Following a link from ,Rawles’ SurvivalBlog led me to this channel.
There is no shortage of preparedness-minded folks sharing their opinions and experiences on things like guns. Thats easy, low-hanging fruit that is always good for views. But preparedness is about a lot more than boomtoys. And, if you think about it, while you don’t need to shoot something three times a day, we all usually eat three times a day. So….food is kind of a somewhat bigger deal than guns when it comes to preparedness. Its just not as sexy.
So, I’m perusing this fella’s YouTube channel and while I may not be interested in everything he has to say, or even agree with it, I gotta give him credit for doing the work.
Food taste is very subjective. What you think tastes great might not taste great to me, and vice-versa. But it’s still good to at least see the options that are out there and let someone else take the financial hit of opening a dozen different cans of food, dumping them on a plate, and taking video.
I cannot recall if you ever mentioned him, but if you haven’t seen the channel I highly recommend Steve1989MREInfo on youtube. Be wary, though. You can easily fall into his rabbit hole and watch for hours. He is also great background noise when I am doing chores, too.
I’m amazed he could find nine different brands.
Most days, it’s a rare thing to run across so many as three.
Of course, the selection hereabouts is limited, only living amongst 25M of my friends and neighbors, and lacking much retail variety.
Um. Yeah. A great blogger in his time always precluded all prep activities and survivalist’s priorities with the mantra “FOOD IS FIRST”. That fellow was James Dakin, (yes even those of us bat guano schizos are correct, and often times very much so) and in the big picture of things food, and staying fed adequately in post spicy times will be an all consuming priority, way above “muh guns” topics. There is usually some kernals of information to be gained from other folks postings and reviews in this subject matter. The keep it simple rule applies, quality, energy dense, long storage, palatable. Those folks offering tips on the best brands of sauces and flavorings for use in apocalypse cuisine dinner fare are NGMI, so skip over that useless dribble that is often out there. Future dating and mating attributes sought out and highly desirable will be: Does he or she have a ‘nice pantry?’ Stay fed, then maybe one can stay frosty as well.
Bison was always an advocate of food, but it was cheap food. He was of the two-liter-bottles-full-of-beans school of poverty prepping…which is fine if you are actually living in poverty, as he always claimed to be. But his epic disdain, bordering on class warfare, for anyone he deemed a ‘evil yuppie survivalist’ was a major turn-off. While beans-and-rice would beat starving to death, he came down hard on anybody who spent the extra money for things like freeze drieds and other similar grades of food. He advocated food, no doubt about that but it seems he only advocated what he could afford and woe be to you if you aspired to more than that.
I read Dakin’s blog regularly. Yes, he promoted cheap foods. Yet, there was no doubt that a considerable part of the preparedness-oriented population is “financially challenged,” so I am confident that he did good service in inspiring those people to increase their efforts rather than become discouraged and do nothing.
If memory serves me, Dakin repeatedly said, “Calories are king.” In preparedness, truer words were never spoken. Far better it is to have a year of staples than a month of Mountain House entrees.
All one has to do is wait for themselves or others to become hungry enough and they will eat the butt off a dead monkey, although canned and freeze dried anything would be way better.
There was a video long ago of a elderly woman leaving her apartment in Sarajevo during the war with a big kitchen knife in her hand. The camera happened to trail her as she walked across the street into a park and cut some grass growing next to a tree and carried it back home with her. Finally dawned on me, she was starving and that was the only thing she could find to eat. Hard times are a’comin folks.
I was in that part of the world on both UN and NATO tours during their war. Everything was scarce, no power on my first tour, no fuel of any type available and severe penalties for cutting down trees in the forested areas so…no heat or cooking. Our version of MRE’s were as good as cash. Sarajevo was (and probably still is) one of the most densely mined areas of the world so that woman was very brave walking into a park. We stayed on the hard pack and even then it could be dicey. Overall I agree with the Food First theory of prepping. Being from the Great White North include extra calories for the winter and early springs months, you need them. When heating is limited, your body needs a lot of extra calories a high fat supplement such as bacon and bacon fat can make that up. TTFN
exactly right, calories = fuel. Can’t go 100 miles on one gallon of gas and can’t operate on beans and rice for very long. Went on a three day ‘survival hike’ one time when I was young and dumb in steep terrain over 25 miles round trip with over 8000′ in elevation change. Only took white rice and pinto beans to eat, no butter, salt, gorp, etc. It was like eating dirt and I sprinted for the nearest Burger King when I got back to town.
Hard to beat Costco Kirkland brand of canned meats and tuna for quality and value.
I’ve felt the Kirkland stuff was at the top of the list, but now after trying the Keystone I’d put the two of them together as a dead heat for the top slot.
Superior to Kirkland and Keystone is canning it yourself. I buy chicken at $2/lb., pork at $3/lb. and beef at $5/lb. at the local butcher and pressure can it myself. Meat and a pinch of salt – doesn’t get any better than that. One pound per pint jar, two per quart. Long term storage is guaranteed. I recommend doing it that way to everyone.
Highly agree Michelle, we also see a 1/3 to 1/2 shelf time compared to metal, factory canned product…glass jars are a bit more fragile, but everything veg, fruit and meat last longer in glass compared to metal in time and still high edible condition.