Limited Canned Goods.

[Toddy]

Honestly ? if you're just stashing cans, and not using them, then it just becomes a burden.
Cans last well, if kept cool and dry. In the damp UK, all too often they rust.

A good prep, just in case, pantry is full of things you actually use, that you/your family actually eat.
It's not like power cut candles....though I still have a box load of those from the 1970's......at least it's not tinned meat, iimmc ?

The Mormons seem to be the ultimate preppers (Look up Thrive Life) and their miminum is three months supply for everyone in the family.
For a year,
"The amount of food storage you should have to sustain an average adult for 1 year is 390lbs of grains, 70lbs of beans/legumes, 25lbs of dried meats, 90lbs of dry dairy, 25lbs of fats and oils, 60lbs of sugars, 90lbs of dried fruits, and an assortment of other goods."

Aye, indeed.

I've been a housewife for an awful long time, I think those figures are wrong, I really do.
I feed a family of three of us just now, all adults, and we don't go through anywhere near that quantity of any of those. For instance, in a month we use a kg of buttery stuff and 1lt of oil (different kinds, from olive to UK grown rapeseed but it adds up to a lt a month)....for three.

Maybe everything is bigger in America

M

 

[knowledge=gain]

The Mormons seem to be the ultimate preppers (Look up Thrive Life) and their miminum is three months supply for everyone in the family.
For a year,
"The amount of food storage you should have to sustain an average adult for 1 year is 390lbs of grains, 70lbs of beans/legumes, 25lbs of dried meats, 90lbs of dry dairy, 25lbs of fats and oils, 60lbs of sugars, 90lbs of dried fruits, and an assortment of other goods."

those figures seem to be well outdated for sure

i would like to track down the date those figures came about [circa 1600, 1800...??]

things were different back then, with larger families, worked harder and longer hours, non chemicals added to foods and much more

was the extra amount to cater for animals and rodents feeding on grain and-such...??

 

[Toddy]

The date on the article was 2022. I don't think the Mormons were about in the 1600's
Maybe they are using a diet from the times when folks physically worked hard and didn't have central heating in Winter as their base ?

Either way, it wasn't a dig at them, just that they're a very public group who store food (not just for themselves it has to be said, but so that they have enough to share with neighbours in time of need)

I just feel the numbers given are excessive, even if every single meal is made from basic ingredients.

 

[knowledge=gain]

The date on the article was 2022. I don't think the Mormons were about in the 1600's
Maybe they are using a diet from the times when folks physically worked hard and didn't have central heating in Winter as their base ?

Either way, it wasn't a dig at them, just that they're a very public group who store food (not just for themselves it has to be said, but so that they have enough to share with neighbours in time of need)

I just feel the numbers given are excessive, even if every single meal is made from basic ingredients.

i know it was no dig at them and just an observation

i am just trying to comprehend those figures as best as one [1] can

 

[Toddy]

Y'know what gives a really good base line ?
The wartime food allowances.
No one here starved, no one here tholed an unhealthy diet.
It might have been a bit restricted, but it worked. Low fat, low sugar, but ample.
No reason we couldn't adapt it to suit our modern range of available food sources though and still keep within the allowances.

Somewhere online I came across a link to it. I'll have a looksee.

M

 

[Toddy]

Sorry @TeeDee we've really taken this Off Topic

Would you rather I tried to split the thread ?

M

 

[TLM]

Sorry @TeeDee we've really taken this Off Topic

But to a very logical and relevant direction.

 

[TeeDee]

Sorry @TeeDee we've really taken this Off Topic

Would you rather I tried to split the thread ?

M

Personally I'd always try for the thread to be respected for what it is about and try to stay on point. Rather than massively diverge into broadstrokes of randomness.

However i'm a grumpy individual it seems and I think you've informed me before Thread hijacking and going off piste is something to be expected.

I can't say I've learned more from the thread divergence but maybe others have so let it continue -I don't think the effort required to make sense and split the thread is going to be beneficial.

 

[Toddy]

Okay

On the cans note though; maybe it'd be more practical to think about what you might actually make from them, and what cans you need 'per meal' sort of thing ?

So, meat and two veg, perhaps ? and a pudding
for instance....Steak (well, whatever is actually in a can of 'steak' ), potatoes, carrots/peas, rice = 4 cans.
or Chopped tomatoes, kidney beans, mince/corned beef = chilli from 3 cans
or Chicken in white sauce, tin of veg soup with tomatoes = base of a curry from 2 cans

Thing is, none of these would work on their own. It needs seasoning and such like too as well as vegetables like onions, and bread/tortillas as well.

I don't think I could do it happily just from cans I think you need dry goods too. Stuff to make flat breads like naan, or johnny cakes. Quickly made, simply made stuff.

M

 

[Broch]

I don't think I could do it happily just from cans I think you need dry goods too. Stuff to make flat breads like naan, or johnny cakes. Quickly made, simply made stuff.

M

Ah, but if you had to, if all the dried stuff and fresh stuff had deteriorated beyond use, what five cans would you wished you'd stocked up on?

I suppose this is my point about timescale - or it could be about storage conditions - your stash has been flooded for example.

 

[Broch]

Why can't you get unsweetened canned rice?

 

[TeeDee]

I don't think I could do it happily just from cans I think you need dry goods too. Stuff to make flat breads like naan, or johnny cakes. Quickly made, simply made stuff.

M

Hey - I totally agree- but I would suggest the main bulk of the Calorific/Macro nutrients content of a diet is going to come from the contents of the Canned goods - not anything else.

Herbs and flavourings I would suggest can be seasonally foraged if people know what they are doing but being able to forage and produce 800kCal of food is not an easy task at all.

I'm not suggesting an emergency store of cans to not be used but one that can become a fundamental large keystone in a pantry.


As the whole worlds media & political figures now seems to be talking and warning us about potential food shortages in the coming years I don't think its any longer the tin foil hat brethern that should consider a little bit of action in terms of extending the pantry / larder and learning how to do more , with less.


Rather have it and not need it than vice versa.

 

[TeeDee]

I don't think I could do it happily just from cans

I'm not sure if Happily was something I was entertaining as an important variable.

 

[Toddy]

I have issues. It just does not compute to me to not have a pantry. I cannot imagine not having enough to make decent food. Even living very frugally I managed to have a pantry.
I think it just needs forethought, an awareness of the seasons, and a bit of diligent application to learning how to store gluts in season and make the best of it.

I mind when we had that really heavy blanket of snow right across the UK a few years ago, and someone on the forum was complaining because he couldn't get out to shop and they had 'no' food in the house, and they had young children in the house, but they had 'no' food, none, none at all. Not even flour because they didn't bake or make from basic ingredients. I honestly struggled to believe it, it just made no sense to me at all.
I couldn't live that way, it's just not my nature to have nothing put by.

So, if my pantry was flooded @Broch, could I feed us still ?
Well, yes, so long as I could wash the cans/jars/sachets properly.
Flooding's not going to happen to us though, we're well above sealevel and the burn outside the fence runs in a valley a good 20+ feed deep. It'd flood down stream before it'd flood us, and down stream is the river Clyde.

I have had a fire in the last house we lived in, everything in the pantry just cleaned off and was fine, all I lost was the fresh bread, and fruit that was out in the bowls.

I think @TeeDee that your idea is a good one, but I think you might need to think about what you actually eat, like to eat and what's going to be in short supply (decent cooking oil ? my Italian near-as daughter in law has 5 gallons of good Olive oil stashed in her pantry ) tomato puree disappeared off the shelves in the supermarkets at the start of lockdown, as did pasta, or become really expensive (imported stuff, sweetcorn, chocolate, coffee ? ) and maybe work out if it's worth stashing that as well as enough cans to make dinner if need be.

I can forage in season, I do grow stuff too, but we live in a very leafy suburbia, there's no way we could feed ourselves entirely from that, and there's a lot of the modern diet that just doesn't grow here anyway. Seasonality rules and I don't have room to keep and milk a cow kind of thing.

 

[Toddy]

I'm not sure if Happily was something I was entertaining as an important variable.

I think it might be an important bit in the equation though. It's like good prepping. Only store the stuff you will actually eat.

Hear ? you could try it and see

Three can meals, see how satisfying they are, or aren't ?

M

 

[Broch]

I'm not suggesting an emergency store of cans to not be used but one that can become a fundamental large keystone in a pantry.

I think this is the direction I was starting to look at.

I've never liked the term 'prepper', nor do I consider myself to be one, but I have always believed on having a reasonable store just in case. It may be we are both unwell and can't get out, it may be we've had storms and power is off, I don't know, just may be.

Yet we seem to order the same stuff every month and keep about a month's worth + of supplies in, but not a list where we could rely on just the cans; maybe I need to reconsider this.

 

[TeeDee]

Yet we seem to order the same stuff every month and keep about a month's worth + of supplies in, but not a list where we could rely on just the cans; maybe I need to reconsider this.

I bet that is really irritating your engineer brain now isn't it...
Think of all those lovely excel sheets and calculations you could do...

 

[TeeDee]

I've never liked the term 'prepper', nor do I consider myself to be one, but I have always believed on having a reasonable store just in case. It may be we are both unwell and can't get out, it may be we've had storms and power is off, I don't know, just may be.

In all seriousness - If one has the space or lives in a slightly rural location then why NOT do this ?

Personally I take no pleasure in shopping and pushing a Trolley around endless aisles and navigating 'people' - unless of course if its Li#l's or A#di and the freaky random middle Aisles that is like a bizarre bazaar.

Once I went in for a packet of Fish Sticks and came out with a 20kg Jack Hammer - True story!!

 

[Broch]

In all seriousness - If one has the space or lives in a slightly rural location then why NOT do this ?

Personally I take no pleasure in shopping and pushing a Trolley around endless aisles and navigating 'people' - unless of course if its Li#l's or A#di and the freaky random middle Aisles that is like a bizarre bazaar.

Once I went in for a packet of Fish Sticks and came out with a 20kg Jack Hammer - True story!!

Agreed; except for the fish sticks - why, just why?

 

[Toddy]

Jack Monroe is the lady who blogs on a budget, and has a recipe book that uses basic cans as the staples. Stuff that folks are supplied from food banks, that kind of thing...or broke students and folks who are finding themselves facing the Mr Micawber issue...
" 'Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 [pounds] 19 [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery"
It might become much more relevant if inflation keeps rising so quickly.

Jack Munroe, Tin Can Cook....Amazon, 75 store cupboard recipes.

Tin Can Cook: 75 Simple Store-cupboard Recipes: Amazon.co.uk: Monroe, Jack: 9781529015287: Books

Buy Tin Can Cook: 75 Simple Store-cupboard Recipes Main Market by Monroe, Jack (ISBN: 9781529015287) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk