Thursday 28/05/15

Welcome back to part three of Food Prepping. I hope you have done the homework I've assigned you, because those minor tasks will help you with your planning.

The food you will build up in your emergency supplies will come under two categories:

  1. Ready to eat. This is self-explanatory; it is any food that requires no preparation and can be eaten "as is". This includes almost any food in a can. Most canned food probably requires heating prior to eating; but in an emergency, you can eat it straight from the tin.
  2. Other ingredients. This covers all other food in your emergency supply, such as rice, pasta, and flour. This is food that you need to prepare (like pasta), or something you use as an ingredient to make food with (such as flour). Because you need to do something to make these ingredients edible, I strongly advise memorising a few basic recipes that you can use while camping or if you have to rough-it during an emergency situation.

Knowing a few basic recipes will dictate what sort of food you purchase for your emergency food supplies. There's no point buying ingredients you have no idea how to use. A relatively simple Australian camping favourite is damper. Trust me, having access to fresh bread during difficult times will help bolster the morale of your group.

Damper
(Before you start mixing ingredients, your first step will be to build a fire, then let it burn down until you have coals – lots of coals. You will be cooking in these, not the flames)

Ingredients:

3 cups Self-raising flour
1 pinch Salt
1 Tablespoon Milk powder
2 teaspoons Sugar
½ cup Water

Method:

  • Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix them together.
  • Mix the water through the dry ingredients.
  • Sprinkle a handful of flour onto a clean work surface. Cover your hands in flour too.
  • Tip the dough onto your floured surface. Kneed by hand until you make a soft ball of dough. If the mixture is sticky add a little more flour, the dough should hold together well without breaking up.
  • If you have cooking spray, spray the inside of your camp oven.
  • Liberally dust the inside of your camp oven with flour.
  • Put dough in your camp oven and cut a cross across the surface of your dough.
  • Using a shovel, put your camp oven in the coals, and cover the top with coals for approximately 30 minutes.
  • Using your shovel, retrieve your camp oven from the coals after.
  • Tip damper onto your clean work surface.
  • When the damper is cooked, tap the top of the loaf with your knife handle. It should sound hollow. Serve with jam or honey (or with stew).

This is only one example of something you can make with the dry ingredients from your emergency food supplies. Once again, I will pause this topic until next Thursday. Your homework this week is to look for a simple recipe that you can cook under primitive conditions, with a minimum of fuss and a minimum of ingredients.

Thursday 21/05/15

Welcome back. This week's blog is continuing where last week's blog paused. At the end of the blog I left you with some homework to do (which I really hope you did).

With today's access to 24 hour, 7 days a week shopping, many people have forgotten the necessity of keeping a full pantry (beyond the food that will use in the next 7 days). Initially, you need to build up a store of food that will be enough to last you for 72 hours. Why specifically 72 hours? Most minor emergencies will have resolved within this length of time. Once you have reached this benchmark, you should then strive to increase your stores beyond this. Your next benchmark is 7 days, then 14 days, and finally, enough food for a month.

A month might seem a long time, and hopefully you will never have cause to rely on your stores for this long. Think of your food stores as an insurance policy; you'll be glad you have them in an emergency. Another reason that might spur you into action; you will appreciate your efforts if you suddenly find yourself unemployed.

When you are planning your supplies, you need to be realistic about the number of people who will be under your care. There is no point prepping for your family, only to discover you have a few extra mouths to feed during the disaster. Think carefully; once a disaster hits, it is too late purchase extra supplies. The extra people don't live in your house, but they will be the same people that regularly turn to you for help in times of need. I can't stress this strongly enough; include the extra people in your preparation plans. These people can be friends, extended family or even a neighbour that you regularly help with their problems. When disaster strikes; these people will turn to you for help. Also, don't forget to plan for your pets.

In addition to the food I have advised you to purchase, you also need to have a basic supply of cooking equipment you can use in rough conditions:

  • A cast iron camp oven (for cooking food in the coals of your campfire)
  • A billy-can (for reheating food on top of your fire, or boiling water)
  • Cups, plates and bowls – plastic is ok, but metal is more durable
  • Cutlery – often overlooked
  • A good quality pair of long handled tongs – Cheap ones WILL break.
  • A sturdy kitchen knife (with a full tang and durable handle)
  • A wooden spoon
  • A long metal hook (to lift your billy-can from the fire)
  • A tin opener
  • Several rolls of paper towel
  • A plastic wash tub (to wash your dishes in)
  • A hexamine stove with a generous supply of fuel tablets (if you can't have a fire)

Like I said last week, basic prepping for food is a simple, but lengthy topic. I will stop the blog at this point, and pick it up again next Thursday. Just like last week, you have homework. I want you to write up a list of the people who will rely on you in a disaster, and factor them into your disaster preparation plans.

Thursday 14/05/15

Prepping isn't difficult or expensive; nor is it some secret hobby that only weird recluses get involved in. Unlike the extreme examples shown on television, prepping is something everyone should do. Think of it this way; in an emergency or disaster would you prefer to know that you have done everything you could to look after yourself and your family, or hope a heroic stranger turns up to save the day?

One of the most important things you can do is make sure that in an emergency situation, you have enough water and non-perishable food on hand to feed yourself and your family for at least one month. This doesn't need to be an expensive exercise, because you can easily build up your stockpile for just a couple of dollars a week, by purchasing a few extra groceries when you do your weekly shopping. I'm not talking about the extremely expensive "survival" food you can purchase; just purchase the same sort of food you already keep in your pantry (Trust me, you don't want to be trying new food for the first time in an emergency situation, only to find that you're allergic to it).

Ready to eat non-perishable food items include tins of: soup, stews, fruit, spaghetti, baked beans, tuna, salmon, processed meat, etc (like I said, the sort of stuff you have in your pantry). Other non-perishable food items include dehydrated goods like: flour, milk powder, salt, pepper, tea, coffee, sugar, rice, pasta, rolled oats. Long-life milk is another item you should consider stocking. As I mentioned earlier, none of these items are particularly expensive, and adding just a couple of extra tins to your weekly shopping won't significantly impact on your budget. The extra food you purchase should be put into boxes/milk crates, near your Bug Out Bag. This way, you can grab it quickly if you need to evacuate in a hurry (and, you won't accidentally use it as part of your household's food supply). Most importantly, try to get as many cans with ring-pull tops as possible; If you have to mobilise, you may not have access to a can opener (I also recommend owning several little "camping" tin-openers, just in case the ring-pulls break).

Another reason to stick to products you already use is it will allow you to do what is known as stock rotation. Once your emergency food has reached the desired level, you will want to keep it fresh. This chore is very easy to stay on top of; as you bring your weekly groceries into the house, restock your pantry from your food reserves, then restock your food reserves from the shopping you have just purchased. Make sure you keep an eye on the expiry dates of any food stocks you haven't rotated in a while.

Something else you will want to keep on hand is a supply of bottled water. I recommend keeping several 15 litre jugs and several boxes of 24 x 600mL bottled water in your house. The 15 litre jugs are cheaper, but the individual bottles are easier to distribute among your group if you suddenly have to leave (it is better to leave a few bottles behind, than the whole 15 litres – if you are the one stuck with the task of carrying the water; you will quickly discover these things weigh a ton).
The water will have a use by date on the package, not because water goes off, but the plastic container can affect the taste after a while.

Food prepping is a simple, but lengthy topic, and I don't want to overwhelm you with too much information in one blog. I'll call it a night at this point, and I'll pick it up again next Thursday. Before then, I want you to go to your pantry and actually write out a list of the things you need to start purchasing. Remember, being prepared doesn't mean going to the shops after disaster has struck.