FOOD

I have a butter dish,has been on my kitchen counter for years. Comes with a lid,dish for the stick of butter, and the bottom holds water. The idea behind it is, the water from below evaporates keeping the butter fresh.You could use this idea for your tins of butter once opened. Just check the water level every few days. More so in the summer.

Thanks Libby:

I just placed an order from the internet grocer.  Nice, got lots of stuff for a great price.

Does anyone have any knowledge where to buy powered mailk and powered eggs that have a good shelf life?

Thank you Spoon.

I found great stuff, including eggs and milk at www.survivalacres.com , at www.internetgrocer.com .  Two great places, one has what the other one does not.  SurvivalAcres is a great guy.  He walked me through all my items and suggested items that were better and some for less money.  He knows his stuff.

Might I suggest the MRE's.  Ready to go meals, very portable, ready to eat and easy to heat if you want too.  One MRE a day has enough calories for one whole day.  Imagine that.  I'll be back to buy more soon. I just have to find a spot for the 300+ pounds of food I purchased yesterday.  It was a great experience.

Thanks again.

I have also found a list of foods to buy to stock up on.  The website is www.planforflu.com

here is the list that is on there but I would encourage you to check out the site...

Emergency Pantry: The List

Baking mixes (Pie crust mix plus canned pie filling =cobbler)
Baking powder
Baking soda
Barley
Bay leaves (delicious in beans, and insects avoid foods like flour with a bay leaf stored inside the bag)
Beans-dry
Bottled drinks and juices (not refrigerated type)
Brown Sugar
Bullion, concentrated broth
Butter flavoring, like Molly McButter. Freeze for storage if you can.
Candy
Canned beans
Canned broth
Canned chicken breast
Canned chili
Canned diced tomatoes, other tomato products, and sauces
Canned French fried onions for green bean casserole
Canned fruit
Canned milk, evaporated milk
Canned pie filling (don't overlook, great item)
Canned pumpkin
Canned Salmon
Canned soups
Canned stew
Canned sweet potatoes
Canned Tuna
Canned veggies
Cans of lemonade mix, other canned dry drink mixes
Cheese dips in jars
Cheese soups, like cheddar, broccoli cheese, and jack cheese
Chinese food ingredients
Chocolate bars
Chocolate chips
Chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup squeeze bottles (about that dry milk, again)
Coffee filters (also for straining silt out of water)
Corn Masa de Harina or corn tortilla mix
Corn meal
Corn starch for thickening
Cream of Wheat
Cream soups (good for flavoring rice & pasta, too)
Crisco
Dried eggs
Dried fruit
Dried onion (big containers at warehouse stores)
Dried soups
Dry cocoa
Dry coffee creamer (big sealed cans, many uses including making dry milk taste better)
Dry milk powder
Dry Mustard
Flour, self rising flour Flour tortilla mix for flour tortillas, wraps, and flatbread
Garlic powder
Granola bars (not great shelf life)
Hard candy
Honey (also reputed to reduce viral load in throat and esophagus)
Hot chocolate mix
Instant coffee if you drink it, or coffee and a manual drip cone or similar
Instant mashed potatoes
Jarred or canned spaghetti sauce
Jarred peppers
Jellies and Jams
Jerky
Ketchup
Kool Aid
Lard, Manteca (good in beans, substitute for bacon or salt pork, tortilla making, many other uses)
Large packages dry pasta, thinner type saves fuel
Marshmallow cream
Marshmallows
Mayo packets from warehouse store, if you must, not really a good value.
Mexican food ingredients
Mustard
Nestle Table Cream (substitute for sour cream, cream, or half-and-half) in lots of ethnic stores, including British)
Nuts (freeze if you have room)
Oatmeal
Oil (Shelf life not great, freeze if you have room)
Olive oil
Olives, green and black
Onion powder
Packaged bread crumbs
Pancake mix, one step, and other mixes that already have the eggs in them
Parmesan
Peanut butter, nut butters
Pepper
Pet food
Pickles, relish (not refrigerator case type)
Powdered sugar
Power bars
Raisins
Ramen
Ravioli or any canned pasta you can stand
Real butter or favorite margarine-keep frozen until disaster if you can. Butter keeps a long time in cool temps)
Rice (cheap and filling)
Salsa and hot sauces (Franks Hot Sauce!)
Salt
Spam or Treet :( !
Spices and herbs your family likes
Stovetop Dressing mix
Sugar
Summer sausage ( cheaper around holidays)
Sweetened condensed milk
Syrups
Tea
Trail mix
Ultra pasteurized milk (expensive)
Vanilla (improves dry milk, too)
Velveeta (watch carton date, freeze for storage if possible)
Vienna sausage
Yeast, if you think you would use it. May be frozen.
Baby food
Pet food

Hope this comes in handy!

RotroShaggy wrote:  What is the shelf-life of canned goods?  The reason I ask is because I went shopping today for supplies and the canned goods like canned vegetables, fruit, ravioli, etc.  Said BEST BY OCT. 07 or BEST BY DECEMBER 08.  I was thinking canned goods lasted indefinitely.  I want to be certain before I fill my garage up with cans. Here is my experience. Maybe others know better. I prepared for y2k. My cans of fruit sort of imploded after awhile (more than 2 years). I just got the last of the gummy mess off my basement shelves. I've fared better with canned veggies, beans, etc. I'm still using some of them. Canned tuna should be fine too. Be careful with canned tomatoes. If there's a bulge in the can or a "pop" when you open the can don't use them. What about pasta?  What is the shelf life of spaghetti?  You can buy a box of it for $0.50 at WalMart.  I want to buy a boatload of it but, again, don't want to have to throw it out or find out that it is stale when it is too late to go back out and stock up again.  Any thoughts?

RE pasta -- again, I have some leftover from y2k days and it is fine. Just store it carefully....

Hi I'm from sunny fla 18 years worth.

Store the syuff inside the house. When the power dies it gets hot so I vent the room. We have tile floors and my next option would be put stuff on the floor. As for humidity. I have no clue.  In old old fl, people used the rafters area of the cabin because of the air flow.. These are just practical guesses...I could use the info too.

I agree valgard1. I am buying mostly canned goods due to my daughters food allergy to wheat. It is more expensive then the survival food that you can buy in bulk. I figure my family will be willing to eat canned food over freeze dried food. It is taking up a lot of space but it will get eaten at some point. The food that will expire first is the dehydrated stuff. I've got everything organized by expiration date anyway.