Posted on 03/10/2008 9:24:06 PM PDT by fishhound
Global stocks of wheat are plummeting and people are starting to worry about the price of staples like bread. But can you beat the commodity market by growing your own?
Look out your back window. How's the grass?
If you've got a garden at all, it might be that the grass is an unloved scrub as sparse as Elton John's hair used to be. Or it could be a lush strip of glorious verdure. Either way, the odds are you're not getting much use out of it. Wouldn't it be great if you could improve your health, help the environment and at the same time do your part to fight inflation?
The world is running dangerously low on wheat, one of civilisation's original staple foods. Drought in Australia and China and a switch to meat in the newly prosperous parts of the world are putting the squeeze on wheat. Prices are at a record high.
Baker and organic food campaigner Andrew Whitley believes the answer lies in your back garden and that it's time, as he puts it, to "bake your lawn". He is launching the Real Bread Campaign.
"If wheat makes bread why not grow bread just like you grow vegetables. We think of it as being a massive prairie-style enterprise but it is just a plant like anything else. It's like grass.
"There are few things that give greater satisfaction than being able to grow something and harvest it and share it with friends and family."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Basic bread is almost up 300% here???
Really?
Flour is on sale at Safeway through tomorrow. Four five pound bags of Gold Medal for $5.00. ($1.25/bag) I bought four, made room on a shelf in my freezer, and have room for more.
I suspect that there will be a flour shortage in the not too distant future.
89c to $2.45
gotta go to bed. cyall, discuss
How did you seal it?
Thanks for posting that.
You can buy those little packs of corn muffin mix. They will last quite a while, and are good substitutes for bread if you feel like it.
I recommend to everyone to buy some bulk food NOW!
Buy 20 (or 100 if you feel like it) pounds of raw beans and rice and stash it in a few of those 18 gallon plastic containers. I’m serious here, because if there is a major disruption of the supply/transport cycles, the supermarket shelves could easily be bare in hours.
Get some bulk sugar, tomato paste/sauce, and pasta while you’re at it.
Simple stuff like Top Ramens recently went from like 12 for a buck here to 8 for two dollars.
Whatever figures the government is handing out about inflation is a flat out lie.
I haven’t fired up a horizontal freezer I got. I have been buying sugar in 10lb bags.
If flour is freezable I could by it in tens or greater.
Thanks! I’m not sure if I got room, there’s like half a black angus in my freezer as it is!
I store pastas and beans and rice and spices. Also tomato sauce, which, because of the acids in it, has a shelf life of like forever!
And you can get those boxed PastaRoni fettuccinis for like a buck apiece, and twenty of them don’t take up alot of room.
Over the years, I just buy a few dollars more each time than the things I need. It’s added up pretty good, there’s about 12 of those 18 gallon plastic thingies full of all kinds of stuff. Easily enough to keep me going for 8 months or so. And that would be if I didn’t catch and eat the various panfish (or ducks) in the lakes nearby.
Don’t forget the yeast!
I got yeast , froze it and when i made bread thought that the freezing had somehow weakened it...
Do you know if freezing damages it?
Yeast has got a pretty good shelf life. It has the live yeast in it, also some yeast type spores.
Just like anything, it does degrade over time. If it were more than 18 months old or so, I’d mix it with a bit of sugar water and let it sit for a day or so. That would let the surviving living yeast and spores to multiply maybe millionsfold before you mix it in to bake with it.
I had heard that Walmart and Costco were out of large bags of flour so I went to check for myself. Maybe they're out some places, but here they were just low. Walmart had thee 25 lb bags; normal would be about 10, I think.
Good deal. I assume you have the energy supplies and bulk water stashed also.
There’s currently only one of me, so I feel pretty safe. But in the case of emergency, I would obviously have to barter some of it to team up with some people...
(I also have a few pounds of tobacco stashed!!)
If I may make a suggestion - powdered milk. I buy a box every month or two, and store it on dry shelves. It has a long shelf life, and is a good source of protein. (Especially nice, if you have bought extra boxes of cereal and graham crackers.)
Extra charcoal is another thing I have bought.
I had a reverse osmosis water filter installed a year ago, and it sure has come in handy.
I make my own noodles and freeze them. I’ll trade you homemade noodles for some of that angus. (You need the room - remember?) ;-)
Sounds like you know all about sourdough and add a little flour, you have a sourdough starter! Best pancakes and bread in the world. (IMHO, of course!)
powdered milk
I went to buy that ...I was surprised how expensive it is.
But they will tax you for the rainwater. At least that is what they have tried to do for the last 2 years here in Washington state. Unbelievable, yes, in a state where we are known for our annual rainfall. Our legislators have tried to put a tax on collecting rainwater.
“But they will tax you for the rainwater. At least that is what they have tried to do for the last 2 years here in Washington state. Unbelievable, yes, in a state where we are known for our annual rainfall. Our legislators have tried to put a tax on collecting rainwater.”
That is just outrageous!!!!!!!!!
I know! But, I don’t think it’s going to get any cheaper - so buy a little at a time. You may be glad you did, one day. (Hopefully, it’s only to make french toast, when you can’t get to the store, and have plenty of eggs but no milk.)
Instead of “victory gardens” we can call them “recession rows to hoe” or “hard-time hothouses” or “poorhouse patch”
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