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GUEST ARTICLE

Guest Article

30 days and 30 nights: A food storage marathon.

After spending the last few years accumulating storage food items here and there. I have found that I have not been willing or able to rotate them in to my usual diet. I have tossed a few items including one almost full #10 can of whole egg powder and numerous boxes of powdered milk. A few other misc items ended up in the round file as well. So I decided to enter in to a grand experiment for the month of December, 2010. I will be limiting my diet for the entire month to food that I have on hand as of November 31. I will not step foot in a grocery store or restaurant during the entire month of December.

I have two main goals to achieve. First off I need to use up some of my older canned and boxed goods and misc storage foods. Secondly and more importantly I would like to see if I could enjoy a nice varied diet while living at my cabin and only going into town once a month.

If all hell breaks loose one day, I will be forced to eat a rice, wheat and beans diet. But for now I would just like to see how I get by with out my double cheeseburgers, take out pizzas, fried chicken, steak, store bought bread, store bought lunch meat, fresh produce, ice cream, fresh milk etc........

My experimental diet will by no means be sparse or lacking in calories. Nor will it be considered healthy but it will be a change from my normal diet.

I will be limiting myself to foods that do not need refrigeration prior to preparation with a few exceptions. I will include in my diet a 2 pound block of cheddar cheese, two dozen eggs and 2 pounds of butter. I plan on storing these foods in the garage to see how long they last with out refrigeration. This time of year in the Pacific NW, the garage stays pretty cool. Unrefrigerated storage of these items obviously wouldn't work well in the summer months but I might get away with it now. A couple of other exceptions are mayo and mustard. I normally store both of these in the fridge after opening the containers but I will leave them in the garage to see how they do. I don't have much doubt the mustard will be fine, but I am somewhat wary of leaving the mayo out. I think I will buy two pint size jars of mayo as backup in case my quart size jar goes funky on me. The mayo is mostly for mixing up tuna and canned meats to make sandwich filling.

For cooking I will be using methods that could be used in a power outage situation and at my off grid cabin, with one big exception. I will be using the range top to save money on propane. Any cooking I do on the range top could be easily done on the propane camp stove but at a greater expense. I will not use the electric oven in the house. I have a very small propane oven that I can use for any baking that I can't do on the wood stove. I will be using the tap for water which will be considered cheating by many of you but if there is ever a Part Two experiment I may decide to use water storage only. In addition I am not giving up my beer. I am a one or two a day drinker and I'll appreciate it more than ever during this diet change. I will store the beer in the garage as well (no fridge)

One other Note: Since Baby Jesus was born in December I will be subject to a few holiday meals outside the home. One at work (pizza) and one at my Dad's place (probably prime rib roast) and one with my mom. Also my boys will be spending extra weekends and days with me during the month of December because of the holidays and school breaks. They will be assisting me in eating the food I have on hand. So no happy meals while they are with me this month.

Here is a rough/partial list of the foods I will have to work with.

Rice bagged and box mixes

Beans canned and dry

Hard red wheat whole berries plus 7 grain cereal mix

Flour all purpose

Canned meats, beef, chicken turkey, ham, spam, corned beef, deviled ham plus tuna and a can or two of salmon.

Box Cereal

Canned fruit lots

Canned veggies lots

Summer sausage 1 roll

Bacon fully cooked shelf stable until you open it.

Pancake mix

Biscuit mix

Dates and a couple of other dehydrated fruits.

Pasta coming out of my ears

Spaghetti sauce and Alfredo sauce

Condiments and spices plenty

Canned and dry soup mix

Canned chili

Masa flour and cornmeal

lentils, barley

Ramen noodles

potatoes fresh and instant.

dried field corn bulk

brownie mix in box

powdered milk in box

evaporated milk canned

lard

Crisco butter flavored

oils canola and olive

tortillas flour and corn

canned tamales

sugar

baking soda, baking powder, yeast

small amount of candy

and more....

As I mentioned earlier I will be picking up some cheese, eggs and butter at the very end of the month. The Haitians will be jealous.

Cheers and keep and eye out for December updates.

Eric of the Great NW