Prepping where there is disparity between everyday diet and what stores well

[witwootoodleoo]

I've wanted to start prepping for a while for foreseeable food shortages - weather, supply chain disruption etc.

The stumbling block is that we mostly eat fresh fruit, veg, fish and wholefoods and don't each much in the way of tinned or frozen produce or things like sweets or chocolate bars which would obviously would be good for long shelf-life/ energy/a treat. So I've not really got very far with prepping.

I'm coming to the conclusion that probably I should stock up with tins etc on the basis that in a crisis we'd suck it up and eat them. But then what do I do with all the tins I don't use?

Current thinking is maybe every six months (and well before sell by dates) I donate the whole lot to a food bank and start again

What do others do to deal with the difference between what they eat and what stores well please? Does that sound like a viable solution? Ideas very welcome.

[PatriciaBateman]

I love the low-carb prepper idea .

Also agree with homesteading for a longer term, more permanent solution.

I can't do much under current circumstances, but fantasize about my 'one day' when I can set up an aquaponics system - vegetable garden and tilapia fish (for eating, but also part of the system).

There's some amazing youtube videos about people making this system work really well. And for someone who loves aquariums and fish (although obviously not everyone does), it's a great hobby by itself even if it wasn't anything to do with prepping.

[SuzanneVaguer]

Thank you so much Kate's!

[Snugglepumpkin]

Have you looked at sprouting?
Seems in line with your food preferences & doesn't really require any special equipment.
You can buy sprouting jars if you really want, they are just a jar you can balance upside down with a load of drainage holes in the lid so your sprouts don't get waterlogged.

It's very easy, they are very nutritious & bags of e.g. mung beans/alfalfa etc... don't just taste great but they store very well.
Can be eaten raw too - pea sprouts taste like fresh peas.


You might also consider looking at things like e.g. Easi-yo or Hansells (same thing, different brand.) if you eat yoghurt.
Yoghurt you make at home from a packet that you just add water to make.
I buy them all the time as I like vanilla & lemon set yoghurts which nobody local to me seems to sell. (if you don't like set yoghurt, you just stir them before putting them in the fridge & they'll stay runny)

The ones I got this week have a best before date of May 19 - 1 litre of yoghurt costs approx £2.80.
You can use them after the bb, I have up to 6 months past with no problems, the rule is if it turns into yoghurt it's safe to eat, if it doesn't set at all then bin it.

Chuck a few extras in the garden too.
Peppers do well on a windowsill inside.
Blueberries are as low maintenance as raspberries, but each year as the plant gets bigger you get a bigger yield. I have one in a big pot because of it being fussy about it's soil.
My blueberry bush is about 5 years old now, I get several kilos a year off it (would be more if I remembered to feed it once in a while)

[Katescurios]

Here you go and sorry for all the typos, my kindle is a bugger to type on and the autocorrect is rubbish

homeguides.sfgate.com/grow-tomatoes-inside-pollination-69863.html

[Katescurios]

No you can grow them inside, they do bed lots of sunlight and you get more and nicer fruit i the warmer months. If you keep them going over winter you'll get little tomatoes and sl ow production.

They ne ed temps of around 18 degrees up, so we keep them in a little poly greenhouse (the cheap ones from wilko with plastic poles and a clear plastic cover) when it's really good cold and use heat lamps when it's really dull.I

We go with cherry tomatoes as a rule and stagger them so we always have 4 or 5 pots going at different stages.

I have always loved the smell of tomato plants so that is my main draw, the other is that my Dd loves being able to pick them whenever she fancies one. She's the reason we always have yoghurt pots of dress or mustard shoots available too cos she loves sowing the seeds and seeing them shoot up in a few days.

[SuzanneVaguer]

Thanks Kate. Do tomatoes need access to bees/other insects to fruit? Just wondering about growing them in the porch (but has no opening window).

[bellinisurge]

Although pressure canning might be an expense you aren't willing to make, water bath canning- if you follow the rules carefully is an option for preserving fruit and veg. Or pickling. Or dehydrating.

[SilverHawk]

Have you thought about bottling vegetables and fruit in jars (Kilner?) like our Grandparents? I'm not 100% sure of the process but I think you just need an oven. I'm pretty sure the jars were never in a pan of water and GM could fill a cupboard.

[JustLikeBefore]

ok it wasn't on here, about expiry of tinned food.

it's here cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/47048/do-tinned-foods-go-off-stale

[Katescurios]

UK based and not a huge amount as no greenhouse and a garden that is more chaos than order. I do have tomato plants and herbs year roun d growing indoors where we don't have to worry about frost or soil types.

We have a couple of potato grow ba g on the patio which are easy and require virtually no care and brambles that give us huge volumes of blackberries and raspberries at the end of the garden, they sort themselves out yearly with a bit of hacking down needed now and then to keep them in control.

We've managed to grow peas and salad leaves too this year in pots.

[SuzanneVaguer]

What kind of things do you grow, Kate? (Are you UK based?)

[Katescurios]

Getting a greenhouse going might be a better prepping solution for you. Having a year round supply of fresh produce at your home home is prepping and will build into your daily diet

[bellinisurge]

@Ragwort - then I will take it back for people that don't turn their nose up at it. Namely, my family.

[Ragwort]

Food Banks are inundated with tinned pulses & baked beans, you might not be thanked for donating even more .

[JustLikeBefore]

I wouldnt worry about using tinned goods within date. they should last years.

there was some info on thread about how they test them and the reason for the best before date (it's not a use by date).

if no-one remembers the thread and links, then it must have been some thing I read somewhere else and will look for it. But I'm sure it was on here.

[bellinisurge]

@witwootoodleoo , I'd suggest you try some experiments with what works and doesn't do that any falling back on the store cupboard that you have to do isn't as much of a shock to the system.

[FlotSHAMnJetson]

Grow fresh veg.

[bellinisurge]

I'd be wary of using an instant pot.

[KimCheesePickle]

I think if you have a new style Instant Pot, they claim they can be used for pressure canning. However, the USDA state that it doesn't get up to the recommended temperatures and pressures to render canned food safe from botulism. Food blogger here recommends starting with high acid foods like jams and pickles as you can't really go wrong with those.

www.cnet.com/news/instant-pot-max-home-canning-safety/

[RedneckStumpy]

Ok fair enough, if you have a Instantpot I believe you can use them for canning

[bellinisurge]

@RedneckStumpy pressure canning is an expensive initial outlay here in UK. I have one and they are great. However I don't know if new tariffs would make them even more expensive to import now.

[ThePricklySheep]

I’m doing two things:

trying to find some tinned food recipes using things like fish that we could eat day to day

presuming that tins last for years so not worrying about some of the stuff we don’t eat.

[RedneckStumpy]

Have you considered pressure canning? We also eat a lot of fresh veg, we make big batches of tomato and veg sauce and then can it.

We also do the same with homemade vegetable soup

[KimCheesePickle]

Pamster... that's not the point of the thread. The issue is that the usual advice is to buy lots of tins and long-life processed foods, and to rotate them into your normal everyday diet, so that they get used up before they go out of date. They're not wasted in other words... just investing upfront what you would eat anyway.

The problem is - what if you never eat these kinds of foods... what happens if the shit doesn't hit the fan? In economic terms it has become an expensive liability and sunk cost, rather than an investment that would pay off either way.

OP, do you make regular charity donations, if so, I would cut those down. If, when the shit doesn't hit the fan, take the tins with the short date to the food bank, so that counts as your charity allocation in your budget. Write the dates more clearly in marker pen, store in date order and take to food bank when within a few weeks of their expiry date.

[PamsterWheel]

Will you really give a shit if the world is plunged into turmoil and the alternative is starving? 🙄