When we think of storing food, often grains, rice, and legumes come in a 5-gallon pail. What if you are single or there are only two of you? It will take a long time to use 5-gallons of pinto beans and you might just get sick of them before they are gone. One solution is to use one gallon pails with a 300cc oxygen absorber but if you would like even smaller containers, round up those old canning jars sitting in the basement or attic and give them a good cleaning. They are great for storing small amounts and are bug and rodent proof. We have 50cc oxygen absorbers to put in each one of them so they will store for many years if kept in a cool, dry, and dark environment. Since they are clear, light can easily get to the food. If you don’t have a dark room, put them in a box under the bed. This is one way for someone to begin their storage program without much investment. If you don’t have jars hidden away somewhere, chances are someone in your neighborhood does and will be having a garage sale soon. Head on out looking for them and often pay only pennies for each.

It’s getting closer folks. The government has been buying up dehydrated and freeze dried foods from Mountain House, one of the leading long-term storage companies. In fact, Mountain House will not be able to deliver any #10 cans of their products until the year 2010. I’d say if the government is putting things away, we had better be doing it too.

Another leader in long-term storage food is Alpine Aire. We are able to offer you their products at a 5% discount from their list prices. We realize that not everyone can afford the great things Alpine Aire has to offer. We can put a plan together for you which will have the basics. You should start with setting back a 4-year supply, and then begin using the items and replenishing, so you can find out how best to prepare to your liking, while you still have time to adjust/improve your selection. Items should be stored and sealed in glass jars, metal cans, plastic pails, or aluminized mylar bags for best results. Removing oxygen from storage containers is necessary for long-term use. Store items in a cool, dark, dry location.

The Primary and lowest cost storage items are grains, rice and beans/legumes, olive oil, honey, and some salt. The general rule of thumb is one pound per day per person minimum.

The next level is to add condiments that will make your eating immensely more enjoyable. Include dried/dehydrated and freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, meats, seasonings, yeast, gluten, powdered milk, cheese, and butter, nuts, coconut oil, sprouting seeds, and non-hybrid garden seeds. You should consider having a minimum of 1/2 pound per person per day of these items.

The highest cost items are the prepared mixes and meal entrees. The advantage is many of these can be eaten with little or no cooking required. I would include in this category such items as dessert mixes, soup mixes, drink mixes, coffee/teas, sweeteners, etc. You should also maintain an adequate supply of shorter life wet-pack, shelf-stable foods that you are rotating regularly. These items may include canned vegetables, fruits, juices, meats, ketchup, peanut butter, jellies, pastas, pickles, sauces, alcoholic beverages, etc.

Of course you should be able to provide indefinitely at least one gallon per person per day of potable water.

You can email us at info@homestylemercantile.com to get some prices on food for one year for one person or we can customize a plan for your family. Check out our inventory and let us know what types of foods you would like.

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.