Originally posted by maus80
Sorry if I came off harsh, I do know there has been a big return to gardening in the last decade - I just strongly feel that dietary intelligence has been mostly robbed from the common man by corporations who have gone out of their way to convince everyone that eating is supposed to be nothing more than a good time.

I do realize that salt and iodine are important to a persons diet, but I think most people don't realize that bleached wheat is nothing more than sugar. A meal of nothing but sugar and salt is dangerous, especially for children.

If people really want to know how to save money and still eat well, they should go outside and see the abundance of free, nutritious edibles that grow all around them every year. For those who live in the city, your roof-tops and balconies should have enough room for a small garden, and bags of healthy frozen vegetables remain at around $1-$2. The idea that it is too expensive to eat healthy is completely BUNK, as is the notion that the best way to cut corners is to feed your family garbage not fit for a dog.

OH Wow! Completely agree!
A lot of people read the 'nutrition panel' on foods and don't realize what is listed is often chemically added vitamins, etc. Ofttimes things that your body cannot even process. And then we've got the new Dept of Ag, a former board member of Monsanto. So is the new Food Safety Czar, Ugh!

Can I ask if you stock up on food for preparedness? I do, and some of the best things to stock up are borderly healthy wise. I still stock them because those things will be a base to add fresh or natural ingredients. Good examples are white enriched rice and white flour. I also have and use the brown rice and unbleached flour, of course. The problem with those is the oil content makes them go rancid fairly quickly, give or take six months. So they don't work for long term storage. How do you handle this issue?
god bless,
sorry if I jumped a bit,
~prep

The only easy way I have found to extend the life of brown rice and flour is to freeze them, not very practical in worst case scenarios. Dried beans can however provide a lot of the same nutrients and tend to have a very long shelf life, usually a year or more.

Another (again not very practical) way to extend the shelf life of brown rice and flour is to transfer them to canning jars and store them in a clean, empty cooler. This almost doubles the life of these foods in comparison with storage in plastic bags on cupboard shelves.

There are also numerous designs available for free online for solar dehydrators. If you grow a garden, you can dehydrate your vegetables for free and mix them with dried beans and rice. If you do this in canning jars and place them in a cooler like I mentioned, they are good for about a year, or double the normal shelf life of brown rice - also conveniently the amount of time needed to completely replace your stock.

edit:
Ack, I left out one of the most important parts! You need oxygen absorbing packets! They can be had for around $10 per hundred, and are pretty much essential to preserving your dry goods in canning jars. Try to get the ones that are individually sealed, you don't want to have to try to use 100 of them at once.

[edit on 17-8-2009 by maus80]

I just bout a months supply of food plus 3 weeks worth for storage, for $53 We have a discount bulk foods store here, tribal run I believe based on the name.
I bought:
2 loaves of bread
$10 of steak
2 $5 bags of chicken breasts
2 bottles of BBQ sauce for marinatig my meat.
10lbs potatoes
The rest was spend on dried lentels, rice, oats Ect.
The had this bulk soup mix for less than a dollar per pound 1lb makes about 10-12 servings. It contains pearl barley, lentils green and yellow peas and seasoning mix. I threw in a few chunks of homemade beef jerky. Oh man was it good and filling. I was stuffed after eating about a 1/2 cup worth. I'll be stocking up on this by the truck loads. A small amount goes a long way.

With the meat that I bought, 1 bag of chicken and half of the steak is going to be made into beef jerky. I still haven't had much luck with the beef jerky, although when the food is running low, I am going to be thankful for it and its great in soups and stews. They chicken jerky on the other hand is to die for, now if I could just keep my hands out of my storage supply.