Captain Dave's Survival Guide
Homemade Survival Foods
There's no feeling of security like that of a cellar full of canned goods you grew and put up. You know what is in them, what, if any chemical fertilizers or herbicides were used, and how carefully they were preserved. From spaghetti sauce to your own jam, canning goods is a tradition that will come in mighty handy in a survival situation. And so will a pantry with nice jars filled with everything from beef stew to stewed tomatoes.
Once you are living a self sufficient life, canning fruits and vegetables as well as meat, poultry and fish is one of the best methods of food preservation available to the individual. You can take the bountiful harvest from your garden or nature and preserve it for years with a pressure canner, jars and the proper equipment. Home canned products can last years, but will probably be so good that they get eaten more quickly than that. If you are planning to can, make sure you stock up on lids. While jars can last generations, the lids themselves should not be re-used.
Although he has a pressure canner and has canned foods, Captain Dave doesn't pretend to be an expert. Whenever you're dealing with canning fruits, vegetables or meats, it is important to follow the latest specifics from the true experts regarding time, pressure and other specifics. Check with your local county extension office and buy the latest edition of the Ball book on home canning and food preservation. Invest in good books and the proper equipment and then carefully follow the instructions to avoid botulism and other problems from improperly canned foods.
You can also dry, pickle, vacuum-pack and otherwise prepare food for storage. Vacuum pumps are available commercially or can be constructed in your own home. You can use them to seal dried food in mason jars and other containers. Dehydrators are also useful, as are smokers. You can buy these commercially or construct your own.
When packing foods for storage, you want to eliminate oxygen (which is why a vacuum is so good). Bugs, such as weevils, and other organisms that can destroy your food need the oxygen to live, just as we do. That's why commercial companies who prepare survival food pack grains, cereals, pasta, beans and other food in nitrogen-filled containers.
Consumer vacuum packers like the Food Saver may work great in your kitchen, but the bags are too flimsy for long term storage food. Dave vacuumed sealed pasta, dried beans and barley in a number of different bags prior to Y2K and most of the clear bags developed leaks in six months to a year. Silvery Mylar bags were the best, followed by heavy duty nylon bags, which were a yellowish clear color. In any case, dried pasta even shapes that were not pointy caused leaks in almost every bag.
Hunting and Gathering in the Wild
Imagine this scenario:
A small nuclear conflict erupts in the Middle East destroying several countries and much of the world's oil supply. Airbursts knock out more than half of the world's satellite communications systems. Due to favorable weather conditions and plain dumb luck, fall-out over the United States is not life threatening -- as it is in parts of the Far East -- and the EMP damage to our electronic systems is minimal. However life as we know it is disrupted as fuel prices reach $10 and then $20 per gallon.
Fruits and vegetables grown in Florida and California can't reach markets in other states. Corn and wheat crops are abundant, but farmers don't have the fuel to run harvesters. And those that do, fill their silos, but the grain can't reach the market. Store shelves are emptied in two days of panicked buying that sees a five-pound bag of flour go from $1.69 to $8.99.
The economy goes into a tailspin, and inflation reaches 300 percent in the first two weeks. You're lucky you still have a job, but you wonder how on earth you'll get there without the car.
The president tries to regain control of the country by releasing stocks of food and oil, but it's just a drop in the bucket. In a measure of how bad things have become, he declares marshal law and nationalizes all oil, refineries and oil reserves. Suddenly, Uncle Sam is the only gas station on the block, and they're not pumping for anybody, no matter how much silver you cross their palms with. Riots break out in seventeen major cities and the National Guard has to be called out. LA burns (again) as does Philadelphia. There's a national curfew and trouble makers are hauled off to camps. 60 Minutes runs a story on these concentration camps, which nobody ever admitted were in existence, but they experience technical difficulties and the broadcast is cut off in the middle of the story. FEMA becomes a four letter word.
Suddenly, the three weeks of food in your larder looks frighteningly small. You wish you had more room on your credit card, but then, smart merchants are only accepting cash or gold. You can't wait for the few tomato plants and cucumbers you have growing in the back yard to bear, but you know it won't be enough. Winter is coming, and the papers say the utilities can't guarantee there will be enough gas or electric to heat peoples' homes. You start thinking how you can rip the gas log out of the fireplace so you can burn wood, but without food, warmth seems to be a secondary issue
Maybe it's time to look to nature to help feed you. That's great if you are a farmer or have an acre or two of tillable land. With the proper seed stock, a lot of hard work, and only hand tools, you can grow enough food to feed your family, but it is practically a full time job.
But if you don't have the land, or if it's too late to plant crops this season, that means a return to hunting, trapping and gathering. If you can identify wild plants that can supplement your existing diet, good for you. If not, better go out and buy a few guide books right away. Get ones with pictures, you'll need them. Just hope everyone else doesn't have the same idea, or the cat tails and wild asparagus will be stripped clean in seconds.
Captain Dave has eaten all sorts of wild plants, from salad greens he probably would have tromped over on any other day to wild mushrooms to the heads of milkweeds (properly prepared, of course). It is not his first choice, but it is better than tightening the belt.
Captain Dave supports hunting as a great American past time, a great form of recreation, an important tool in game management, and a terrific source to supplement your traditional menu during these good times. But will it be enough to put food on the table during a survival situation? Don't count on it.
If you're a hunter, you know how crowded it usually is on opening day. Could you imagine what the local patch of forest would be like if everyone's dinner depended on hunting? How quickly would we strip this continent of all edible game?
Planning on fishing? So are all your neighbors. And some of them are likely to do it in a way that wipes out all the fish, such as by using dynamite. So if you are in a populated area, don't count on hunting and fishing to be the best way to provide food for your family. You need to be in a sparsely populated area with a high concentration of game to survive on hunting alone.
There are some areas of the country where the ratio of people to wildlife will still support sustenance hunting. But for most of us, that's not the case. You may be able to supplement your food supply with some game, but don't count on it.
A better choice is trapping the small creatures that most hunters will avoid, including rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, raccoons, muskrats and other "varmints" that are usually below what we consider to be game animals. If you live in the city, you may be limited to pigeons, squirrels and rats, but when you are hungry enough, these will be a welcome addition to your table or the perpetual stew pot.
What does Captain Dave recommend you do if the above scenario comes to play?
At the first hint of trouble and rising prices, visit the local food warehouse and grocery stores and buy as much as you can afford. Get the 50 pound bags of rice and the 25 pound bags of flour. Buy up canned foods and dried foods. Use your credit cards and part of your emergency cash stash, if necessary. See Captain Dave's list of last minute items to buy in an emergency.
Hunker down at home and protect what is yours.
Keep a low profile and avoid contact with others, except fellow members of your survival group. Avoid trouble and confrontations. Don't brag; help out others where you can to prevent resentment.
Hope that within six months the country will have recovered or at least stabilized. If not, the population will probably be a lot smaller when winter is over.
Food Storage and Preservation Links
Food Storage FAQ
This tome is a complete guide to storing food for survival needs. It is much more in depth than the above information. Available in both html for on-screen viewing or as a downloadable file.
Rec.Food.Preserving and Rec.Food.Preserving FAQ
The place to ask questions and learn more about home-preserved foods. According to their charter: Rec.food.preserving is a newsgroup devoted to the discussion of recipes, equipment, and techniques of food preservation. Current food preservation techniques that rightly should be discussed in this forum include canning, freezing, dehydration, pickling, smoking, salting, distilling, and potting. Foodstuffs are defined as produce (both fruits and vegetables), meat, fish, dairy products, culinary and medicinal herbs. Discussions should be limited to home-grown or home-preserved foods.
