Friend: “Why should I learn to preserve food? The grocery store has what I need, I will just go buy it. Plus, there is always the freezer!”
Me: “Okay. But what if there are no grocery stores or the ones that are ‘open’ have been picked clean in a disaster? Or what if the electricity is out and will be for a couple weeks or something? All that meat and food will go to waste!”
Friend: “Pfft! Come on, when are there NOT grocery stores and when did the power stay out THAT long?”
Me: “Katrina.”
Friend: “……..”
_____________________
This recent conversation I had with a friend really got me thinking. Having some basic skills in preserving your own food (other than freezing!) can mean the difference between life and death in extreme situations. She asked me what I would do in the same scenario and I laid out the plan I have considered several times and revamped as needed. The difference between her and I is not money, equipment, or location. It is in mindset and skillset. There are many reasons out there that make having the skills to preserve your own food prudent and valuable (not to mention the superiority of the food). Even if all you know how to do is pickle food, you are ahead of the game! Here are 5 reasons that are logical, possible, and more likely to happen than some world-crushing disaster.
Loss of Job. Many people are lulled into a false sense of security in their jobs. They believe that as long as they do what is required, everything will be fine and they can continue along this path. Then, they hear the stocks have plummeted to mere pennies per share. You may have had some stock in the company and lost money but it was OK because you still had your job. Weeks later, the company is either laying people off or filing for bankruptcy and now you are unsure whether or not you will get paid. You have no money to buy any food but your freezer has some roasts and whatnot in it, you will be ok. Then the electricity is shut off because you still haven’t been paid and could not pay the bill. Then you get laid off. The incredible stress of the entire situation or others that include losing your job is bad enough. Add in the stress of food going bad. If you have the skills to preserve your own food, you could have canned up the meat or dried it to make it shelf stable.
Loss of Power. Taking Hurricane Katrina completely out of the equation, heavy storms wreak havoc all over the planet every year and end up causing some damage to the electrical grid. Around here, sometimes the power goes out from an eagle hitting power lines (yes, it happens). Regardless of what causes the power to go out, having the skills to preserve the food you have available is important. For us, we will end up canning meat from the freezers over a fire (yes, it can be done!) as well as using the smoke and heat to dehydrate other foods. Having a tabletop propane stove or burner will make a huge difference in what you can still do when the power is out for more than a few hours.
Natural Disasters. Earthquakes, floods, fires, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes: they take out more than just the power! Homes, cars, gardens, roads…all of the vital things needed to move goods and services are vulnerable to Mother Nature. Natural disasters can affect large areas and the ripple effects continue outward that can and likely will make getting food that does not need to be refrigerated next to impossible. Even if your home is damaged, whatever food you can salvage needs to be kept safe to eat and having the skills to be able to do that again can mean the difference between life and death. If you know how to make a solar oven, your chances of surviving until help arrives or you get to a better place go up exponentially.
Monetary Reasons. Food prices will continue to go up as time goes on. I cannot think, or find, any time in history where the cost of food has gone down in significant amounts or long lengths of time. Whole foods are also expensive but by buying in bulk and learning how to preserve it long term can help stretch your bottom dollar, not to mention get you to try new recipes and eat more healthy food. We have been steadily working on getting away from boxed foods and trying to fill the cupboards with home canned fruit, meat, and vegetables. Instead of boxes of rice, we have plastic containers that we simply refill. We save money buying items on sale and in bulk and then just doling it out as we use it. We know that the likelihood of getting completely away from store-bought food is unreasonable, but we have found that by processing more ourselves, we save a bunch of money and eat much healthier (also more tasty!).
Reclaiming control over your food. Some people really do not care what chemicals and preservatives go into their body. While I am far from being one of those people who religiously watch the ingredients in their food, we are taking control over what we eat. Yes, sometimes we get a pizza or pot pie from the freezer aisle. The key word there is sometimes. We have gone from that being the absolute norm to being an occasional thing when we are feeling particularly lazy. For the most part, I really like knowing the carrots I am serving are ones I grew from a seed. The jar of beef that I open up has onions, garlic, water, and a little salt in it. I know there are no other preservatives because I am the one who processed it. The meat was bought on sale, brought home and preserved so that should any of the above scenarios happen, I know I have shelf stable, healthy food to eat still. More than that, I have the skills and practice to preserve even more food should the opportunity come along.
I take great comfort in the skills I have learned about different ways to preserve food. The thing that always blows me away is how incredibly easy it really is. I find myself asking over and over “Why don’t more people do this?” The answers are usually the same about not wanting to spend much time, or that they buy organic this or that, or that they only ever keep a few days of food on hand so it would be pointless. Well, I would rather have these skills and not need them than find myself wishing I had learned about drying or canning food.
Let me hear what you think!! Give us a comment below with food preservation suggestions or how having these skills have helped you get through a rough time!
Preserving my own food keeps my grocery down to a manageable amount. Having our own food has also see us through budget shortfalls. I would rather eat food I preserved than to rely on a grocery store any day!
I am only just discovering all of the joys of growing and canning my own food. The far reaching benefits are still coming, too! I know our food bill went down because of not buying fresh produce or canned vegetables. One thing I did not expect was turning into a food snob. I look at the green onions at the grocery store and scoff because I grow better, larger, and more healthy ones myself for a tiny fraction of the cost! Loving this life! Thank you for the comment Erica!
Reading this and making a comment on FB brings home to me that this is exactly what I should be doing and teaching my family to do. I am NOT prepared and am well able to be. My sons were in the hurricanes that leveled towns and closed roads for a week. We have been in blizzards and stranded for 3 days. This isn’t life threatening but it could be a worst scenario…time to get on the ball and bring back the skills of my grandmother and mom…and pass it to my kids. One of the things that scares me is the prescription medications I take…you cannot stock pile them. Insurance limits so you cannot refill until you are down to maybe 3-7 days left. In a disaster that isn’t reasonable. When the drug store is just around the corner…but if you have to walk there in several feet of snow or ice and they have no power…and you have 7 medications all refilled at different times…this is scary.
Hi Sonia! Thank you for the comment. I can relate with you about the medications. My mother in law has several prescriptions and she is in the same boat. We cannot get any extra otherwise it will mess her insurance up – even if she paid for them out of pocket herself. SUCH a messed up system. The upside is that once you start gardening and canning and all that, you will be eating more healthy food which can only be a good thing. Perhaps it will help cut down on some of the scripts. At least we know it won’t hurt though the side effects can be brutal: Strong desires to raise chickens and rabbits, never being satisfied with the crop you harvest and can, and general kookiness over things like soil PH, stored water, and having enough candles. 😉
I am so grateful that I learned to preserve food. I think it is the most important life skill my mother ever taught me. Being able to grow and preserve my own food has helped my family through many tough times. I wouldn’t trade this knowledge for a winning lottery ticket! There may be a disaster or other event in the future that renders money useless, but food will always be needed to survive. I take comfort knowing that my children will survive in an emergency.
I completely agree with you! I was exposed to canning as a child but taught myself how to do it (thank you internet haha!) and I agree. I would rather know how to successfully grow and preserve my own foods than be monetarily rich! Once the money runs out, what is left? Thanks for the comment, Emily!
To know how to do these things is indeed important. I have a few suggestions from years of life. One, teach your boys this stuff too. We may be alone at some point in our lives and these skills are as important as the more typical ones taught, at least in my generation.
Secondly, preparation is the key, don’t think you are going to make a solar oven in the middle of a crisis. Make one before, use it. That goes for most things, don’t have it sitting around just in case, get to know how to use it before you need it.
Lastly, don’t forget water. Get yourself a good filter like the Berkey filters. Ask someone at a restaurant for the large plastic food grade containers that their cooking oil comes in and store water in them for other things besides drinking.
Make these things a part of your life BEFORE you need it.
In reference to Sonia Munson about medicine, start looking up Holistic web sites do a google search.
Cultures for Health
nourishingdays.com
wellnessmama.com
Essential Oils
God Bless
Pat Tolbert
I watched my Mother and Grandmother can and pickle a few things but it’s only the past 5 years or so, I have gotten more interested in it.
In a year or 2, I plan to teach people of all ages and abilities how to grow, care, pick, cook and preserve fresh food for themselves and their families.
My business will cater to the lowest incomes, but lately that’s been a very wide bracket due to job loss. I’ll have other classes too, but this will be the far most important part of my business.
Being a retired firefighter, I’ve seen many tragedies and people “stuck” without food and clean water after large storms.
Thank you for your ideas.
Unless you killed the cow yourself for that beef, then it too is riddled with growth hormones, chemicals and preservatives