If a shut down, limited dehydrated food what part of year should you save it for IYO

[Onebyone]

In your opinion, if there is a shut down for whatever reason, nukes, bird flu, war earthquake and you know supplies are going to not be there or very little so you may not be able to buy enough, what part of the year do you consider the most dangerous if you have limited dehydrated food and need to save it for then?

My opinion is to save it for late Jan, Feb and March as most your harvest from last year is about gone and nothing is going to be growing in our area then so that is most likely the time of starvation should it come.

Things maybe planted but it takes a couple of months to get to harvest. The only thing that might grow is something like lettuce which would difficult to survive on.

Of course there is always wild food to hunt, fish or peel but just wondering what most folks believe is the most dangerous time of the year.

 

[Grock]

I have a 4 part food plan.

1) Standard foods, cabinets, fridge, freezer, home canned. (lights still on, services still active, Police and fire active, possible quarantine. Strong social order maintained)

2) Bulk foods and cans ( Power out, fuels still available nat gas/ diesel/gasoline, but at very high price, relative social order still in place with considerable "outbreaks" of looting, etc. -think Katrina- Or very extended level 1)

3) MRE (TEOTWAWKI, social disorder, no services, paper money useless, high looting risk, high alert status, but still Bugged in. Or Very extended level 2)

4) Dehydrated foods. (Bug out! SHTF. Will rehydrate with filtered water from deep forest location. All essential services non-existant, social chaos, every man for himself mentality. True Survival scenario. OR very extended level 3)

Dehydrated will outlast everything else I have by a factor of 4.

 

[cryhavoc]

Which part?

The part when you're hungriest.....?

But seriously, one should probably use up 'dated' reserves before one uses '30 yr' reserves. Canned food won't keep as long as F/Dried or dehydrated food. Time of year doesn't matter, IMHO.

cryhavoc

 

[garnetgirl]

I have been thinking about how best to use my preps as well in regards to water availability. At first (whatever given scenario), we may have flowing water and could use that to rehydrate the dehydrated and freeze-dried foods more easily than if water became harder to come by. I have water stored (can never be enough) and a flowing creek nearby which I plan to filter with my Berkey. A generator and manual well pump are out of the question ($$) right now - we have a 350 foot well. I was content in thinking that my creek would be my back up water until I started thinking regarding a bird flu pandemic. To get to the creek (which flows from a neighbor's pond - which was not there when we built!), we will have to walk across the property. I know that migrating waterfowl use the pond and I've seen turkey washing in our creek, so possibly the water could be contaminated (if we have a concurrent endemic bird flu virus and human pandemic virus).

If the power goes, so does our water pump. So, do we use up our dehydrated and freeze-dried first when water may still be readily available and save our canned goods for later? This wasn't what I had intended - had planned to save the dehydrated/freeze-dried for last, but given the bird flu scenario, now I'm not so sure. I guess if we don't have ready access to clean water, the point is moot.

Well, now I'm stumped. But, I'll come up with something!

garnetgirl

 

[jed turtle]

i can't afford the dehydrated stuff.

but i take prepping for my family's survival seriously, and consequently much of my plan rests on this simple fact:

sprouting grains, seeds, and beans produces 7 times as much nutrition as just milling them into flour for bread.

seems to me to be the simplest and most compact solution going.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

We Republican cannibals never concern ourselves with seasons. There will always be food for those of us willing to eat the tender juicy cuts off of the leftists liberals we take out, immediately following the great collapse.

I intend to have Dennis' liver with a nice plate of fava beans and a glass of Chianti from somewhere around the Verona region, NLT D-Day +7.

Russ

 

[CountryboyinGA]

I'd use it when there was no fresh food availible--no matter the time of year. From december until about june/july depending on when/what you plant is that time in this part of GA.

As far as hunting goes, if it HTF, i think that would be a poor way to get food if it is a long term scenario. Too many people trying to get a small resource, at least here it would be. I would spend more time running people out of my fields trying to steal cattle/fish from ponds than hunting.

CBinGA

 

[breezyhill]

i can't afford the dehydrated stuff.

but i take prepping for my family's survival seriously, and consequently much of my plan rests on this simple fact:

sprouting grains, seeds, and beans produces 7 times as much nutrition as just milling them into flour for bread.

seems to me to be the simplest and most compact solution going.

jed, i used to think i couldn't afford to dehydrate things either, especially after drooling over 100 dollar dehydrators.

last summer i found a snackmaster junior, four trays, and it has a fan motor to blow the warm air through the dehydrator, for 5 bucks at the goodwill store. it works like a charm and i have dehydrated soooo many things.

you can try ebay. i bought another snackmaster for 7 bucks, but it cost that much to ship the darned thing.

beware of the kind that just have a heating element, and where you must rotate the trays every couple of hours. they're junk. i bought one of those last summer too, for a dollar at a yard sale. they're on ebay and i think ronco is the maker.

but, just to let you know what you can do. you can get brocolli at the farmers market really cheap, and slice the stalks thin, and dry them. put them in quart jars, preferably using a vacuum sealer. mushrooms are good to dry too.

i figure, if shtf, and the supplies are cut off, things that i have not had good luck at growing, like brocolli, or don't even try, like mushrooms, will be treasured treats.

give it a try. it's cheaper to do than you think. good luck.

breezyhill

 

[Dennis Olson]

We Republican cannibals never concern ourselves with seasons. There will always be food for those of us willing to eat the tender juicy cuts off of the leftists liberals we take out, immediately following the great collapse.

I intent to have Dennis' liver with a nice plate of fava beans and a glass of Chianti from somewhere around the Verona region, NLT D-Day +7.

Russ

Oh man, you do NOT want MY liver....

 

[Airborne Falcon]

Oh man, you do NOT want MY liver....

Okay, your heart then. And I want you to know that your dog will be well taken care of and assimilated in the pack in your absence. We're dog lovers.

I've always wondered why the sled dogs always got eaten first in the bad old artic exploration days? The Shackleton Expedition for example. Why didn't they just ask, "Okay everyone, if you voted Democrat, please raise your hand."

That's would have saved a lot of nice dogs I'm sure.

Anyway, that is thread drift.

I dehydrate using eight racks in the oven I bought at China Mart for something like ten bucks. No kidding, they are made by Eastman Outdoors if I remember correctly. They were four to a box and I got them on sale for something like five bucks each. I can do twenty pounds of meat at a time and I try to do that much about twice a month because the wife and kids like my jerky so much they eat it more than I wish they would.

2 hours at 200 degrees. It's over. Little salt, little soy sauce or pepper sauce or whatever ... 2 hours at 200 degrees and we are done.

I betcha I have 100 pounds of dry meat out there in the freezer, vacuum packed. I need to rotate some of it actually, but I have used some dated before Y2K and it is still good.

What I need more of is dehydrated peas. I never have enough of those.

Dried beans I got out the ying yang. And I know I keep hearing that you have to use them up every two years. But I am here to witness that I have made many a bean dish out of five and six and more year old dried beans.

For us, down here in the south, I am not sure seasons are so important to us. It's true, we do eat the prime cuts of liberals in hard times ... but other than that, our growing season never really stops. We've had maybe two days below freezing again this year. My tomatoes are up. My collards and lettuce and turnips are rockin' and rollin'. The spinnach is on a tear. The potatoes are already on their second covering. Even the bell peppers are starting to bloom already. I've already got the corn in the ground. Already got the okra in the ground. Etc., etc., etc.

.... and we're still plenty stocked from last year's harvest.

I got a round of golf in today - nothing else to do.

I think maybe January, Februrary, March, even April .... yeah, you may have to watch it pretty close then. But a lot depends upon if you have electricity or not? I think, the way it sounds, you may be talking year two or three of post SHTF OneByOne? Because that first year you should not have any major problems - you should overlap nicely if you are properly prepared IMHO. I will not get into my freeze drieds, dehydes or MREs unless we are really talking long term TEOTWAWKI. I'm talking year two or three at least.

That's MHO.

Russ