Store It Foods

Picture this.  You’re at a friend’s place helping that friend assemble their new barbecue and disover to your amazement that they don’t have any sort of Phillips screwdriver in the place, yet they need one to start that assembly.  Or, how about this? You and a couple of your cousins show up at your widowed Aunt Mary’s place to help fix her old, broken fence.  Your Uncle Tom used to be quite the handyman, but Aunt Mary can find only one of his old hammers, and has no idea where the other ones might be.  Suddenly your plans to make use of some of his old tools have hit a major stumbling block.

There are all sorts of well designed, compactly packed, emergency tool kits that could be kept in your car or truck for that “just in case” moment.  There are emergency shovels, emergency preparedness kits in bottles, flares, and flashlights that can be used to smash windows to escape a sinking or burning vehicle when the doors are stuck. You might have emergency rations, emergency lighting, or a sleeping bag or two for use when finding yourself stalled on the highway during a winter storm or while confronted with roads that have been closed due to some disaster ahead.

Those are all good ideas, but why not also consider keeping a well stocked tool box in that car or truck.  There are all sorts of scenarios that could arise where you might appreciate having a hamer, or a saw. or a Phillips screwdriver, or whatever handy and at the ready for use when needed.  These things just possibly could also prove of some use during an emergency.  Or they just might simply prove to be of great convenience to have there.  They could save you time, trouble and extra trips, and there is a lot to be said for that.

If you’re a health buff then you should know about wheat grass.  It is a term used for young Agropyron or grass plants.  It is known to have a number of beneficial qualities.  Wheat grass can be cultivated at home quite effortlessly.  Wheat grass kits come with wheat grass seeds and everything you need to grow your own crop at home.

Wheat grass is most commonly made into juice.  The juice is said to contain a high level of chlorophyll.  When chlorophyll is induced, it helps stop the growth of harmful bacteria in the body.  It also helps revitalize the bloodstream making it beneficial to one’s health.  In addition, because wheat grass is high in chlorophyll, your body is bombarded with oxygen which increases mental and physical performance.

Meat grinding is often done to make different meat ingredients for hamburgers, sausages and other meat dishes.  If you like preparing your meat beforehand, an electric meat grinder will suit you best.  Some models even come with attachments for sausage-making.  Most meat grinders have different size meshes so various sized meat cuts can be achieved.  Typically, all kinds of meat can be run through a grinder.

Having an electric meat grinder in your kitchen could be an advantage.  Some meat grinders can even grind up hard fruits and vegetables.  If you prefer making your own meals, instead of buying pre-processed meats and meat by-products, this is the kitchen tool for you.  It is easy to use and easy to clean.  Some are even designed for easy storage.

Have you seen the Dial A Slice Apple Slicer?  It’s designed to slice 8 thick apple wedges for healthy snacking or 16 thin slices for preparing apple pies, tarts and cobblers.  That’s nice, but why would you want to spend almost $20 for such a novelty item.  You can use that little paring knife that you keep in the kitchen drawer to do the same thing.  It may take a little longer, but it does a perfectly good job, and you’ve already got it so there is no need to spend any money at all.  On the other hand, if the family loves those pies, tarts and cobblers then that “little bit of time saved” can turn out to be a “lot of time saved.”

It may also have another big advantage.  If you have been trying to wean the kids away from salty, fat filled snacks while promoting healthier fruits and veggies as an alternative, then this might be a weapon in your aresnal.  It’s quick and easy, and cores while it slices.  It doesn’t take long to have that wholesome snack food out on a plate and ready to be eaten.

You could, of course, invest in those little packages of apple wedges that are just sitting there, ready for you to pluck from the supermarket shelf, but have you compared the cost of those to whole apples.  Yes, they’re expensive. 

Suddenly, that $20 might start looking like a wise investment.

The Dial A Slice Apple Slicer, of course, is just one example.  There are lots of other “novelty” food preparation tools that might turn out to be extremely useful in your kitchen.  So before you turn down the opportunity to purchase, consider the possible benefits to your home and family.  If the pros outweigh the cons, then you might find that particular tool to be less of a “novelty” item than you thought.

Here’s a simple but tasty recipe:

Sausage Delight

• one pound beef or pork sausages
• canned tomatoes
• salt and pepper

Take the sausages and canned tomatoes and put together in a pot with salt and pepper to taste.  Boil for twenty minutes.  Serve with potatoes.  (This can make a good sized meal for quite a large family).

That’s it.  It’s quick.  It’s simple.  It’s inexpensive.  It’s easy to make.   It should also be noted that this comes from a Depression era cookbook which had been compiled during the “lean thirties”.  It, and many like it, deomonstrate that meals can successfully be based on very few ingredients.  Note the lack of multiple herbs and spices.

Such recipes might be good have on hand.  When we find ourselves actually depending upon and using our food storage items, we may find that we may be somewhat limited in what ingredients we have available.  So, we will want to do the best we can with what we have.  Thus, those simple, easy to make recipes could be just exactly what is needed.

The time to find them, of course, is before they become a necessity.  Start with a basic few.  Try them and see how you like them.  In other words, be prepared.

Remember, too, that your long term food storage is supposed to be there to benefit you whenever it is needed, and that can include times of unemployment or under employment, times when money is scarce.  You do not need to wait for some sort of natural or man-made disaster to strike.  If finances dictate that you use it now, then now is a good time to use it.

Have we stopped learning from the lessons of history?  Sad though that may be, it may be true.  Consider what many historians consider to be the five major causes of the Great Depression that afflicted America throughout the 1930s.

1. The Stock Market Crash of 1929.  Fortunes were lost overnight, and investors stopped investing.  Trust in the stock market simply evaporated.
2. Bank Failures. Throughout the 1930s over 9000 banks failed.  Surviving banks tightened the money supply.  Loans became exceedingly hard to get.  Bankers came to feel that the only way to prevent their own institutions’ failures was to hold onto what they had, and to hold on tightly.
3. Shoppers Stopped Shopping.  Worried over the economy, consumers cut back on consumption.  Purchases were postponed.  Inventories grew.  Stores, unable to sell what they had, stopped placing orders.  Factories facing a lack of orders, stopped producing.  Idle factories laid off workers.  Laid off workers joined the ranks of the unemployed.  Growing unemployment meant even less spending.  It became a vicious circle, one that led to growing suffering and poverty.
4. Buy American.  It seemed like a good idea, but a “Buy American” policy led to high tariffs and retaliatory protectionism from former trading partners who stopped buying American products in order to protect their own markets. Trade wars made the economic situation much worse. 
5. Drought.  Crop failures ruined farmers, and those that weren’t ruined by the lack of moisture found the crops they could produce hard to sell.  Commodity prices dropped in the face of the growing and seemingly unstoppable drop in the standard of living.

Does any of this sound familiar?  Are politicians and other decision makers making the same mistakes as the politicians and decision makers of the 1930s?  Hopefully not, but just in case, it might be wise to prepare, to look very seriously at a good food storage program.