For those who are blessing with the ability to have a garden, this time of year can be a busy time.  Canning your produce is just as much a part of your food storage program as buying some grains, beans, and rice.  Even if you don’t have a garden, you can go to a you-pick farm and buy the quantity you desire.  I guarantee it will be better quality more fresh than anything you will buy in the grocery store.  This is the type of food to can.

If you have never canned before, buy a “Ball Blue Book”.  It will give you more than enough information to get started.  Just a few years ago, it was the norm to can your foods for the next year.  Most couldn’t afford to just go to the store to buy each week and it would a pretty bleak winter without some canned fruit and vegetables.

This year we are canning many beans, peaches, and pickles.  I have made some jams and jellies as well as sauces for pancakes and ice cream.  We froze corn today and will be making peach butter tomorrow.  Soon the tomatoes will be in abundance and we can make salsa as well as stew some tomatoes for sauces.  Why buy these things loaded with preservatives when you can make then yourselves and know what ingredients are in them.  They will make your pantry look beautiful with all of the different colored items lined up and it will give you a little more peace that your family has some food put away.

If anyone would like any recipes, or canning tips, just put it in the comments section.

Check out our canning supplies at http://www.homesteadsupply.net

Everyone knows where olive oil comes from. The same for coconut oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil, and and other common types of oil. There is one exception to this. Do you know where canola oil comes from?

The canola isn’t a real thing. The name comes from “Canada oil” because it was first made there. Rape seed oil sounded too horrible so they called it canola. People never question where it comes from, they just eat it. We are all told of its health benefits as a non-hydrogenated oil but are never told how it is made. All food grade Canola, including the varieties sold in health food stores, are deodorized from its natural terrible stink with 300 degree F. high-temperature refining. You cannot cook a vegetable oil at that temperature and leave behind anything much edible.

Rapeseed is easy to grow as insects won’t eat it.  This makes it inexpensive to produce.  Most rapeseed is toxic to humans so it is genetically modified to make it not so toxic.  Now we are all consuming a genetically modified food that is only moderately toxic.  Who knows what the cumulative effects will be now that it has been added to so many of our “healthy” foods.

It is reported that Canada paid the FDA $50 million to label it “safe”.  Now we all trust the FDA, don’t we??

Remember to read your labels.

Take a few minutes and review the article below [my comments in brackets]. If you can follow this advice it could very well save you from a life of expensive medical problems and an early exit.
Learn how to eat real whole foods, obtained in natural or Organic form, and avoid all commercially processed foods as much as possible.  There is no more nutritious and satisfying food and source of nutrients than that freshly prepared from unadulterated whole grains, beans, rice, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Your body will thank you.

How would you react if you were in a real disaster?  I can honestly say I have no idea as I have never been put in that position.  I tend to get pretty territorial and mother-henish toward my family.  But who wouldn’t?  Many people across the country have been put in situations they probably never thought they’d find themselves in.  Some reacted superbly, while others didn’t survive.  What could make the difference?

I believe the most important thing is being prepared.  We need to each take responsibility for ourselves and our families.  Never assume the government or any agency will be there for you.  They will be taking care of themselves.  If you have a plan and the necessary items to see it through, you have a better chance to make it through.  Never sit and wait for someone to come take care of you.  In a real disaster it will end up being every man for himself.

If you aren’t prepared, you will freeze up.  Fear will overtake you and it may be too late to do anything to save yourself or your family.  Confidence comes from preparation and knowledge.  If you know all you can about how to survive, you can get through some pretty tough situations.

One way to get your family prepared it to become members of of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team).  In the local area go to CERT and see when the next classes will be.

We are excited to be able to soon carry Guardian Survival Gear in our store and on our website.  We will have 72 hour kits and many items to help you prepare your family for the next disaster heading our way.  It never seems to be “if” a disaster will happen but “when”.  Prepare yourselves now.

My husband found the following article.  Too bad our government doesn’t recognize the food shortages and the info has to come from London.  Of course they don’t recognize any of the problems this nation is facing.

From Spam sales to rice riots – the food crisis bites

By Peter Popham, The London Independent
Sunday, 8 June 2008

Cans of Spam fly off the shelves of American supermarkets; looted shops burn in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and the food crisis elbows climate change off the UN’s agenda at a summit that draws more heads of state and media than any in recent memory – yet reaches no useful conclusions.

The food crisis has gripped the whole world in the past year, from the wealthiest countries to the poorest: from Japan, where beef has vanished off school menus in favour of less costly chicken or pork, and the US, where sales of Spam have shot up 10 per cent, to the poorest nations, where 70 or 80 per cent of people’s income goes on food (in the UK the figure is 10 per cent).

Thirty-seven countries are confronted by a crisis in food costs, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), while riots have broken out in two dozen.

Haiti used to grow its own rice, and its farmers were protected by high tariff barriers. But as a condition for an International Monetary Fund loan in 1986, it was compelled to slash tariffs, and within two years the local markets had been flooded by heavily subsidized American rice. Local farmers, unable to compete, went out of business. The process was repeated in 1994. Globalized Haiti, no longer able to feed itself, was at the mercy of the world food prices.

Meanwhile, the price of food has become a pawn in the hands of financial speculators. Speculative trading in agricultural commodities has grown by more than 1,000 per cent in the past four years, to more than $150bn (£76bn). With the price of oil – the key ingredient in fertilizers and agrochemicals – surging unstoppably, food prices are expected to remain at historic highs for the next decade.

A sane world would at this point reverse course and do some of the worthy things that UN summits are so good at talking about – helping some of the 96 per cent of African farms dependent on rainfall to build irrigation systems, for example.

But the business-driven priority, as endorsed by the FAO summit, is to gouge open the world’s economies even faster, via a speedy conclusion of the Doha round of trade liberalisation. That is likely to make it even harder for the poor to feed themselves.

We all have insurance for our house and cars. Most get health insurance at work. Some even get dental and vision insurance from work but does anyone ever get insurance to cover their food supply? What if you lose your job? It may not be from poor performance, but could be something like the place burning down. What if truckers go on strike? Grocery stores will empty in hours. Natural disasters are hitting more often around the world. We all need to eat, so why do most people not worry about how to feed their family when the worst happens?

I think investing our money in intangible ways when our economy is so unstable is like using cash for toilet paper. If we invest in long-term storage, we are insuring that our family will eat in rough times. It is an insurance policy that can at least be eaten instead of just taking our money and often never seeing a return.

Let us know if you are ready to start your Food Insurance Policy today.

Our society is plagued with people who are overweight. As I mentioned in a previous post, much of this is due to overconsumption of high fructose corn syrup. When people realize drinking pop is making them fat, they switch to diet. That’s a step downward. Your body is expecting something sweet and when it only gets an artificial chemical, it sends out signals for something to raise blood sugar until you give in and eat something containing sugar. To top it off, most diet drinks are laced with the known toxin aspartame or more recently sucralose.

Splenda or sucralose is not a natural sweetener. It is made from sugar and then 3 chlorine molecules are added. It can start off as real sugar but doesn’t have to. After it goes through the lab it is nothing natural so our bodies can’t digest it properly. The makers of Splenda claim it has no calories because it is not digested in our bodies, but the few studies that have been done prove that up to 40% can stay in our bodies. It is as bad for you as DDT because it is chemically closer to that than it is to sugar. The research has shown that sucralose has caused the thymus gland to shrink up to 40% and the liver and kidneys to become enlarged.

There were only six human trials conducted on sucralose. Only two of the six trials were completed before the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption. The two trials had only 36 total human subjects and only 23 of them were actually given sucralose for testing. The longest of the trials only lasted 4 days and they only looked at tooth decay, not human tolerance. Most of the lab studies have been done on animals, not humans. It is quite clear that sucralose has no long history of safe use. Only the makers of sucralose were allowed to do human studies.

“Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar” is the motto for the company but the truth is that Splenda is not natural and does not taste like sugar. In fact, it is sweeter than sugar because the more chlorine molecules you add, the sweeter it gets. It has a taste unlike any other due to the chlorine.

There are over 3500 products that contain sucralose and most of them don’t even list it in the ingredients. Some of the products that contain sucralose are Diet RC Cola, Diet 7-Up, Lite Blue Bunny ice cream, Power Bars, Kool-Aid Jammers and other pre-made Koolaid treats, Propel water, and mouthwash. Anything that says “low carb”, “lite”, or “diet” may contain sucralose.

A better option would be to use xylitol as a sweetener. It stops tooth decay and strengthens bones. It is also safe for diabetics as it has a low glycemic index. It is used in the same increments as sugar which makes it easy for us all to use.   Another natural sweetener that is excellent is stevia. If too much of this is used, it does get bitter so it takes some getting used to to know the correct amount. It too has been reported to prevent tooth decay.

Let us know if you would like to try either of these natural sweeteners. We keep them in stock.

Let’s assume you’ve got a start on your food storage. Now where do you put it all? The temps are rising so you need to make sure you have it in an environment that won’t reduce its shelf life. Many people often tell us that the only spare area they have is in the garage. They might as well not have any food if their garage gets as hot as ours does. It won’t store for long in the high temps. It also needs to be kept out of any sunlight.

Ideally you would have a climate controlled room in your house or a basement to store your food. But not many of us ever have the ideal so we make do with the best we have. The rule for food storage is to keep it in a room that is as cool and dark as possible. It can be in a bedroom under the bed or in a closet if you don’t have anywhere else. Most people keep their homes pretty cool and run air conditioners to keep the humidity down.

We package all of our items in dark colored pails to keep as much light away from it. Many of our items are also sealed in dark bags inside of the pails. Having a tight fitting, gasketed lid is also important. No matter where you live this time of year, the little crawlers are out. They love to invade the live food you should be eating. We have found that once you break the seal and let oxygen into the container, you can do a pretty good job of keeping any insects out simply by putting a few bay leaves into the top of the container.

Let us know if you need any pails or oxygen absorbers.

Our family has done a lot of research on the topic of things we should avoid in our diets.  If we are eating correctly and avoiding the numerous things that are so detrimental to our health, our bodies will be stronger and able to withstand the coming food crisis.  We have become a very obese nation due in part to one particular ingredient found in so much of our food.

That one ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.  It is found in foods you wouldn’t even imagine it to be.  The most obvious is in soda pop.  Thirty-five years ago it was not common to see someone walking around carrying 48 oz. glass of Coke or downing a liter of Dr. P in an afternoon.  Today it is in our schools and a normal part of many people’s day.

What is high fructose corn syrup?  Is it different than corn syrup?  Is it safe for you?  We began asking these questions and many more when our oldest daughter decided she didn’t want to eat or drink anything with this in it.  We couldn’t believe how hard it was to find something that didn’t contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

The process for making this substance is frightening enough without even looking into the side effects of ingesting it.   HFCS has the exact same sweetness as sugar but is harder to make involving vats of fermenting liquid, fungus, and added chemicals.  It can begin as corn which is turned into corn starch by adding a bacterium which makes it into a sweet syrup.  Next a fungus is added and allowed to ferment and it turns into glucose.  A third enzyme is so expensive that the syrup is poured over it and it is used over and over until it is no longer potent.  This breaks some of the glucose down to fructose.  Most commercial products of high fructose corn syrup are 55% fructose and 45% glucose.  Corn syrup is just plain glucose.  Glucose is our body’s main source of energy.  Most carbohydrates are converted to glucose.

All cells in our bodies can metabolize glucose but fructose must go through the liver.  It is harder for children.  Fruit contains both fructose and glucose but it is at a 50:50 ratio and the fiber in the fruit slows the absorption of the fructose.  HFCS is absorbed very fast.  HFCS contains much unbound fructose so it bonds with the minerals in our bodies and causes them to be depleted which brings on many health problems like high cholesterol and blood clots, and it stops white blood cells from defending the body against infections.  The effects it has on the liver are similar to what an alcoholic faces.

Fructose doesn’t cause insulin to be released so our hunger mechanism isn’t turned off and we aren’t told we are full.  Our bodies get tricked into wanting to eat more and at the same time store more fat.   HFCS converts to fat more than any other sugar.  Maybe this is why Americans are fatter than ever before.

This weight increase is started at an increasingly young age with many children drinking numerous cans of soda each day not to mention the ingestion of the many foods this substance is hidden in.  A survey of high school teens found that teen boys drink an average of 3+ cans of soda per day and 10% of them drink 7+ cans per day.  Teen girls average 2+ cans per day with 10% of them ingesting 5+ cans per day.  The consumption of milk from 1965-1996 dropped 36% while the consumption of soda increased over 200%.  Children are now fatter than ever before too.

HFCS helps prevent freezer burn so it is added to many frozen foods.  It helps bread brown and stay soft so it is in most bread products.  Low-fat fruit flavored yogurt can have 10 tsp. of HFCS, almost as much as a can of soda.  Many so called “health” foods contain this substance as does “natural” soda and cereal, ketchup, pasta, jams, and even bacon.

Fructose is about the farthest thing from natural that we can imagine, let alone eat and we all consume it at an increasingly alarming rate.  Now that you know the dangers of this chemical, don’t go start drinking diet soda thinking you are saving yourself.  If it isn’t laced with the known toxin aspartame, it has recently started to be manufactured with sucralose, known as Splenda.  Not much good can be said about this either. But that’s for another day!

One vital item each household should have is a good quality water filtration system. Something built into your house’s pressure system won’t do much good when you don’t have power or the city systems are down. We should all have coffee filters around to help take out visible particles from water. You then need a proven safe method for removing bacteria and chemical compounds. If you are using water from a city system treated with chlorine and or fluoride, you should be using a water treatment system right now. You can buy pitcher filters or something to attach to your faucet but they don’t handle a high volume of water without needing filters changed often. We have found the Aqua Rain water filtration system to be economical and able to handle filtering the most vile water all for less than 2 cents per gallon.

This filter uses ceramic elements with gravity flow to remove living organisms and harmful bacteria from the water. It also has a carbon filter bed in the ceramic shell for water purity. All this comes with an attractive stainless steel housing that will last for many years. Best of all this water filter is made in the USA.

If you are interested in more information contact us at 479-997-8673 or info@homestylemercantile.com