice, and cheese; beans, rice, and corn; both of these combinations can be the start of a great meal to which one can add vegatables, such as tomatoes and onions, and some fish, cannded chicken, beef, or ham; or add game.
I had a neighbor who was an emigre from China, and he mostly ate rice and vegatables. He was very healthy and would occasionally supplement his meals with fresh caught fish.
I’m allergic to wheat and rarely, if ever, eat bread or pasta. But I can tolerate rye, and now have a recipe to make snackerbrod, a flat, hard unleavened Scandinavian bread made of ground rye.
I’ve found a company in Utah that will ship bags of whole grain rye: Honeyville.com.
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