Once upon a time, there was a small town in Texas. In that small town was a small part of a big Church. This Church asked it's members to love one another and share with one another. This Church also asked its members to store large amounts of wheat, so much wheat, in fact, that the women of the Church decided that they would shun the white flour sold on the shelves of the small town, and use that wheat to grind into flour and make their own bread. From scratch. Like real pioneer Church-lady-type-people. And each of the women made their bread and the people...they were HAPPY.
Then one day, the men decided that they too, could make the bread. One good brother said to another good brother, "Have no fear, Brother, I will show you how to make the bread". And the wives snickered. (No...not really...but it makes for a good story) Each wife, being a good pioneer Church-lady-type-person, armed her husband with her best bread recipe as she kissed him on the cheek and sent him off to war the happy event.
SO the men met and they made the bread. Such grinding of wheat and kneading of dough had not been seen before in the small town, and the Church folk anxiously awaited the outcome. When the loaves emerged, they were golden, aromatic works of art, each moist and delicious, yet different from each other. One brother's bread was simple, rustic, and required few ingredients. The other brother's bread was a symphony of grains and adaptability. As men-folk are wont to do, the two men merrily clapped one another on the back and went out into the garage to discuss how to build a faster Pine-wood Derby car. But the women stayed behind. They poked the bread, they smelled the bread and they politely tasted the bread. Each of the women secretly decided that her husband had indeed baked the better loaf of bread.
From that day forward, the families of the two women baked the bread for the people in the Church. Whenever there was a new member, a sickness, a baby born or a cheering up needed, they would run to their kitchens, and bake their special bread. Then, while the pans were yet warm, they would wrap the loaves up and throw them into their mini-vans (OK, it was a gigantic blue 15 passenger van and a Suburban...it was the 90's...), burn rubber out of their driveways and race to the home of the person in need. When the people tasted the bread, they always asked for the recipe, because they had never tasted such remarkable bread.
To this day, each Sister will declare the wonderful qualities of the other's bread, but she'll ALSO tell you why she loves her own bread better. Through the years, many people have been the recipient of a loaf from each sister, (these sisters really know the meaning of service!) and all agree: Both of the recipe's are wonderful. And no one will admit to using one recipe over the other. So...without any further ado, I give you the two recipe's, made famous by the showdown. (Unfortunately, my own notes are included...since I've long since forgotten where the recipe ends and my notes begin) ***In the interest of full disclosure, I took extreme creative liberty with the story. Sandy's exact words were "I would probably drop over dead if Robert ever made bread, but who knows, maybe if I have 7 more kids..." And if I'm not mistaken, the Payne's bread is a family recipe. Anyhow, it made a good story and no matter what, they both make a dadgum good loaf of bread!***
Payne's Brown Bread
5 1/2 cups hot tap water 1 cup of sugar plus 1/2 cup oil OR 1 cup honey 1 1/2 Tbsp salt 3 Tbsp rapid rise yeast, (she says not to use regular Fleishmans, but I do. I'm sorry Kris) 1 Egg (optional Glen says it makes it brown better) Approx 5 lbs flour. Half wheat half white or any combination you like.
Combine water, sugar or honey and a bit of flour. Then add yeast and enough flour to make a batter, then mix for 3 min in mixer. Switch to dough hook and begin combining rest of flour, then knead for 8-10 min. Add salt during last few min of kneading. Turn into bowl and let rise in a warm place for about an hour. Punch down, shape into loaves, let rise again for about 40 min. Cook at 325 for 30 min. or until loaf makes a hollow thump when tapped. You may also skip first rise and just shape into loaves, let rise and then cook. They keep the crust nice and soft by buttering while still hot and placing loaves in paper bags.
Sandy Johnson's Bread
6 cups hot water 2 Tbsp yeast 2 Tbsp salt 2 eggs 2/3 cup honey 2/3 cup oil 2/3 cup dry potato flakes 2/3 cup dry milk 1 cup cracked wheat 1 cup oatmeal 1 cup oat bran 8-10 cups flour, white and wheat in some combination.
I also add about 1/2 cup wheat gluten, a handful of flax seed meal, some dry malt and some wheat bran. This recipe is very flexible on what you add for grains. I have never used oat bran in it, I use 10 grain cereal though! The less wheat flour you use, the less the bread will rise. So you need to keep your non-wheat grains around three cups of the total amount of wheat to ensure a good rising bread. Follow basic method above to assemble ingredients. Sandy's cooking directions are to cook at 400 for 15 min and then 350 for 30 min.
I've developed a new obsession: soap. I have a few friends that come over on Tuesdays. We let the kids run wild and we make soap while we chat about life and love.
But I'm not going to cover that today.
Lets start easy on you and show you how to make your own laundry soap. This is an INCREDIBLE way to save some money. Here's what you need:
I spent: $3.39 for Borax, $2.49 for Super Washing Soda and $1.19 for Fels Naptha soap. More on that as we progress...
So the first thing I did was grate the soap and add it to 8 cups of water and heated it:
While that was heating I put 3 gallons of hot tap water into each of two five gallon buckets...so 6 gallons of water between two buckets. I did this because I doubled the recipe...I'm still not quite sure WHY I doubled the recipe, but I did...so lets just go with it. OK? OK.
To the three gallons of hot water, I added one cup of washing soda...and stirred it up to disolve it. Since I doubled, I did it twice. Here's what my buckets looked like. The one on the right has some suds because the residue from my last batch was still in there:
To the soap and water mixture on the stove, I added two cups of Borax and stirred. The mixture got slightly thick. Then, I poured off four cups of the Borax/Soap/Water mixture and added four cups to each five gallon bucket and stirred.
That is what it looked like when I finished. Now, because I love, love, love the smell of Tide White Lilac with Baking Soda, I poured about 4 cap fulls into each bucket so I could capture all that yummy smelly-ness in my home made laundry soap...but that step is completely optional. I'm sure this step probably more than doubles the cost of my laundry soap per load, but lets get back to that and see how much my nicely scented soap is really costing me per load:
I spent right around $7 for supplies. Of that, I only used 2 cups each of the Soda and the Borax. Now, just for arguments sake, lets say there is six cups in each the Soda and the Borax boxes, so each 2 cups costs me .57 for the Borax and .42 for the Soda. The Fels Naptha costs $1.19 and I used the whole bar for a double batch. So total, I spent $2.18 to make just over 8 gallons of laundry soap. That translates to approximatly 128 cups of laundry soap. If you divide the $2.18 out over 128 cups, that translates to just under .02 per load...if you use a whole cup instead of the half cup you could probably get by with.
NOW. I spent $3.99 on my Tide using coupons and a sale, and just to make it easy, lets say I used the whole thing in there, ( I didn't) which makes the whole batch cost $6.17. Without adding any additional cups of volume created by adding the detergent, this would mean each load would cost .05. To contrast, the same $3.99 I spent on the Tide, if used alone, would wash 26 loads, which translates to about .15 per load! And remember, I used coupons! If I didn't use coupons and was just lucky enough to find it on sale, it would cost $4.99 which translates to approximately .19 per load!
The whole thing took me about 15 minutes and now I have enough soap to last until the second coming...or until we go camping...all for right around $6. Does it work? You bet. Even the nasty smelly laundry comes out fresh and clean and everything looks at least as good as it did using the commercial stuff at full strength. Give it a try! You'll feel so proud of yourself for being super duper thrifty!
Here's the original recipe: 1 cup Borax 1 Cup Super Washing Soda 1/2 bar Fels Naptha Laundry Bar or 1 bar Ivory soap
Grate soap and add to 4 cups of water you've heated on the stove. Add three gallons of hot tap water to a five gallon bucket. Dissolve 1 cup of Super Washing Soda in the 3 gallons hot tap water. After soap has melted in hot water on stove, add 1 cup Borax and stir to dissolve. Mixture will get thick. Pour thickened Borax/Soap mixture into the soda water and mix to combine. Add whatever fragrance you'd like...or don't. You are supposed to let the finished product sit for 24 hours after mixing...it will thicken some and be more gel like in appearance. I pour mine into my old detergent bottles for easy dispensing.
Running behind as usual, but here's the down low on how to stick stuff in mason jars, keep it on your shelf for a year, feed it to your family and not die of botulism.
Whenever I tell people I'm canning stuff, I get told that they are scared of pressure cookers. I promise that the days of exploding canners are in the distant past. If the vents get blocked, modern canners have blow-out valves that will release the pressure, you will not have a bomb going off in your kitchen. Many people are scared to death of canning because they heard a story. For more information and to ease your troubled mind, read this.
Storing food for later use mainly involves stopping spoilage by killing nasty stuff already in your food, keeping micro-organisms away from food with an air-tight seal and/or adding ingredients that inhibit the growth of any nasty stuff that might have made it through your killing efforts. Fruits, jams and jellies can be preserved with a combination of copious amounts of sugar; which keeps stuff from growing in there, heat; to kill bad stuff, and an airtight seal; which can be accomplished without the use of a pressure canner through a process called a "water bath". The process is very basic even though it sounds a little scary. Basically, you make something yummy, like, oh, I don't know...maybe SPICED PEACH JAM or even better, BLACKBERRY PEACH JAM and you make it, following the directions. You can't make jam recipe's more healthy by reducing the amount of sugar!!! I'm all about breaking rules, and I firmly believe that recipes are nothing more than a good place to start, but you must use tried and true recipes for canning. You can vary the kind and amounts of spices in any given recipe, but you must keep the ratio of fruit to sugar the same. In fact, I'm pretty sure when I make Spiced Peach Jam, I use the Blackberry Peach recipe spices instead of what you see there. Anyhow. Today's focus isn't going to be canning fruits and jellies. Lets talk MEAT!
There are a few slight differences in canning with a pressure canner vs. using a water bath, but for the sake of today's discussion, we'll assume you don't know squat about either one. I've canned chicken, ground beef, chicken soup and chili in the past week. Some of the chicken I did was raw pack...as the name implies, it was raw when I packed it in the jars. You can do this because it will cook during the pressure canning step. The ground beef, soups and chili were all cooked. I discovered during my research for this project that you shouldn't can soup with dairy or thickener's in it. They also recommend you not add noodles, barley or rice before canning either.
So here's how to can your own meats and soups:
You need pint and quart sized mason jars. Because you will be canning under pressure, it's not a good idea to use old garage sale jars. Buy your own new from somewhere like Wal-mart or even most grocery stores. If you do get used ones, make sure they are from someone you trust and they aren't ancient. You will be re-using the jars, but never, never try to re-use jars from a commercial packing operation...like a mayonnaise jar; and some old commercial jars look a whole lot like home canning jars. If your mom bought jars and used them for two or three years, then you're probably OK, but we want to stay away from garage sale and DI finds for this project...K?
Jar Prep: No need to sterilize your jars! Which is super nice. Just wash with warm soapy water and dry. I also dropped the lids in some hot water while I prepped the other stuff, just to soften up the seals.
Chicken Soup: I made a nice stock, added some celery, onions, carrot and removed the bones from the chicken I used to make the stock. I then ladled it into quart jars, filling each jar about half full of goodies and the rest of the way with stock. I left about an inch of "head space" at the top of the jars. Head space is the amount of air you leave when filling your jars to allow for expansion during heating. If you don't leave enough, it may allow food to leak out or, I guess, theoretically, it could bust your jars.
Raw Pack Chicken Breast: I found some chicken breast tenders on sale, some I diced, some I left whole. I rinsed the chicken well and packed it into pint jars leaving about 1/2 inch of "head space" at the top. I did my best to squish out the air spaces down in the meat, but I'm pretty sure that's not totally necessary. Last, I sprinkled about a half teaspoon of salt on the chicken. No need to add liquid when raw packing.
Cooked Chicken Thighs: I baked some thighs I found on sale, removed the skin, de-boned and rough chopped. Then I packed it into pint jars and filled each with water and chicken juice from baking, leaving one inch head space. Sprinkled 1/2 tsp salt on top of each.
Ground Beef: This I browned, drained, rinsed and salted. I then packed it into a pint sized jar and added water, leaving one inch head space.
Chili: Made my friends make it. There were two varieties, one of which was from the recipe on the sidebar. We ate what didn't fit into the quart jars we used. It was super tasty!
Once I had the stuff in the jars, I put the warm lids on and put the screw bands on...you want them tight, but not too tight...somewhere between Hercules and Pansy Butt should be just about right.
When you can jelly and jam, you ladle the hot jam into hot, sterilized jars. This process doesn't require the jars or the contents to be hot. I guess you would want to use common sense...like not taking frozen or super cold jars full of stuff and plunking them into boiling water...but you don't have to have everything hot for this process.
Once the jars are packed and the lids screwed down, all that's left is the actual canning...which is what intimidates people but I promise, it's the easiest part. You fill your canner with a couple inches of water and put the rack down in there. The rack is going to keep your jars from sitting on the bottom of the pan and therefore, the direct heat of the element. The water will create steam and pressure which will super heat your food and jars and kill any bad stuff lurking in your food. The cooling is what will create a vacuum inside your jars and seal the lids on for long term storage.
It is important to note that you can't can meat or soups with a pressure COOKER...it must be a pressure CANNER. The best use a metal to metal seal and wing nuts that hold the lid on tight. But there are several other varieties out there that have rubber seals that work just dandy. The main difference between a pressure cooker and a pressure canner is that a canner is capable of building more pressure and there is some form of telling how much pressure is built. The pressure is measured with either a weight or an actual gauge. If your canner has a gauge, you just have to read the dial to tell how much pressure is inside, if there is no gauge, you have to listen for steam rocking the weight, so I shot some video to show you what it should sound like.
So. You've filled your jars, you've screwed on your lids, you've put some water and your rack down in your canner...what's left? Well, you need to put your jars into your canner. Only can one size of jar at a time. You will process pints for 75 minutes and quarts for a whole 90 minutes, so it just wouldn't do to have them all in there at the same time. So put your jars in like so...
and lock the lid down on your canner. Now, turn your heating element on high. Pretty soon, you will see steam spouting out the top of your canner like this:
Steam needs to escape from the canner in this manner for ten minutes. Once the ten minutes is up, you place the weight on the spout. We will be canning at 10 pounds but if you are over 1000 feet in altitude, you need to can at 15 pounds. So, if you have a canner with a gauge, just plunk the weight onto the canner, and once the canner builds ten (or 15) pounds of pressure, you will turn the heat down to keep it at 10 (or 15) pounds on the gauge for the entire length of your processing time: again, 75 minutes for pints, 90 minutes for quarts. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CANNER UN-ATTENDED. Do not let the canner get under ten pounds of pressure, if you do, you have to get it back up to ten pounds and start timing over again. Better to have a bit too much pressure than too little. If your canner doesn't have a dial-type gauge, you will need to read on. You will still place your weight on there after the steam has escaped for ten minutes. Most canners of this type have a round weight that has 5, 10 and 15 imprinted on the weight and holes at each of these numbers. We are going to use 10 (or 15 if above 1000 feet in altitude) and put that baby on there. Then, it's going to start jiggling like this:
Which is good. Once it starts jiggling, you can start timing (75 minutes for pints, 90 for quarts!) and you are going to reduce the heat until it jiggles like this:
and you are going to listen for and maintain that jiggling pattern throughout your processing time. Once you have processed your cans for the prescribed amount of time, 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts...in case you didn't notice before...you turn off the heat. Now you can go do whatever you want...it it safe to leave your canner at this point. You need to let your canner cool down and release pressure all by its self. Try not to cheat. DO NOT run cold water over your canner to force cooling. Don't lift the weight. The canner doesn't have to be stone cold before you open it, but the pressure has be all off before you take off the lid. If you are in a hurry, give it 30-45 minutes and take off the weight. If there's no hissing steam, you can probably take the lid off and remove your jars. You'll want to set your jars on a towel in a draft free place and remember, they are gonna be super hot if you didn't let the canner go all the way to cold before you take them out! A jar lifter is a handy piece of equipment in this case. I also cover my jars with another towel as they cool. You may hear the lids "plink" when they seal. You may not. You do need to check and make sure the lid of each jar has sucked down and is concave in appearance. Incidentally, you should also make sure each jar is still sealed before you consume the contents once you've stored them a while. Write the month and year on the lid before storing with your BFF, the Sharpie marker. And stand back and enjoy your domestic efforts! I know, the whole thing is easier than it sounds, but we won't tell anyone. For additional information or if my directions weren't clear enough, the CSU extension site has a nice page on canning.
One of my friends asked "Can you tell me when you have time if you make things from scratch every night or freeze stuff and heat up? Is it cheaper?"
Well, I almost never have time, but I'll take the time anyway to answer this important question. How is cooking from scratch important to home food storage? Besides being cheaper and thus insuring that you have some extra coin to get a reserve going, it's healthier for you and it will help you eliminate waste and spoilage through rotation.
Yes, I cook from scratch almost every night. When I am not struggling with organization, I also freeze stuff and heat up...but not in the "make a casserole and freeze it" sort of way. What I like doing is buying my meats and immediately upon getting home, I separate them into bags, plop in some kind of marinade (from scratch-hardly ever use bottled stuff) and THEN freeze. To use, I simply remove a bag of marinated goodness from the freezer in the morning, set it on the counter (I know, I'm bad) and then grill or bake for dinner. Add a can of veggies and maybe some potatoes or rice and that's it. Now, being the busy and lazy person that I am, I have to qualify this some: I prefer to do this every time I go to the store, but have to admit I sometimes get lazy on the front end and pay for it when I wish I had something fast to throw together. But I still force myself to defrost something and cook from scratch, why? The answer is simple: economics. We'd have starved to death long ago if I was trying to buy mixes and boxes. Here are some recipes in my personal collection that I use for marinades:
When I have a little extra time, these Stuffed Chicken Cutlets are divine and perfect for individual freezing on a jelly roll pan, then pop the frozen bundles into a big Ziplock for one at a time dispensing.
Yes, I know. We eat a lot of chicken. But we also eat pork when it goes on sale and these recipe's all work well on pork. Marinades are easy! Sometimes, I just start dumping things in. I buy bags of lemons and limes at Sam's and I just go crazy with the spices and oils. Anything you marinade this way will turn out really well because it gets to really penetrate the food since it gets to be in contact with it for so long! I also sear the outsides of roasts and add in my braising liquid prior to freezing for positively delectable pot roasts!
I ALWAYS try to buy in bulk, it's cheaper in the long run, helps us eat healthier foods, and I always have something on hand...somewhere, which means fewer trips to the store. It's a proven fact of marketing that the more time you spend in a store, the more money you spend at the store. I get a whole lot of mileage out of my Sam's Club card and I also frequent a store that sells overstock merchandise and things that are nearing expiration. I can buy 10 yogurt cups for a dollar. I can buy 3 boxes of Bunny Grahams (Annie's Organic) for $1. (reg $3 each) I can buy ground beef for .99 a pound and my kids and I were just thrilled when I got packages of Cheese Dogs for $1 each. The thing with the meats is that they are usually frozen and hamburger is in a 5-7 pound chub. Here are some recipes to use for ground beef:
Salisbury Steak but I make meatballs, then cook, add gravy and freeze. Mini Meatloaves Again, individual freeze and reheat. And of course, I usually keep a big bag of frozen ground beef on hand that has been browned with onion, garlic, salt and pepper. It is a perfect start to about 101 different casseroles, burritos, sloppy joes, and even as a mix in for that wonderful standby: Mac and Cheese.
Now, this is where lots of people start needing to breath into a paper sack, cooking from scratch every night is a lifestyle change. For most, this change will occur gradually as you build your food storage program, so if you are smacking down McD's 3 times a week and Hamburger Helper is your BFF, I want you to consider why you are in this habit. Is it because you simply have nothing on hand and are too tired to make stuff to eat when you get home? Would it help you to have something to serve on short notice, even if you had to micro-defrost it? Would it make you feel less guilt to have something decent to eat without a trip to the store or a drive-thru? I will guarantee that with a small investment of time each week, you can free yourself from pre-packaged, sodium laden boxes and Fat Food Drive-Thru non-food FOREVER. You will feel better, you will look better, and you will be richer...or at least, less poor. ;O)
With just a bit of planning, you can have at least 6 different chicken varieties on hand with only about 30 min invested. Here's what you do: make up several marinades in advance. Put them in gallon size Ziplock bags. Go to the grocery store. Buy several packages of chicken, thighs and legs, breasts, whatever is on sale...and if it's marked down for quick sale...even better. When you get home, open up chicken packages, rinse off the meat, remove skin (or not), and then put as many pieces as it takes to feed your family into each Ziplock. Smoosh the Ziplocks around some, (or employ a three year old to help you carry them to the freezer) and pop them in the freezer. You're done. You just cooked dinner for at least 6 nights. In UNDER 30 minutes (not including shopping time). I know it's technically not "cooked" but it will be, most chicken cuts cook very fast, and truthfully, many of these cook up just great in the crock pot too! Plus, you'll be looking forward to trying your creations instead of groaning about having to come up with something for dinner. And the next time you make something, make a double batch: freeze one, serve one. With a little time and discipline, you will be eating better and cheaper than you ever thought possible and building your food storage AT THE SAME TIME!!! YEAHY!
Stay tuned for a post later this week on canning meats and soups! I have two bottles of chicken (surprise! lol), a bottle of ground beef and two quarts of chicken soup...and I took pictures and video as I went so you can join in the fun! Until then, happy storing.
By now, you should have a list of stuff you need to purchase. Do you feel better knowing that you have officially started your food storage program? If you don't have your list, go to Step by Step over there in the sidebar and start reading! Today, I was approached by someone who was anxious to get some more food storage done and after a short talk, we decided running out and putting up #10 cans probably wasn't the place to start for her. You can obsess over many things in life, but please, don't obsess over what to buy first for your food storage! Find a sale? Stock up! You now have your list so you know EXACTLY what and how many you need! Keep your master list with you at all times so you can refer to it when you see green beans on sale for .33 cents a can!
I don't personally subscribe to the idea of trying to prioritize my purchasing with any real precision. Some do. Whatever works for you. I'm more likely to buy in "chunks" with a set amount of money each month, but I'm also likely to spend my regular grocery money if something great comes along and then just eat out of the freezer and pantry for a couple weeks. Special purchases like a 5 gallon bucket of honey or a bag of powdered milk are not things on my regular shopping list, but they do need to be re-stocked periodically. The main thing to remember is that you are going to be spending more on your food bill than usual for a while. Make friends with that idea and you'll be OK. Once you have stocked up, you'll be able to cut back again, and you may find, as I have, eating simpler, whole foods is much less expensive and very much worth your time in preparing dishes from scratch. I have a friend who's much too modest to admit, but I'm fairly certain she's paid off her mortgage this past year, in part due to her commitment to not eating out and eating simple foods prepared at home.
Your best friend in storing food is your Sharpie marker. Go ahead and put that on your list. Any large batches of stuff you buy needs to be dated with the Sharpie. Just write on there somewhere. Month and year. That's it. Well, OK, you can put a smiley face if you want. Wendy Dewitt outlines her method for rotating and purchasing. It is as sound as any I've seen for a food storage that is kept separate from the family pantry. Basically, food is kept under the beds, and twice a year, she consults her list, looks for stuff that is coming due for shelf life, takes that item out of storage (like her boxes of cereal, she takes them out once a year) puts it in the pantry for use and replaces it with fresh stuff. It's simple and effective. If you are doing the traditional method, you need to make certain that you are eating at home! If you do that, your food storage will stay fresh. If not, you may be looking at giving some away if you can't use it before it goes stale. The only thing I've had go bad in food storage is a can of potato pearls that got forgotten and a couple bags of beans...and I'm not sure those were bad or if I'm just traumatized by my mom's pork and beans and all beans just taste bad to me as a result. I inherited the beans. Totally not my fault. (Long story short, mom made a huge pot of beans once in a while and that's all you got to eat for a month. OK, a week, but it seemed like a month. Ketchup doesn't help. No matter what she and grandpa said.)
It's late and I'm tired. I'll have a new installment or two this next week...provided calculus doesn't kill me off. I'll even add a link or two for you to check out. Namely a link to someone who figured out how to amass a food storage for $5 a week per person. Now there's someone with a plan. And a lot of extra time on her hands. Thank goodness for good people like her, right?
So, now that you know all about my buggy bag o' wheat, I'll let you in on another secret. I have a couple hundred pounds of wheat, rice and beans in my bedroom. Romantic, huh? Some of it is still in the original paper bags. I just realized it's been there about a year now. I probably ought to get on "improving" that situation. I promised you when I started this blog that I would reveal to you all the things I do that break the food storage rules. So in the interest of keepin' it real, I will share with you the fact that I put my bulk dry foods in plastic 5 gallon buckets recycled from Wal-mart's bakery. Yep. They are food grade plastic, I wash and dry them well, they each hold about 35 pounds of whatever I put in there and best of all, they were free. Food Storage Natzi's will tell you that the only way to store wheat properly is to put it in cans, or buy it from someplace like Walton's in a mylar Super Pail. And goody for them. I'm doing the best I can over here, and it's way better than nothing at all. For sure there are a few things I will go to the extra expense and effort to put in cans and sealed Super Pails, powdered milk, dehydrated vegetables and pricier stuff like that, but the cheap stuff that has already had Mother Nature all over it, it's going in the buckets.
I'm here to tell you that I inherited about a hundred pounds of wheat that had been stored in plastic garbage bags inside a clean plastic garbage can for over 15 years. We kept it from getting wet, but that's about it. It was stored in several garages and sheds, in both hot and cold extremes. Basically, this wheat was just stored "all wrong". Short of storing it on the garage floor in nothing but the paper bag, we couldn't have stored it any worse. When I finally cracked open the container, there was one bag that had been open and partially used. It had some funky looking little critters in it. The other bag is good as new. I didn't have to sift out any bugs, it tastes fine and hasn't killed anyone! If I were truly hungry, you bet your left ear I'd do my best to sift the critters out of that partial bag, grind it up, and make up some bread! And as bad as it may sound, I'll probably hang on to this partial bag too. If I were ever in a tight spot, I might still be able to sprout it, plant it or give it to my chickens.
What people don't understand is that if you are truly hungry, you will do anything, and I mean anything to provide for your family. If you didn't store any food, and you showed up at my house and all I could give was this poor, improperly stored, buggy bag of wheat, you'd spend all day picking the bugs out so you could eat it. It would keep you from having to lie, cheat or steal just to feed your children for one more day, and you'd be glad to have it. I'll let you in on a little secret: We've grown fat and lazy in our land of plenty. We have grown disconnected from the agricultural process. The idea of eating anything that touched dirt or has bugs in it sounds icky and not at all OK. But guess what? The things you eat started their lives outside, and Mother Nature? She got ALL OVER THEM! Yep. Your food doesn't grow or get harvested in a sterile environment. But listen, if you are in a position of having to spend your days figuring out how to procure your next meal, you'll have plenty of time to pick bugs out of your wheat if you didn't do a perfect job of storing it. In history, people have literally eaten their own shoes in an effort to survive. Start storing some food! You can get to the details of storing it well as you go. Don't let your own perfectionism, or worse, someone else's perfectionism, keep you from doing what you can do.
