Learning to eat different?
 

Just seen a thread on hoe cakes. Got me to thinkin about how many have actually tried to spend a week or two eating your preps or better yet a basic life sustaining diet. your basic flour and water thing :D
Seem like if its going to crash might be sometihng you coulée do now to make the adjustment easier

That's why you want to only prep the things that you actually eat. That way you can pull from the front of your preps for daily living and put the newer stuff in back. Nothing gets too old that way and you are already used to making meals with these things. No use prepping stuff that no one is used to eating OR you are used to cooking with.

I eat the same stuff I'd eat after a crash or weather disaster what have you. I raise a good portion of my own food and work on storing enough of the things I can't grow. I'm also learning to raise things that don't often grow here.

I'm working on:
Coffee
Bananas
Citrus
various spices (vanilla is a biggy)
Tea

We have long eaten what ever was on sale- or what I had an abundance of, so my preps contain what i have gotten on sale and what I have stocked from coupons- on top of the usual from scratch stuff... and local butchered meats.. so I can cook what ever is on hand- and the family is used to a constant changing menu- and they are okay with that- ....

prep what you eat eat what you prep

however , increasing things like rice and beans to a once a week or every other week meal rotation , oat meal 3 days a week , corn bread , biscuits all add into the cost savings thru eating home made from scratch cooking as well as eating preps for rotation

but absolutely get your system used to things early on , sudden changes in diet usually mean sudden changes in trips to the out house.

Preps are just regular groceries bought on sale. There's a few things we'd have to get more used to--I usually use powdered milk in cooking and only husband likes the taste of it to drink--if we didn't have the grocery store available, but other than that, we store what we eat.
Seems like we have rice whenever we don't have potatoes and legumes at least twice or three times. But then, meat's expensive, so we don't eat so much of that. I just wish cooking were quicker--it's been too hot to have the oven on much!

Interesting thought. Our eating habits have changed through financial necessity, the more I grow and preserve, the more we have to eat home-grown, preserved things. Can't afford to grow them and waste them. Basic flour/water though, I can't imagine you want to do that for any length of time unless you have no other choice. No sense in self-induced malnutrition. It would be interesting to see just how simple of a diet you could get and still have your nutritional bases covered. For us, it would be goats, greens, potatoes - the three things I can grow dependably well. I store wheat, oatmeal, spices, etc, but those three I can reproduce indefinitely. Kinda boring diet though, long term.

now HOE CAKES , and their other names and similar types of cakes or crackers is a hole discussion to it's self seems almost every culture had a small cake or cracker or bread that traveled well , with nothing but a sack to keep them in and stored for days, weeks or months

most were corn or wheat flour or a mix shapes varied but often round many had holes in them and we stored on a string , some fried , some baked , some cooked on a dry skillet , others dried

IID - Are you succeeding with the vanilla? If so, I'm so impressed, and where do you get them and how do you grow them?

I guess I was thinkin more about beyond the preps. When/if things get so bad that all you can get is flour , corn meal, beans. Just the basic basics. What kind of meals would you have. I know we tend to think of ourselves as Mountain Mike and Michelles but just in case things don't pan out that way.

flour and beans...yummy...flour tortillas(i like better than bread)...beans...well bean burritos.go out to gardena nd pick a few hot peppers to slap on them..yummy.if its winter then i will get one out of a jar or a dried one.

oh and summer ot fall time add a homegrown tomato on it.

longterm tea solutions are here for you

http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Herba...Seeds_s/59.htm

We started eating mostly home cooked food, snacks are things like dried fruit, granola, some homemade sweets. Almost no pre made stuff like breads, no pre made frozen food. It is more work, but the side benefit is that I'm almost back to what I weighed in high school! Amazing how those chips, corn dogs, frozen pizza and the like affect us. I don't mind turning back the clock weight wise one bit!

I'll eat just about anything,being hungry taught me that at a young age.I also have a cast iron stomach,I think I could digest turtle shells,assuming I could break them in small enough pieces to get'em down.

Lots of beans, wheat and rice in storage. Could use a little more TVP, and we eat small amounts of that now since we are vegetarians. Everything stored is stuff we eat regularly. Well except for some of the canned spaghetti sauces I picked up on sale. Eggs & dairy are produced here - and hubby just said I can get another doe to add a little more genetic diversity to my herd. That will bring me up to 7 does and 3 bucks. :happy:

Other than that I'm more worried about running out of TP at this point than food. Figure if family/friends that have been offered this place as a haven show up without anything, (they have been told they better not come empty handed - but life happens) at least they can all pitch in and help in the fields. But we can't grow TP. :)

Sure, you can grow tp... It's just always better fresh picked! Once leaves get crunchy, they don't clean so well!

Didn't someone say that Mullin is Cowboy TP.(mullen)

I agree with Elkhound - there are LOTS of things to eat with the makings of beans, rice etc. Homemade tortillas are the BEST but that is a reminder to store some lard. I have a Mexican store not too far away and that reminds me to go buy a couple cans next payday!!! :) You can use cooking oil but I think the lard is more traditional and tastes better. :)

Yes, I could live on our preps. My Dh, now that's where the rubber meets the road. He loves his food, the quickest way to his heart is thru his stomach. He will go to the grocery, every day if he had to. Just last night we had Porterhouse steak, doesn't matter that we raise beef and have plenty in the freezer. He said "it looked good" so he had to buy it. He is an excellent cook and we grill outside all year long.

I was raised on beans, rice, potato soup and flour biscuits. I hated them all. Now I find I crave them.

Vanilla is an Orchid, one can buy just the beans and make your own vanilla extract with beans and Vodka. Or buy a plant.

plus you can raise a hog and render ya own lard....jsut one mroe thing we can do to rid ourselves of outside enterferances.

rice with beans and mater,lettuce,onions and hot peppers on side...i am getting hungry now....:croc:...burp

I remember my grandma talking about packing rendered lard that had been salted into a crock and also making hamburger like patties and packing them into the lard also (they were fried first).

I pretty much eat the basics as it is. rice and beans, pasta (usually homemade), whatever from the garden and forageing. If I can catch some protien all the better.

Cooking skills are something you want to learn now, before you have to depend on them for survival. Finding a good recipe and turning out a decent loaf of bread usually takes some practice.

And to keep meals interesting, add tortillas and biscuits to your breadmaking repertoire.

Same with beans or rice. Learn how to cook/use them in a variety of ways because if that's all you've got, you're going to get bored real quick if they're cooked the same way every day.

I was thinking the same thing. I do grow orchids but vanilla orchids is a luxury I could never afford to grow. I would love to have a greenhouse and the resources required that could be devoted to growing vanilla orchids. But propogating them and providing them with the temperature controlled space for 130 foot long vines, and the years of waiting for the orchid plants to mature - well that's just beyond my means in this PNW climate.

Gracie - here is some information about how to grow them:
http://www.orchidflowerhq.com/Vanillaorchid.php

Yes and no. They aren't dead yet, but I'm not getting any beans either. Give me time and I'll get it.

Same with bananas. We have a few trees (they are actually a grass I think) in a friends greenhouse. While they seem to be growing just fine, we have yet to see any bananas.

Check this link for some Hard Times recipes...
Grandpappy's Recipes for Hard Times

Also I am buying cookbooks such as Peggy Layton's books... Someone here posted a while back about WWII cookbooks, have one or two from England that deal with shortages, rations and substitutions...

Oh and corn dodgers were good enough for the Duke, LOL Got a recipe for them here somewhere...

Orchids of all sorts thrive here, they love the heat and humidity and can be left outside surprisingly late in the year here. My front porch has many different kinds of orchids, and numerous epiphytes. I love hanging orchids and succulents. Never bought a vanilla orchid though, they're costly. I have gotten quite a few dragon fruit, though. They're surprisingly tasty and easy to grow as a weed.

When I was little, we ate the most basic of foods regularly. We would eat nothing but cornmeal for a while--cornmeal mush fried only in a bit of lard and with a tiny bit of sweetner on it, or cornbread made with no milk or eggs, etc. Then it would be nothing but oatmeal for a while--boiled oats, and oat crackers made with no milk or eggs. Then it would be beans for the longest time. We were very thin, I'm sure we were malnourished, but we survived.

We have been changing our eating habits since we retired to our farm and the money got tight. We eat a lot less meat for one thing and when we do eat meat it is just part of the meal rather than the main focus...much like most Asian cooking. We grow our own herbs and veggies, we have an orchard with pears, plumbs, apples, cherries and peaches, we have blue berries, raspberries and blackberries, we have three banana trees (dessert bananas), we have a few cows, a stocked pond and lots of wild game and we are making it our goal to buy as little from the grocery store as possible.

The problem we are having is balance, it seems we have an over abundant amount of fruits and veggies all ripening at the same time and we are learning different way to preserve them. Next on our agenda is to try and grow our own grains...any one do this on a small holding?

I eat very few grains at present as I'm on a low carb diet. I do have two of the "starter" LDS boxes in my stash along with a protein and grain box (TVP & wheat). The rest of my stash is what I regularly eat and like many here, I switch out the older for the newer. But if I had to, I could survive just fine on grains and legumes. Been there done that before in my starving student days. And since the transition would be rather gradual, my body would adjust. And in a long-term emergency situation I wouldn't be worried about gaining weight or not.

My favorite cookbook is "More with Less", a Mennonite publication--not sure it is still in print or not. The recipes are really fantastic, use a lot of grain and legumes as the base, and pretty cheap. If an emergency hits, that book is the only cookbook I will take with me.

Flat bread is simalar and takes less oil.

I'm going to make some hardtack and post y'all report and maybe pics.

I know it's going to be nasty, but I've been meaning to do it for years. This is a reminder to get it in my past experience. Yummy or not! :run:

Our eating habits wouldn't change much. We grow most of our own food, including herbs. We get our milk and eggs from our chickens and goats. We buy what we can't grow in bulk.

This year I've been eating a lot of "weeds". We've incorporated lambsquarter, purslane, and even pigweed (redroot amaranth) into our diet. Not all of the Ernie Supper Club is thrilled with this, but like little troopers they've eaten what is served.

God is so pleased with my efforts at learning to eat weeds that He blessed me with an abundance of them in my garden this year. More than I could ever eat! Praise God and pass the weeds!

Well for me 'learning to eat different', is going to one of the fast food restaurants.
I swear that I get something to eat there, and it is soooo greasy and salty. I usually wind up getting a really, really un-happy meal with a side order of heart-burn. Not the most appealing or digestable food choice out there. It is second to only some of the VA Hospital industrial strength cuisine, that I have experienced over the last few years.

I guess it is a good thing that I stay close to home, and do my own cooking.
From what I buy for everyday use and I also keep in long term storage.

Several varieties of beans and rice that are flavored with bacon or even spam, then served with tortillas, salsa, sour cream, and cheese are enjoyed here on a frequent basis.

I gotta say I have come to envy you beans and rice people.:) My grandpa raised cattle and had a butcher/ meat shop back in the day when you could have a small business. My dad was a meat cutter and farmer, So we ate meat!! beans and rice were those other things that mom served trying to teach us to eat everything LOL. never got the hang of them for the primary meal but I'm trying. and collecting your ways and wisdom :)