Comments

Episode-636- The Time to Store Food is Now — 47 Comments

  1. Take heed. I am seeing two month backorders for Mountain House and MRE’s. I am very happy I started a few years ago. Good on ya Jack! Keep speaking sane & rational truth.

  2. RE: Factoid of the USA using 25% of world’s resources

    Jack, I have only ever heard that exact statistic applied to the USA’s consumption of oil (not our consumption of EVERYTHING). And I am pretty sure that 25% is in fact the correct percentage of America’s oil usage when comapred to the rest of the world’s oil usage. But as for everything else (consumer goods, food, steel, copper, Freon, water, cement, etc) I am not certain how to measure those other consumption ratios. Perhaps the Baltic Dry Goods Index is a good place to start. But I honestly wouldn’t know how to reach a valid conclusion about American consumption of those other commodities and resources.

    Meanwhile, here’s a chart which shows China’s recent consumption of cement when compared to the rest of the world’s cement usage.

    http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/1/29/23825/7257

    And the numbers on that chart are driven by China’s ongoing mad scramble to build highways out the wazoo. However, I suspect that if such a chart had existed back in the 1960’s when the USA was at the height of building its own interstate highway system, it would have been America that left everyone else on that chart in the dust.

    But America at 25% is (I’m willing to bet real money) the correct figure at the very least as far as our daily and weekly and yearly global oil usage.

  3. I wish I could get everyone I know to listen to this particular episode. A few years ago, when the stock market tanked, some people were talking about investments. When asked I said “buy food.”

    Great points about making this a holistic approach. I’ve made good strides are food storage, and am struggling to finally get a bit of production started. Tips and just general encouragement on these issues are good to hear once in a while.

  4. Jack,

    On thing you mentioned that I don’t have much of is pasta. I try to pick up some extra when it is on sale at the supermarket but where do people but it in bulk (neither costco or the local Mormon storehouse have it in bulk bags)?

    Thanks,

    John

  5. Not sure where one can buy pasta in bulk and I’d like to know as week.
    But overall Eggs and Flour are cheaper, there is a reason most Italian people made their own pasta in weekly batches before the 20th century.
    Sure it’s more labor intensive, but many hands make light work.

  6. If you have a Sam’s Club in your area, they sell pasta in large bags of various shapes. You would just need to repackage it for long term storage.

  7. I’ve learned that a good food storage pantry fluctuates up and down, and that’s absolutely OK. I have some new prepper friends who get a little freaked out if their canned food quota gets off and desperately rush out to replace those missing items. I used to be that way in the beginning also, but now I’ve learned to chill out a bit and wait for the next loss leader sale before I replace those items. It’s just as you said, the food is there to use.. not to count! 🙂

    Honeyville Grain is the best for sure. I noticed on my last order that they were completely out of eggs- I don’t think it’s a shortage of product, but instead I’ve discovered there has been a shortage of #10 cans. I’ve heard that it is also causing shortages in Mountain House stores because of lack of cans. If you know anything about that, Jack, would you talk on the topic? Thanks.

    My family loves potatoes, so we grow a variety of them. They store well and they also dehydrate well. I also buy the freeze-dried hash brown potatoes from Sam’s Club. We’re big pasta eaters too, so I’ve stored lots of pasta and all of the things I like to eat with it like sauces, canned chicken, etc. It’s not difficult to keep potatoes and pasta rotated in our house.

    I LOVE all kinds of beans, but as a family, we don’t eat them very often. Still I store them along with rice because they are great staples and they store easily. They still get some rotation, but definitely not as fast as our other foods.

    Gardening is a big part of our life, and every year we add to our growing capabilities. We are so fortunate to have a couple of neighbors who share our love for gardening, so we share plants in the spring as well as the produce that comes out of our garden. We also focus a lot of our energy on our pecan orchard, fruit trees, grape vines and blackberry vines. Our place has become such a labor of love..

    I spend a LOT of time and attention to finding the best prices on food and now that I have a hefty buffer, there are very few items that I pay full price for.. It literally HURTS me to pay full price for anything anymore 😐 and that goes for food, clothing, tools, etc.

    Great show– thanks Jack

  8. RE: Pasta in bulk.. I found that you sometimes come out better by watching for loss-leader sales at your regular grocery stores like Kroger’s or Albertsons. I stocked up big time when Kroger’s had a pasta sale where they sold their Skinner 16 oz bags of spaghetti, elbow mac, etc.. for 3 for $1.

    Bulk purchasing doesn’t always give you the best price per ounce.. I’ve found that to be REALLY true with sugar and flour. Wait until after the holidays and the grocery stores will put all of their overstock of baking supplies on sale. You’ll be able to beat the Sam’s bulk price by quite a bit.

  9. I am having a V8 moment (um, slapping myself upside the head, I mean). I know – I KNOW that last yr I went looking online for an image of chickweed to see if it was what I suspected to be growing in my yard.

    I don’t know what happened, but the image that came up matched nothing in my yard.

    When Jack mentioned chickweed growing all over his yard, I just had to check again (we both live in the DFW area). Found an image.

    One that, this time, did look like the weed I had suspected was chickweed.

    It’s all over our side and front yard. And I’ve just been tearing it up and putting it in the compost! While all along I could have been cutting back on the amount I spend on greens!

    All that changes at this moment. Thanks, Jack, for helping the edible weed light bulb come on for me.

  10. Great podcast Jack. I want everyone I know to hear this. My wife has finally begun to see the light on prepping. I am very excited about it. One night we were on the couch and I pulled out the laptop to show her the dehydrate2store website. Since then she has been dehydrating food like crazy.

    Also I have started experimenting with biltong. The first batch I made was a little too salty but I still loved it and ate most of it in a day. Thanks for the freat work Jack.

  11. I found some awesome dried banana chips at walmart last week. Contains banana, coconut oil, only a little sugar. 7oz, 1050 calories, $1, tastes great. Half your daily caloric requirement for $1. Shelf life of about 1 year. Look for little clear plastic bags with minimal labeling. From “amportfoods.com”

  12. @Greg, I LOVE Tammy at dehydrate2store.com! She’s great! Glad to hear that your wife is getting excited about food dehydration.. it’s my favorite way to preserve food now that I have an Excalibur.. 🙂

  13. Jack doesn’t believe that the United States sucks up 25% of the world’s resources because he’s been to other countries and they have stuff too? This ranks up there with his idea that Canada is still controled by the Queen of England…this is not just slightly off base, it is outlandishly and ridiculously wrong.

  14. @Ed if you look at the HARD DATA in Dene’s link you will see I am absolutely correct. And Canada is a colony.

  15. @Jack

    Jack said:

    @OilLady I have often heard presenters say the US consumes “25% of the world’s resources”, not just oil. Also if China is building all those roads what do you think they intend to do with them?

    I’m pretty sure I also might have heard some commentators use that statistic of 25% and applied it in a vague and sloppy way to America’s usage of ALL global resources. And I suspect that statistic is just wrong. I suspect such commentators are guilty of crossing their wires as far as citing a VALID statistic originally unearthed only as far as our oil consumption, and erroneously blurring the lines on their reporter’s scratchpads and extending that statistic across the board to their references to ALL forms of American consumption. Perhaps the evolution of that subtle leftward slide of facts into error went something like this:

    TRUE: “Americans use 25% of global oil supplies.”
    TRUE: “Americans use 25% of the resource called oil.”
    VAGUE: “Americans use 25% of the resource.”
    WRONG: “Americans use 25% of all the world’s resources.”

    We use 25% of the planet’s oil –not 25% of its energy (nuclear, coal and everything else combined), nor 25% of its food, JUST 25% of its oil. I have no clue what our slice of the pie is for all the planet’s other stuff. But I do know that we use 25% of the planets oil every day. I am NOT a petroleum professional, nor can I even rightfully claim to be a petroleum expert. But I have been studying the petroleum industry intensely for 3 years now (thus my screen name). I admit my studies are self-taught. And what follows below is a general summation of the stats I have come up with in my amateur studies since I plunged headlong into my preoccupation/obsession with global petroleum supplies:

    1) The world pumps roughly 85 million barrels per day out of the ground.

    2) Of that 85 million barrels per day, the USA consumes between 20 and 21 million barrels per day.

    3) The globe hit an all-time high for just one month during late-2007 when we silly humans went and pumped somewhere between 88.5 million barrels per day and just about 89 million barrels per day, but JUST for that one month. We have never pumped that much in an entire month since then.

    4) The insane escalation in the price of oil during the tail end of 2007, and then the tripling of its price during first half of 2008 to the record breaking $147.27 per barrel on July 11, 2008 caused “demand destruction” to eventually kick in. (More than a few entire Third World nations suddenly could NOT buy oil anymore, especially island nations like the Marshall Islands and other tiny island states throughout the Pacific which rely upon diesel powered generators for their national electrical grids.)

    5) The demand destruction also manifested itself in Americans choosing to drive a lot less that year, and even to slow down (not speed) in their efforts to save fuel (we saw a marked drop off in highway fatalities in the latter half of 2008 as people began driving more slowly).

    6) That demand destruction then led to the daily pumping rate around the world to eventually slide down as low as 82 million barrels per day toward the very end of 2008. And US consumption hit a low not seen in almost a decade of around only 18 million barrels per day.

    7) The globe has since returned to about 85 million barrels per day of pumping, and America has gone back up to about 20 million barrels per day of consumption.

    8) As a side note, the USA pumps between 5 and 6 million barrels per day domestically. We keep just under 5 million barrels per day for ourselves, and then the final 1 million barrels we sell to a very select group of foreign customers whose identities I have never learned. (Not that their identities are some huge a secret. It’s just that I’ve never come across the names of those foreign customers. But evidently we have “contracts” with them and are unable to renege on them.)

    9) One last parting thought: The absolute largest consumer of oil in the world is the United States Armed Forces. The USA consumes roughly 20 million barrels per day, and a hefty chunk of it (I have never learned the exact amount, but my understanding is that it’s a sizeable portion—perhaps less than 50%, but still a huge piece) goes straight to the military. Aviation fuel is a major part of it. And when a military convoy of trucks needs to cross the deserts in either Iraq or Afghanistan, well over 50% of the trucks in the whole line-up are just fuel tankers — not troop transports, and not equipment vehicles, but fuel trucks. The IED’s (improvised explosive devices) that the Iraqi insurgents set as traps buried in the dirt beneath the roads for those convoys are meant to try and target the fuel trucks.

    10) One last last parting thought: China’s appetite for oil continues to grow. The whole thing about the USA consuming 25% of the world’s oil will most likely start to shift very soon. And THAT can only eventually lead to China and the USA finding that the day comes when they each start trying to outbid each other at the global oil auctions (and thus will they bid up the global prices, possibly to may hundreds of dollars per barrel). So to avert that exact situation (for now at least), China has been smart enough to negotiate as many futures contracts as possible rather than have to deal with that kind of a struggle at the global auction block. But that conflict-avoidance strategy won’t last for long since futures contracts can only be bought for just so many months in advance (3-month futures contracts, 6 month futures contracts, 12-month futures contacts, 18-month futures contracts, etc) before the next round of contracts must be negotiated. By 2014 I fear the game will be up and so only the highest bidder (or the most powerful military) will have the final say in who gets that oil. (Ya’ thnk maybe we should conquer Iran and take their under-exploited oil fields? Just kidding!)

    As for your rhetorical question to me about what China intends to do with all those roads – they wanna drive on them of course! LOL! How sad it will be when they soon find (ten years or less by my own rough estimates) that they cannot fuel their vehicles anymore. This will not end well.

  16. The hard data in that link shows the United States is presently gobbling up some 20% of the world’s total energy output. This is an unbelievably huge figure, especially taking into consideration that China’s population is roughly 4 times that of the U.S. What about water? Soil? Lumber? Manufactured goods? The sad fact is that the United States is a resource glutton, and yes, it eats up roughly 25% of the world’s resources.

    Canada is one of many dozens of countries that are former British colonies. Canada is also a former French colony, but they aren’t calling the shots there any more either. And please, don’t bring up the bullshit argument about the queen being on the currency. It’s part of the country’s history, it would be bizarre is there weren’t any traces of its former colony status.

  17. @Dene,

    Dene said: On the topic of energy consumption, I found some data at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html

    Dene, I took some time to survey only some of the data found in that link you provided. And I must confess that I am leery of the integrity of any information that comes from the US Energy Information Administration, especially when it comes to their future projections on oil. But that’s my own personal aversion due to my reluctance to believe that they are not out to protect the future interests of the US-based Big Oil companies by massaging certain numbers — –especially numbers related to the allegedly glowing future and assured longevity of the oil industry.

    I realize you were NOT referring to their future projections on oil, only to their tabulations of current and past levels of US consumption of the various forms of energy. But I still tend to shy away from full acceptance of anything they present as hard data. (And that’s just me.) And, just for god measure, I’ll say “Ditto” for anything put out by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates who have been described by some very astute peak oil scholars as being a bought-and-paid-for shill for Big Oil.

  18. @Bill

    Bill said: It’s ok that we consume about 20-25% of the world’s energy. That is also our share of world economic output. The two go together. Here’s a quick graph that shows there’s a relationship.

    http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Energy_consumption_versus_GDP.png

    Bill, I fear our “economic output” has sadly consisted mostly of a fantasy-based output. It was an output of the sort manufactured completely out of our American economic arse in the form of make-believe money generated via the murky and fraud-riddled nether world called “American High Finance.”

    Prior to the 1970’s less than 5% of our GDP was centered in the activity of the financial sector. But after the 1970’s High Finance ballooned into over 20% of our output. That was an almost psychotic shift in the entire profile of our nation’s financial DNA. And it was all a huge sham.

    After three more decades, two economic banking shakedowns, a slew of strategic deregulation, and several re-alignments over who the banks targeted for their latest Franken-loans, that 20% behemoth of a sector –the NEW incarnation of American finance– eventually brought us to the financial catastrophe of 2008.

    I personally don’t believe any of that was “okay.” Those financial misdeeds are finally coming home to roost, and they have now brought us to the brink of economic ruin. What would TRULY be “okay” would be if we actually produced things of real value to sell for real money in the real market. But we’ve instead spent these last three decades casting our GDP pearls to the swine of an utterly intangible brand of so-called “output” which proved to be the muther of all Ponzi schemes. And that’s not “okay” in the least.

  19. @Ed, Canada is a colony here is my justification for that beyond the currency. In fact Canada is still a monarchy. Nothing becomes law without the assent of the Crown. Canada has democratically (sort of) elected officials to represent the people to the Crown. The Crown then decides if the peoples concerns are valid and the peoples wishes are to be met, or not.

    In practice, the Governor General (G.G.) rubber stamps everything that comes out of Parliament or the Senate. However, the law is such that, should the GG so decide, the GG could strike down anything proposed by Parliament or even take executive action.

    Each province also has a Lieutenant Governor General (Lt.GG) who acts in a similar capacity at the provincial or territorial level.

    The cost to support these emissaries of the Crown is about $1.35 CDN per man, woman, and child, per year.

    The citizens of Canada also have no real stake in the resources of Canada. Resources in Canada that are not privately held (notice I didn’t write privately owned) are considered Crown Assets. The real property of the Federal Gov’t, the Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are also considered Crown Assets.

    Since Canada’s money is supposed to have value based on Crown Assets and the revenue the Crown collects, the bearer of the Crown is featured on the money.

    So there you go instead of just saying what I say is ridiculous please disprove ONE THING in the above.

    Once again facts are stubborn things.

  20. @Atomiser because I understand distance limitations and how radio activity works. If I lived in Tokyo right now I would be crapping my pants in the US, I am not worried about radiation from Fukushima.

  21. The governor general in Canada holds a purely ceremonial role. This person has absolutlely no real power. Zero. As for ‘crown’ assets, they are firmly under the control of the Canadian government. Even in England, the British monarchy no longer holds any real power. The British government could end their funding and do away with them any time the so decided. They day that the Governor General or the British monarchy tries to strike down any Canadian law will be the day that even these meaningless historical afterthoughts will be done away with. This is also why they would never dare even hint at trying to influence Canadian politics. You are badly confusing historical allusions with present day reality. These are indeed the facts.

  22. @Ed actually I am stating fact and you are giving your opinion that said fact isn’t really important or doesn’t really matter.

  23. @Jack

    Jack said: @Atomiser because I understand distance limitations and how radio activity works. If I lived in Tokyo right now I would be crapping my pants in the US, I am not worried about radiation from Fukushima.

    Jack, I read this news item yesterday about the Tokyo offices of The Goldman Sachs. From what this article says, our kind and benevolent friends at The Goldman Sachs obviously prioritize the safety and well-being of their employees over and above all other considerations.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/42304574

    Goldman Sachs Employees Told Not to Leave Japan

    Monday, 28 Mar 2011

    At least four Goldman Sachs executives flew into Japan last week to speak with nervous ex-pat employees about radiation fears, according to a person familiar with the situation. They also conveyed another message: don’t leave Japan and don’t leave Tokyo….

    … Many were asking if they could temporarily relocate out of the country or perhaps move to a location in southern Japan, farther away from troubled nuclear power plants….

    … ‘The message was clear: no one is to leave. If you do leave, you can’t come back and expect to still work for Goldman,’ the person said.”

    I’m personaly wondering how many dozens of iodine pills those American GS executives each wolfed down right before flying in to Tokyo last week. I’m also wondering how quickly they high-tailed it out of town after their meetings were done.

  24. Lots of topics, where to begin.
    I’ll ‘fess up that I saw this link recently on another blog, but it’s useful in the canned food debate. The “9 Best Canned Foods” states that canned goods actually contain more nutrition than many of their raw counterparts, due to handling and delay from harvest to display in the store. Interesting read in any case. (http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/24/best-canned-foods/)
    I have LDS friends who have more than a 2 year supply of stored foods, and tell me they are not worried about “end times” as much as bad times. Being laid off from a job or a long term illness is a statistically much more probable event, than most manmade or natural disasters. Right now the unemployment rate is somewhere between 8.6% (official) and 15+% depending on your location. I know of no event in the history of our country that affected this percentage of the population all at the same time, so loss of job would seem to win this statistic.
    I second your opinion on Honeyville. Not only is the food high quality (and mostly available), but their $4.49 to ship the entire order is awesome.
    Jack mentioned bruised fruits, etc, but if you ask, you may be able to get a good deal on culls. The odd misshapen fruits and vegetables that often are not even brought to the market. You can often have them brought on the next trip, or travel to the farm to get them. If you’re canning or dehydrating, they’re perfect, and generally well discounted.
    Even if we assume that the US consumes 25% of the worlds resources, most of the non-energy resources are not actually consumed. Wood is renewable and we grow lot of it here, including some for export. All metals are recyclable, and much of the energy we consume comes from domestically produced coal & natural gas. The big user of oil is primarily in transportation and agriculture, and a lot of the agriculture is exported to feed the world. We tend to look at import/export ratios in dollar units, but I suspect if we looked at them in energy units we would see a different equation. A lot if the energy we “consume” actually feeds the rest of the world.
    For those looking for pasta in bulk check for a Gordon Food Service marketplace outlet, mostly in the eastern Midwest and along the east coast, or for a local restaurant supplier in your area. This is generally good quality food, in bulk at reasonable prices.
    Jack, this was all good information. Keep at it because more difficult times are coming.

  25. I’d just like to confirm that our monarchy has no real power anymore. You are technically correct in stating that the monarch has to give ascent to the passing of bills in parliament, but this is purely a formality. The last monarch to actually refuse to sign a bill into law was Queen Anne 1665 – 1714. The last monarch to consider refusing was I believe George V at the time of the Home Rule Bill for Ireland in 1914. He asked the then prime-minister Asquith if he was constitutionally entitled to refuse to sign the bill. Asquith told him “no” and the king accepted that judgement.

    Thing is, unlike you Americans we don’t have a written constitution that people argue about in courts of law and judges rule on. Every thing’s based on precedent and tradition, and there is now 300 years of precedent and tradition of the crown being submissive to the wishes of parliament. And also of being detached from party politics.

    In theory for example the newly elected prime-minister has to go to the queen and ask her permission to form a government. But it’s centuries since a monarch tried to go against the outcome of a general election in dictating which body in parliament should rule. Likewise the Queen every year reads out a speech in parliament in which she outlines what “her” government is going to do. This speech is written for her by the governing party and merely outlines government policy, (it usually includes phrases used in the election propaganda of that party). And has nothing to do with the queens wishes.

    I’m a bit of history nerd! So sorry to talk for so long about such a small part of today’s show, but the thing is I basically agree with everything else you said!

  26. @Spaghetti and Sauce Says: so you say the crown plays the same ceremonial role in Canada as it does in Britten than right? And we are to believe the crown being the richest family on the planet with their influence still such that they are on Canadian money is not exerting influence in Canada? LOL

    @Ed India was a British Colony, so was the US so was Burma, so was Nigeria, so was Egypt, so was Iraq and 9 other nations, all now claim to be sovereign, only three have old Lizzy on their coins. It would seem keeping a “former ruler” on your currency is the exception not the rule.

    Canada is independent in some ways but a territory in others, perhaps colony is to strong but it is only one degree further from Britten than say Guam is from the US.

  27. Also the fact the every Canadian pays over a dollar a year in a basic tribute to the crown doesn’t bother you guys?

  28. “Also the fact the every Canadian pays over a dollar a year in a basic tribute to the crown doesn’t bother you guys?”

    Yeah, how about that???!?! Didn’t the Queen shut down their parliament a few years ago too?

  29. @PAprepared, oh yea forgot about that one! So much for no influence by the crown. Good point.

  30. @Modern Survival

    I’d be intrigued to know where you get your information about the British monarchy being the richest family on the planet comes from. I’d also just like to ask if you have evidence of a specific instance from recent years of a major political decision in Canada being influenced by the Queen of Britain? (Not the British government, the monarchy.)

  31. See again, this is an example of the ceremonial function of the monarchy being confused with actual power. The Queen just doesn’t give orders like that. All kinds of things are referred to to “Royal” in various ways, but it’s the British government that gives instructions, not the monarch. For example, we have the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, of which the queen in nominally the commander in chief. But decisions about when either should go into action are taken by the cabinet

  32. @Spaghetti and Sauce:

    First I mean ONE OF not the richest sorry about the confusion. They are one of the richest in the world hell they have a controlling interest in BP for instance.

    As for significant how about what PAprepared posted? Debate if the crown or the British government government is the force behind it if another nation can shut down your parliment you are not sovriegn. Again what about the money you guys are forced to pay to fund this. Your population in Canada is 33,739,900 at a buck thirty five a piece you guys pay a tribute to the crown of 45,548,865 to the royalty each year.

    So you are on the hook for 45 million a year to a wealthy first world nation not in need of foreign aid and that nation has effectively shut down your house of government.

    I sure am not happy about my claim but it is valid. You are not a sovereign nation when another nation extorts money from you and can shut down your house of government.

  33. While all you folks argue about percentages and colonies I’m going to keep working on my new chicken ark, continue to stock up on bulk essentials, keep working on the expanded garden using sheet composting, and transfer the batch of Patiersbeer I have going to secondary.

    Get busy people!

  34. @timfromohio you are a wise man. Funny thing is I never even mentioned the Canada thing in this episode in the first place. Ed got all in a wad because I said I don’t believe that the US uses 25% of ALL THE WOLDS RESOURCES, turns out I was correct about that.

  35. The concept that the British monarchy’s role in Canada is purely ceremonial is so straightforward I can’t understand the utter confusion about it.

    To claim that the Monarchy of England shut down Canadian parliament is just utter nonsense. The Conservative party shut down parliament to avoid being defeated by a coalition of the other parties in parliament. The Governor General’s role was a formality. This is a pretty big misunderstanding of the political workings of your northern neighbor. Canadian listeners must be having a little chuckle here.

  36. I have a question about O2 absorbers. I heard you can use hand warmers as they are basically the same thing. I would think you would use them on dehydrated foods to make them last longer-but if you vacuum seal your foods do you need an O2 absorber? I wouldn’t think so. Thanks for any info on this subject.

  37. @Dan,

    Most use O2 absorbers in a vac seal bag as added insurance. Knowing you can’t get every spec of oxygen out the O2 absorber plays clean up duty.

    Yes you can use hand warmers, they are exactly the same but they only make sense (at least to me) for very large storage containers like say a 5 gallon bucket.

    O2 absorbers are simply iron filings with some additional additives that make the iron rust really fast. The only thing needed to start the rusting is oxygen, so you keep them away from oxygen they do nothing. Introduce oxygen and they start to rust, that creates heat (hand warming) but it also take up oxygen.

    How? Rust is iron oxide, in other words the iron combines with oxygen and creates the compound we call rust or oxidized iron. So since the oxygen is bound with the iron it is no longer available to combine with anything else (oxidize). The oxygen is still there, it just becomes chemically inert.

    Hand warmers and O2 absorbers have the exact same stuff in them.

  38. I know most people will think to wash lawn greens before eating them, but I’d like to warn new, fellow wildcrafters from first hand experience. Wash your lawn greens really well! My house rabbit got worms very quickly from eating unwashed lawn salads last summer. Parasites just aren’t pleasant. Just sayin’.

  39. Pingback:When cleaning the kitchen, does your household use storage containers to put food in or not?

  40. TSP has mentioned sustainability frequently and did an adequate job of defining it. But I noticed a rival perspective of sustainability being promoted by Michael Shaw who claims that the sustainable movement is being used to create a fascistic world government. here is his site: http://www.newswithviews.com/Shaw/michael9.htm

    He might be the source of the knee-jerk hostility that Jack Spirko has apparently been dealing with at times, It might be good to address the difference between the Agenda 21 “Sustainability” (see the link above) and the grassroots movement towards self reliance that Spirko and TSP promotes.

  41. Which buckets would be best for pasta and other dry good storage? I have never tried repackaging food yet. I have so far just done canning, dehydrating and the like.