Question of the Day, Friday, October 3

Good morning, Happy Friday, and Happy First Friday of October!   It seems like just a few days ago we were beginning September and it's gone already.

I have a kind of survival question, I guess, for lack of anything better to call it. With winter coming and the occasional blizzard and winter storm, some people can go for a few days before their roads are plowed. And on the news we always see the mad dash to the grocery store for milk and bread when there's more than 3 inches of snow forecast for our area.

How long could you survive eating just the food in your house right now?  

We could probably go 6-9 months, if we were really careful and if it was just the two of us. We have two freezers full (and we did get a generator to keep running them for a while should the power go out). I have some dried foods (including powdered milk and such) and canned foods, like tuna, Spam (yes, I do have Spam in the house), and such. I try to keep 100 cans of cat food in the closet in the basement at all times and just rotate the cans as we get more. (When I say that we're running low on cat food, that means that if we don't buy any, I'm going to have to dip into the 100 cans.) Even so, 100 cans will only last the clan a little over 3 weeks as they eat 28 cans of food a week. I keep gallons of bottled water and cartons of bottles of water on hand. With a little care, we could go 6-9 months, if we absolutely had to.....it might just be veggies and dried stuff at the end, but it's still something. The kids have often said that, if anything happens, they're going to do everything in their power to get to our house, so they don't starve.

How about you?

It would be some good meals and some boring ones but I'd say about 2 months. This does not include cat food or water. I have to stock up on water and cat food.

Oh scratch that answer. I would need milk for my kids. I only have 2 and 3/4 gallons.

Maybe 2 months? My boyfriend likes frozen vegetables and canned beans or soups, and his family always kind of hoarded canned stuff, whereas I very much prefer my fresh foods. So because of my compromise, we wouldn't last as long even if we could freeze all of what we have.

In a survival situation, we have about 3-4 days' worth of food and water.

I'm surprised how you guys could go for months! Do you have gigantic freezers, walk-in pantries, second refrigerators, own grocery stores, or what?

SwampWitch said:

 
In a survival situation, we have about 3-4 days' worth of food and water.

I'm surprised how you guys could go for months - do you have gigantic freezers, walk-in pantries, second refrigerators, own a grocery store, or what?

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I need to have just about everything on hand so that when I figure out what I want for dinner, everything is there. It's about eating what I want to eat now, and not having to make due with whatever is in a meagrely cupboard. I don't decide in advance what I'm having for dinner until it's time to make dinner, and then I want to make what I want. Same for baking.

We could last for 3-4 months, mainly on big mason jars of dried beans and grains, and spices. Guess we'd get pretty tired of curries. Milk, dairy, and veggies would be a problem. Small fridge with just the little freezer on top.

I could last probably about a month but I would be without milk for at least 2 weeks of that.  I tend to buy things because I am bored with what I already have which is why I have about a month's worth stocked up.  If I had to though I would eat what I was bored with.

Interesting question and got me thinking.  

People food would last for a while.  But I tend to let the cat food run down to just a few cans before I re-order.  The vet is handy, and they get orders in every day, so there's never a delay getting more.  But I never thought about what would happen with a big storm or other catastrophe.   I'm going to start getting refills sooner now.  And I may keep a few "grocery store" cat food cans in the house, just in case.  

Think I'll also get some water to have on hand as well.

I live in Southern California and it will be 106 degrees F today. Not sure what that is in Celsius maybe 39C ? I have thought several times about having disaster food but don;t really have a program. We will never get snowed in but yeah other things could happen. I would say we would last a month or two.  

Probably about a week.  We're lacking for long term storage, and dislike frozen and canned foods other than soups. I can't tell you how much food we throw out because it went bad before we could eat it (having 12 hour days out of the house contributes to that).    I have a few things on hand at all times for emergency meals (like if I didn't get a chance over the weekend to do my shopping) but I really don't think it would last more than a week.  

I'm not a survivalist or anything, but I believe there might be some underestimation going on about how much food is really needed per person per month. Below are the amounts, in pounds. that the average person eats every month according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf).

You could argue that you eat less than the average, but in stressful situations you probably need more food than usual - survival situations require physical work & strength.

If there's no electricity, you can't count what you have in the refrigerator since it won't last for more than 1 day. The stuff in the freezer will last for only 3 days (unless you have a generator), so you would have to work quickly to dry, cook, and preserve what is in there.

Per month, the average person in the U.S. eats:

21 lbs  meat, poultry, fish

6 lbs  oil, butter, margarine

58 lbs  fruit and vegetables

17 lbs grains

12 lbs  sweeteners 

This is what 50 lbs of apples looks like (3 big grocery bags full):


http://kelleighratzlaff.com/life/50-lbs-of-apples/

That's a LOT of food! For two people you would need about 120 lbs of fruit and vegetables, dried or canned. And 40 lbs of meat, preserved and not fresh or frozen.

Where do you guys store it all? Cans in the basement? Shelves in the bunker? Trunk of the car?

If we properly rationed I would say a couple weeks, a month if we're lucky? The amount of food we would buy and go bad is astounding, so I started only buying food as I need it. 

Speaking for Rick and me, we have a large chest freezer that holds our garden produce, leftovers from cooking, breads and rolls, etc. There are quarts of many different soups, quarts of pasta sauces, dough balls to make pizza, calzones, and stromboli (which we can grill, if need be), bags of pecans and almonds, bags of flour, containers of cookies, quarts of stews (chicken stew, beef stew, pinto bean stew, a couple pans of lasagna, my homemade beef and chicken broths, several quarts of homemade sauerkraut (I didn't make it), a couple containers of pulled pork and shredded beef for sandwiches, and so on. There are fourteen pounds of butter in the freezer right now, bought it when it was on sale, and I'm glad I did....have you seen the price of butter lately? Good grief. I dehydrate a lot of grapes, apples, pineapple, onions, mushrooms and the like and then I flop it into freezer bags and freeze them. Dehydrated mushrooms and onions make a fine soup as a base for casseroles and gravies.

Our upright freezer (used to be my parents') has several whole chickens, a couple turkeys, several beef cuts of varying types, 1/2 large hog in various pork cuts, sausage (ground and links, pork and turkey), kielbasa, cut-up chickens, tons of ground beef and ground turkey in one-pound packages, bacon, hot dogs, a couple large pork shoulder butts that I use for pulled pork on the grill, several pork tenderloins that I buy when they're on sale at buy one, get one, a couple packages of salmon, several bags of shrimp, etc. We used to get 1/2 of a cow, but we don't eat that much beef anymore to make it worthwhile.

We have a French door fridge with a large bottom freezer (with a drawer). It is full, completely full of stuff, basically frozen vegetables that I buy at the store to supplement what we don't grow: peas, spinach, pearl onions, edamame, artichokes (I hate canned artichokes and only buy them frozen). I take advantage of sales whenever I can and stock up.

One of Rick's relatives is a farmer and he raises beef. When he butchers, he gives the beef bones to Rick's mom, who gives them to me. I roast them and then I make beef stock for the freezer. And because I make it, I know what's in it....and it's pretty good stuff. Back in January he gave her two huge garbage bags of bones; I had so much stock I didn't know what to do with it all.

The pantry closet always has a ton of canned foods like tuna, salmon, and small cans of chicken, some soups (but you will not find cream of anything soup there!), canned broths, a ton of different condiments. We have bags and bags (and bags) of dried beans, noodles, and various rices. Rick put in a large closet under the basement steps and that stores what I can: largely pickles and other condiments, my red onions, and such. We have the cans of cat food there, too. Gallons and gallons of water. Bottles of water. Because I bake a lot anyway, we always have flour, sugar, and other ingredients on hand

Last year, when I needed to get the freezers cleaned out to prepare for new garden produce, it literally took us months to empty them out and get them cleaned. But that's what the freezers are for....to take advantage when there's a really good sale at the supermarket, whether it's butter, chicken, beef, or whatever. We bring it home, re-package in one or two meal servings and freeze it.

Believe me, we are not going to starve, unless the power goes out and stays out for months and we can't find the gas needed to run the generator. It's a small generator, basically for the freezers and the fridge.

I have about a weeks worth of dinners prepared in the freezer but other than that and some cans in the pantry, we don't have much else at the moment. We are needing to do a big grocery shop but I haven't gotten around to it since I get tired out so easily right now. I will do it at some point next week whether I am shopping still pregnant or bringing my newborn with me. I don't trust my husband to go alone.

I'd say for food, 1-3 months, but the amount of water would probably last 3-4 days.

Our freezer is full of all sorts of pork from the hog we butchered a couple months ago. If you dont count the other 4 hogs, chickens, fresh eggs and the cow... probably a good year. Water would be a problem though since it's well water and not really great to drink. But I guess in a survial situation we could drinkit until the well ran dry lol.

Enough cat food and human food for a month. Enough bottled water and gas in our canister for about the same.

 I live on the side of a volcano in a country prone to earthquakes, I make sure I'm prepared.

About a week I suppose.

Oh my, we could only survive about 4 days. I guess we would have to share the cat food. The power company has been doing work in my neighborhood and having the power out for a full day once a week so I haven't done big grocery shopping.I live in California so it hit 100 today. Still, I should prepare for possible earthquakes. I have tons of back up canned cat food just in case but no human food!

For those of you here who want to stock up on water, please understand that bottled water does not last as long as you'd think. Cheap/thin plastic will leach chemicals into the water. Do research on safe water storage before you invest.