Survival food stocks and phylosophy

I was looking through my mail today and found that I had received, along with my new Backwoodsman magazine, a catalog from a survival food supply house. As I scanned it I found that according to them, a year’s supply of food for four would run over $14,000.00. This along with some other things that I have run into in the last few weeks has prompted me to make a few observances and offer, maybe, a somewhat different perspective and a little free advice.(Worth every cent you paid for it too!)

In these uncertain times it would behoove a lot of people to have supplies laid in “just in case.” I find that a lot of people are worried and concerned about the possibility of hard times in our future. The FEMA fiascos in recent years have brought into focus the foolishness of depending of the government for your basic needs. Many fret but most feel that they can’t afford to do much. Soooo…

First off the best way to survive in any situation is to do as little as possible while avoiding confrontations. I remember years ago when my testosterone levels were a lot higher that I walked down that, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…because I’m the baddest dude in the valley.” path. High powered assault and battle rifles and high capacity automatic handguns seemed the way to go along with dehydrated food supplies, MREs and ammo by the truck load.

30 years and a lot of common sense have come and gone since then. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) works lot better and great magazines like The Backwoodsman help us see this. I feel now that for fewer than 500 bucks I can easily set someone up to do well under most any situation.

The first thing that you need to toss out of your head is any idea that what we consider hunting today is of any use at all. It is actually just a dangerous waste of time and energy where you burn more calories than you usually gain. Sport hunting is to survival food gathering as boxing is to surviving a street fight. They are two totally different things! If I want to feed my family in a survival situation, going out, hiking all over the country and shooting a gun is the last thing I want to do. It attracts too much attention AND is hard work. Cable snares, while far from sporting, work on animals from mice to elk. The only difference between snaring mice and deer is the size of the cable. These simple traps work 24 hours a day for you. With a little practice they will provide you with more meat than you need real quick. You can perfect your technique on mice, tree rats and rabbits and then with little effort convert your knowledge to bigger game if you need to. Without refrigeration, meat is hard to keep in big quantities. It takes a lot of work to properly cure and store. Unless you are trying to feed a tribe or well situated in a simi-permanent redoubt, the bigger mammals are worth more for their hides than their meat during the warm months. During the cool months they are better for several reasons, the ease of keeping the meat is just one.

If you set cable snares with cam locks and deer stops across active game trails you WILL snag animals. You don’t shoot it, you cut it’s throat with a knife tied on a loooong pole. No noise and no one knows that you have meat. Deer and such are good to jerk but for day to day eating smaller prey are better.

The next thing that you need to come to terms with is that food is fuel and not supposed to be “Fun” or entertaining. Your diet needs to be simple and a bunch of number 10 cans is not simple. Cooking a big number of different foods for each meal is hard work when you are cooking on a fire. Most frontier meals were one pot wonders. I have on my wall, my civil war ancestors “mess kit.” It is small 1 ½ quart 3 legged pot. That and a spoon were all he needed to feed himself for as long as necessary. He didn’t need or expect a 5 course meal every time he sat down to eat.

My survival larder is real simple…Red Beans, Rice, Corn, salt and Lard. Deer corn runs under 4 bucks for 50 lbs. You can parch it whole or with a grain mill, grind it coarse for mush, grind it fine for tortillas. You can boil the corn in a lye solution then rinse it 3 or 4 times and you have hominy. Dry and grind the hominy and you have grits. Red Beans and Rice provide a complete protein and between that, the corn which is a great carbohydrate and the lard you are set. Lard is available anyplace that has a Hispanic community. 5 gallons runs about 25 dollars and will season a ton of beans and make a huge pile of tortillas along with providing the fat that you must have to survive. A bunny or squirrel in the pot makes it all the better and local wild greens will fill out a healthy diet. People ate like this for centuries! The salt can be rock salt, it doesn’t have to be table salt. I buy it in 25 lb sacks from water softener companies. I buy pool shock at wally world, it is a chlorinator that is stable and a few pounds of it will make water safe to drink for years. Bleach is NOT stable and will become ineffective over time and boiling water when you are on the move isn’t a viable choice. The powdered pool shock is cheaper anyway. This sort of food is easy to store and cheap to accumulate.

I also keep on hand some of those “just add water” box meals…soups, red beans and rice, gumbo, mashed potatoes in different flavors etc… These provide on the run “poor boy MREs.” They are cheap, low weight and nutritious. I generally avoid canned goods in this area because you are mostly hauling water around. The only exception to this is canned meats.

For food after that first year, you need to plant the above mentioned grains and beans along with potatoes, yams and legumes. You might go ahead and plant some of them now in whatever location you plan to pull back to if your current situation isn’t as rural as you would like.

Most people don’t have a clue what a potato or yam plant look like or even beans until the pods are filling out. They can be put in all over the place and will be there if you need them. Beans and peas are much the same and will grow back year after year if you don’t harvest them. In the time between then and now, I rotate the corn into my deer feeders and that will make harvesting a deer even simpler if I need one. Right now I really prefer just looking at them and eating porterhouse steaks and hamburgers. A good non-hybred seed supply is a must. A lot of the corn and stuff you get these days is hybrid and sterile or poor quality as far as using it for seed. For long term you want the old stuff that is meant to provide its own seed.

I live in East Texas in the woods near but not in the flood plain of a major river. Surviving here is pretty easy. We don’t have snow or harsh winters. There are all sort of eatable critters all around me. I could live on fish alone with little effort. Food fishing is a lot like the hunting thing. I have nets, traps and other knowledge that make it a sure thing and not a sport. For me, food just isn’t an issue.

The big thing is keeping a low profile and stay out of the way of trouble. The easiest way to win a fight is to not get in a fight. If however I have to fight, it will be like my hunting and fishing and not sporting at all.

When it comes to weapons, K.I.S.S. The last thing you want is the attention that cutting loose with a couple of assault rifles will draw. I sold mine for monster profits a few years ago and went simple. I have enough ammo left over from Y2K that if I have too I can live on birds that I shoot with 22s for about a hundred years. 22lr cartridges are good trade stock. Actually that is what my air pistol and rifle are for. A .357mag will kill anything in East Texas when fired from a rifle. A shotgun is better than anything that shoots in the dark and up close. By limiting the number of different type of ammo that you will use it is easier to gather a nice supply. For me it is 22, 38/357 and 12 ga. I have others but those other guns are more specialized. A 38/357 with different loads is good for almost anything. Ranging from shot shells through 38 special wadcutter light target loads to the new ballistic tip 357 mags designed for rifle use you can carry an arsenal of different “guns” in your pocket. A 38cal. Lee Loader allows easy reloading with very little equipment but in the long run you need to shoot as little as possible.

I love the little single shot guns that you can get different barrels for. A single shot encourages marksmanship, stealth and conserves ammo. A gun is a tool and a simple tool will over time provide little worry about failure and is hard to damage. If you are armed with a bunch of complex offensive stuff you have less flexibility, will use more ammo and have more parts to break down. Even more important with all that firepower you will tend to be brave and less likely to just slip away from trouble. My first love in weapons are things that have sharp points and edges anyway.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to insure your family’s safety. I suspect most people don’t prepare because they are intimidated by the perceived cost and complexity. They think keeping a little backup store involves lots of money and planning. Don’t go for it!! If nothing else, a couple garbage cans for the corn and a few 5 gallon plastic buckets full beans rice and one with lard will get you through any short term problem. Throw in a pot, a grain grinding mill, a 22 Rifle with ammo, some wire cable and a box of matches and you are about set as far as food is concerned.

DanL