Long Stay Foods for SHTF

So if you're looking for groceries to buy in bulk and store in your pantry, these products are your best bet. Urban Survival Skills advocates considering many types of foods to stock for SHTF, among them:

Canned and dry pantry items, which would be probably the first items consumed.

Vaccuum packed bulk food items, like pasta, rice, beans, and dry meals like the rice dishes and hamburger helper, etc.

Commercial survival foods like the Mainstay Bars; and, commercial rations like the Military Ready to Eat (MRE) meals.

And it seems like it has become (almost) mainstream in America to advocate everyone stocking up food for "bad times".
My preps has changed slightly over the past few months with a bigger emphasis on bulk canned and packaged items. What I have bought mostly in the past two months is canned soup and stews, packaged pasta, and all sorts of nuts.

The following article came off a internet mainstream news site about buying groceries in bulk for long term storage. Maybe some people are stocking food and supplies as a hedge against rising prices and others asa hedge against SHTF,...kinda same result which is being prepared.


Canned Beans and Vegetables. Canned food, by definition, lasts longer than most products in the grocery store because it has been specially processed in air-tight cans. In general, canned items can stay good for 12-18 months, according to Gans, but some last even longer. Canned products like beans and vegetables, which are low in acid, can actually last for as long as two to five years. The only exception is if the can is dented or rusty, as that indicates the can has been punctured at some point, which speeds up the spoilage process.

Cereal and Crackers. You might as well start stocking up on crackers and cereal for the winter. According to Heslin, these products are essentially just "edible cardboard" that don't have enough moisture to grow bacteria or mold, so they can last for a very long time. Cereals like Cheerios and Puff Wheat, which have little to no sugar, can last for 18-24 months if unopened, while crackers like saltines can generally last for about two years.

The safety and nutrient quality of these products doesn't change, but the taste and texture might deteriorate somewhat. In other words, your body will be fine eating these things after more than a year, but you may find them a bit too stale to make it worthwhile.

Dried Pasta and White Rice. Just as with cereal and crackers, dried pasta and white rice do not contain enough moisture to spoil, and can therefore last for at least two years unopened. Consumers should be mindful though of what kind of pasta and rice they intend to store, though. Brown rice and whole wheat pasta may seem the same, but in reality each of these products contains more oil than their traditional counterparts, and can therefore go rancid much quicker.

Honey. Honey can take years to expire, but according to Gans, one can conservatively hold onto it for about a year before its consistency begins to change, hardening and losing its sweet taste. Interestingly, Gans says that honey stays good for 12 months whether it's opened or unopened, making it one of the only foods where that is the case.

Spices. You may want to think twice before replacing the containers in your spice rack. In general, most common spices like salt, pepper and oregano don't actually expire in the traditional sense, they just become less and less flavorful.  Salt occurs naturally in nature, it has no expiration date.  There is no difference in 10-year-old salt at all, as long as it hasn't been exposed to moisture.

One Step Closer to Gold Confiscation

Received this from TownHall:
Over The Counter (OTC) Bullion trading is now Illegal for all U.S. Residents. Again, OTC Bullion trading is now illegal but purchasing Gold & Silver and taking personal delivery or having it delivered to a Depository is Exempt from this New Ban thanks to lobbying efforts by several companies who mine and coin Gold.

What this means to us the Preparing Survivalist is that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) now has a foot hold on the physical bullion market. A feat this Government Agency has tried to achieve since its 1974 inception. Which of course is a step closer to Gold (and Silver) confiscation. And as you remember your history lesson, from 1933 through 1974 bullion was illegal to own until then President Gerald Ford gave back the rights of Americans to own bullion.

The CFTC's June 14th, meeting on The Dodds Frank Act, set forth the final rules on all Over The Counter markets, including retail commodity transactions of physical Bullion. The Over the Counter (OTC) Bullion Markets, Banned for ALL U.S. Residents and corporations as of July 15, 2011.

Many OTC Precious Metal Dealers have already begun to Unwind their Bullion Retail businesses.

Why was this put into law? Well, one is free to believe that is intended to protect consumers,.....or one can believe that it is to protecting what little value the U.S. Dollar has against Gold & Silver,......or one can simply look to history and believe that is to enable a faster transition to a government ban on ALL Gold and Silver. Remember, the last thing the despots do before a Country collapses is to loot the national treasury.

Add this into the equation: The CFTC pushed Congress to outlaw all Bullion that is NOT deliverable to Retail consumers within 48 hours. That would Shutdown 95% of All Retail Dealers....Overnight! No Matter how Large a Dealer maybe,... No Dealer sits on ENDLESS amounts of Inventory. The Dealer would eventually have to Order Inventory from Mints such as U.S. , Canada , Austria , South Africa or Directly through the Exchange. Nonetheless, delivery takes 3-14 days. Which does NOT complete the process, the product would still need to be shipped to the Retail Investor...

Therefore a 48 Hour Delivery Mandate is impossible, ultimately, making ALL Bullion transactions Illegal by default.

So is a Government ban on Gold And Silver coming? History has taught us, first comes Government control, then comes Government Ban/Confiscation!

Wilderness Survival - Boy Scout's Example

With the good news being reported about the 12 year old Boy Scout from Utah being found alive after surviving in a cold wilderness environment by using his fieldcraft skills and building tree-branch shelter, I was asked my two people, what would I have done if I was lost.

First, the Boy Scout's story: The 12-year-old Boy Scout, however scared, kept his wits about himself and still knew what to do when he got lost during a Utah wilderness outing: He built a shelter made of tree branches and wood to get through a cold night and he covered himself in dirt to stay warm.

Scout Jared Ropelato's lean-to — a crude structure the Boy Scout manual advises Scouts to build if they become lost — kept him warm enough so he could sleep after the overnight low in Utah's Ashley National Forest dipped to 31 degrees in the area. The boy was wearing only jeans and a shirt, and had no food or water, when he went missing around noon Friday. He had gotten lost while on his way by himself back to camp from a nearby lake, walking a total of eight or nine miles before searchers on ATVs found him Saturday morning some four miles from where he started.

First of all, preparation is the key to survival. This comes in two forms: Knowledge and Skills about the environment and fieldcraft/survival skills; the second being Equipped. A knife, folding or fixed blade,...a lighter or waterproof matches,...and a canteen are essential to any outdoor outing or hike. If you are even better equipped then your chances (and comfort) are much better.
Having a simple Butt Pack or Day Pack with those above items, plus a flashlight, ground cloth or survival blanket, a section of parachute cord, maybe 50 feet, and, some food such as granola or survival bars would be the minimum in my book.

Knowing how to build a fire, build a shelter, procure and filter water would be key. If I was lost and looking to help people find me, a fire, then a shelter, then a ground to air signal in a nearby cleared area would be my first priorities as long as I had water. Sure you can go maybe up to 48 hours without water, but throughout that second day your mental and physical skills will start to wane. In a colder environment, such as this Boy Scout was in, you could stretch that to maybe 72 hours, and this is depending upon how hard you are working; how much sweat you have lost; if you avoid exposure to the Sun; and, if you have food to eat.

Hats off to the Boy,...other than breaking the two man rule, which is his Scoutmaster's fault, he did good.

Food Shortage Already Here

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com has already written several posts about the coming food shortage, both in this Country and Worldwide. With the droughts, natural disasters, economic condition and high taxes/expenses this Country's ability to feed itself is rapidly declining. On the plus side, never before has hobby farming where regular people and even urban dwellers start their own gardens been so prevalent. Not only is a worthwhile skills, but the satisfaction you get from harvesting your own vegetables and having them for dinner just makes it all the more worthwhile.

A reader sent me this article entitled What Produce Drought Isn't Killing, People Are Stealing: Killing Drought in Arkansas

By Ron Klinefelter, owner of Spring Valley Organic Growers, 10 August 2011:

This is now our 77th consecutive day (Aug. 7) of this heat and drought. Temperatures all week were over 100. One day it was 104, one it was 107! We also broke 2 new all time heat records this week….108, and 112, and of course, no rain.

Several more things bit the dust this week. One, a patch of a beautiful heirloom grinding corn, that usually produces 2 ears, many a foot long. Even with every other day watering, they just couldn’t produce even one ear, and are now just curling up and dying.

Attention…..NO SEED for next year!

I was walking in one of the gardens yesterday, and the big elderberry bushes have so dried up that their big dinner plate sized clusters of fruit, which have just sat there green for weeks, instead of ripening, have begun to mummify, like they had been placed in a dehydrator. Also, the armadillo damage is so great now that they are ravaging whole beds. In the morning, it looks like a roto-tiller has gone thru there.

I have natural food stores calling me, asking for any produce, especially tomatoes. When I was in one of them last week, they were selling organic tomatoes FROM MEXICO! In talking to the manager/produce buyer of Prairie Markets last week, she told me that virtually everyone had “given up”, and there wasn’t even a viable farmers market in town now.

One more little problem. I was talking to someone in an adjoining county that was fortunate to get SOME rain. They had a pretty good bunch of tomatoes that they had been letting ripen on the vine. They were going to pick them one evening, but it was just too miserably hot. They decided to wait until morning to pick them for canning, when it was a little “cooler”. This is a relative term, as it is well after dark.9:00p.m., and it’s still 92 degrees. When they went out to pick them the next morning, someone(s) had snuck in, in the night and stolen EVERY SINGLE TOMATO! Not a one was left!

I have so much water and time invested in the gardens now, that I don’t hardly dare to stop now, but even if it were to start raining for days now, there probably wouldn’t be time enough before frost to bring another crop off. This will most likely be my last year of commercial growing. I am a vanishing species.

Seeing what I see, and reading what I’m reading from all around the country (and world), I find it almost impossible to believe that food shortages and possibly famine are not dead ahead. One would be a fool to not be putting up food like crazy, while you can get it. To NOT be doing that, I believe, is a very dangerous and foolhardy move – act now!

Read it yourself here: Produce Killing Drought