Preppy Prepping

 We’ve talked about water, rice, beans, a little about bread, seasonings, veggies, and fruit. Now, I’d like to tackle meat. With the protein you’ll be getting from the combination of rice and beans, meat is not essential. But it sure is nice to have. As I previously mentioned, our meals from Stores (I’ll try from now on to use a capital “s” when talking about the food I’ve put aside, and a lower case “s” when referring to grocery stores) will look fairly different from our typical meals now. For one thing, we probably won’t eat 3 meals a day. My family consists of all adults and a couple of my children don’t eat breakfast. However, the bigger issue is preparing food without the use of a microwave, stove, or oven. I’ll talk more about cooking in a later post, but I bring this up here just to point out that cooking will be a lengthy process and I just don’t see how I’ll be able to cook more than twice daily. I will need to cook outside and will need light, which means having dinner e...

Today, I want to begin talking about storing food. Probably the least expensive and easiest item to store is rice. There are many different types of rice. Brown rice is a great antioxidant. Basmati rice is low in arsenic, a common by-product of rice. But plain white long-grain rice is inexpensive, easy to cook and store, and provides over 200 calories per cup. It’s a very good way to start storing up. One pound of rice equals 7 1/2 cups of cooked rice, so a 50-lb. bag, costing $25 or less, will give you a whopping 375 one-cup servings.  Rice alone, however, is an incomplete meal. But combine rice with beans, and you have a meal consisting of all 9 amino acids which, together, form a complete protein. Again, beans are very inexpensive and easy to cook and there are many different varieties. So, add multiple pounds of various beans to your stores along with your rice, and you’re well on your way to being able to provide healthy and filling food for your family in an emergency. This i...