Cold Times — How to Prepare for the Mini Ice Age

by Dr. Anita Bailey

  4 food: immediate basics

  This basic food chapter follows the one for Place, since food is going to be as vital as where you are located. Chapter 5 deals with water acquisition, which is critical, and Chapter 6 continues the food discussion with the importance of growing your own. Place, to my thinking, is of primary importance because without a stable location, you cannot provision food, store food, or grow food – you’re at the mercy of whomever hands out the bread.

  History is chock-full of weather-related famines. One of the first things that happens is the migration of the starving off their land, which further pressures any place that food is still growing. During the great Finnish famines in the 1600s and 1800s, poor hungry peasants took to the highways looking for anything to eat. They were already making “bread” from tree bark.

  Livestock disappeared, as did cats and dogs, and then children. In some areas, fully one-third of the population died. Think of that this way: count out each person you know, “1…2….3, 1…2…3,” – then imagine every third person dies from starvation. That is what happened in Cold Times in Finland, twice, within the past 450 years. The same took place all over the planet at one time or another. The fact that these famines were related to Little Ice Age effects of poor harvests and intensely cold and snowy winters should not be forgotten.

  The physical security of a warm, stable residence is improved by a generous food supply, carefully preserved and stored so that it, too, is protected from predation. Protecting your food supply, your actual physical lifeline, will be discussed in later chapters. This chapter will deal with the food basics that you need now, and general food storage. The next food chapter covers the principles of food growing – but obviously, this must be a general overview. The topic is too large and complex to cover in detail in a single chapter in a single book. You must acquire more information from other paper sources, and do it now. If you can only afford one food preservation book, this is it:

  Putting Food By, by Hertzberg and Greene, Plume Publishing – any of the editions are excellent. Used, less than $10 plus shipping from Amazon and other online sources.

  Rules of Food Storage

  Do not tell anyone outside your inner circle that you have supplies. Anyone.

  If a child is unable to keep this “only in the family”, they must not know you have storage.

  Store what you eat, and eat what you store. That will mean you get to eat what you like, and it will keep your food supplies from getting stale.

  Be able to make comfort/fun foods.

  Eat something fresh every day – sprouts are an ideal easy- to-raise nutrition powerhouse. Seeds will keep about 2 years, so keep buying and using them as long as they are available. Plant the older leftovers and save seeds from the growing plants for sprouting.

  Take a multivitamin daily, as long as you have them.

  Now: Long Term Food Insurance

  In this early awakening stage, and carrying through into the middle Zen-slap stage, long term storage goods are your ticket to food comfort and security. These are the things you buy in bulk and in the large gallon-sized #10 cans. These are simple foods that are cooked from scratch and will provide sufficient nutrition to live on.

  The point of this storage is to give you food options when things are coming apart at the seams in society. Having this on-hand means no last-minute trips to the market when there’s a blizzard coming in, no concerns if the power goes out, and plenty to eat when the roads are too icy to drive on. These are excellent tools now because you can still buy them at this time, and they will keep indefinitely without much attention. Any of these goods that survive the awakening stage, can be used years later whenever extras are needed.

  Ideally, your minimum supply is one year for each person in your group. The rationale for this is that if things go bad rapidly, you will have enough to get you through to your first harvest next year. It would be better to have TWO YEAR’s supply because you might not get a full harvest that first year or may lose some during storage.

  At the time of this writing, you can easily store a year’s supply of these basics for one person underneath a queen-sized bed. If you purchase these supplies in #10 cans (see resources), you can store cases of 6 cans in closets or in any space that doesn’t freeze or get over 80F degrees or so in the summer, such as an attached garage. Prices for goods in #10 cans are higher than bulk, but it is already packed and stable, so you simply stack it up.

  If you buy product in 50-pound bulk bags and pack it yourself, you can put in this storage for about $600 today. Both Costco and Sam’s Club carry bulk-size bags of quite a few of these items. You can spread the expense over several months, but do not delay. The awakening is upon us. This menu collection is NOT nutritionally complete, gets boring over time, requires cooking skill, and includes no fresh foods (sprouting seeds can fit that bill), but you won’t go hungry eating this way, either. Here’s your shopping list:

  Per Person, One Year Supply

  50#

  Powdered Milk

  $150

  25#

  Popcorn

  $30

  350#

  250# Wheat Berries and 100# White Flour

  $250

  125#

  Dried Beans – Pintos are probably cheapest

  $100

  150#

  White Rice

  $100

  10#

  Sea Salt

  $10

  25#

  Sugar (brown, white, molasses, honey, etc)

  $25

  2 gallon

  Olive oil or coconut oil

  $45

  2#

  Sprouting seeds, mixed

  $8

  You’ll also need a Corona Grain Mill, manually operated, AND a manual can opener, get 2 of each because you will wear one out; spices like chili powder, chicken and beef flavored bouillon powder, dried onions and garlic, pepper, vanilla, and cinnamon. Include active dry yeast and baking powder or baking soda. Don’t forget the multivitamin and mineral supplement daily.

  Why this combination of ingredients?

  The list here is loosely modeled after the “original” preppers, the Latter Day Saints (LDS), often called Mormons. Way back in the 1960s or earlier, Mormon writers set up a basic food program based on these items; wheat and milk were primary to their plan. They even had a method to extract the gluten from the wheat berries to make something akin to “meatless patties” that were said to be quite tasty.

  Since then, many non-Mormon prepper writers focus on these essentials – beans and rice now topping the list. These actually are excellent, filling, nutritious foods that can be prepared in dozens of ways into satisfying meals. In modern Russia, preppers stock up on buckwheat, their primary grain basic.

  Wheat berries typically last longer than wheat flour, and white flour keeps longer than whole wheat flour, which can go rancid due to the naturally occurring oils that remain until it is processed to white flour. Use the flour first, then move on to the berries, or mix the ground wheat berries with flour for a lighter whole wheat bread. Many preppers prefer “hard red wheat” because it has a stronger wheaty flavor, and higher protein and gluten content, and makes a better-risen bread than “soft white wheat”, which is milder flavored and better for pastries. They’re both good and most people can’t tell the difference.

  You can grind wheat to make bread. You’ll have to pass it through your Corona Mill 2 or 3 times to make it fine and powdery enough for bread. You can also boil the wheat berries like rice, and eat as a porridge similar to steel-cut oatmeal. Fresher wheat berries can also be sprouted and eaten as very nutritious “wheat grass.”

  There are hundreds of varieties of beans. My current favorite is mayocoba, a creamy white-colored dried bean that is related to the familiar Pinto bean. Jacobs Cattle is an heirloom white and brown splotched bean that is very mild flavored and cooks quickly. Vermont Cranberry is a tan and purplish-marked bean that bakes well. Each bean type has positives,
depending on taste and your needs. If any of your stored dry beans are relatively fresh, they can also be planted to eat later when they produce green beans, or grown out to harvest, dry, and save for next year’s seed.

  Pintos are about the least expensive, pound for pound; lentils can be substituted and take much less time to cook, about 30 minutes total. Soak beans overnight before cooking, then bring to a boil in fresh water and simmer several hours until soft. Add dried onions and chicken broth and you have bean soup; and then leftovers can be mashed and reheated with lard or oil, and converted into “refried” beans, the familiar south-of-the-border dish. Beans can also be finely ground and used in your wheat bread to increase protein and make it heartier and denser. Fresher beans can be sprouted and the sprouts fried.

  Old dried beans, five years old and older, can become so hard that they just won’t plump and soften in cooking. These are the best to finely grind and use as a boiled porridge, or include in bread recipes.

  The rice can be prepared as a typical boiled rice dish, or added to soups, or ground and added to breads. Using some milk, vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon, left-over rice can be boiled or baked into a very nutritious and flavorful rice pudding. Rice is filling, familiar, and easy to digest.

  Popcorn is surprisingly versatile. It is popcorn, of course, and with a little of that stored oil in a heavy kettle, will pop up light, crunchy, tasty, and nutritious. Ground finely, mixed with a little flour, milk, and baking soda, it makes the very best corn bread and hush-puppies, and can be mixed with dried onions and fried as corn-cakes. Ground to medium fineness, it makes excellent boiled grits.

  The powdered milk makes drinkable milk, can be added to all breads, soups, porridges, and rice pudding to increase the protein and calcium contents.

  Salt is critical to good health, and should be non-iodized sea salt or the pink Himalayan salt or even the grey Celtic Sea salt. The iodized variety loses its iodine content as soon as it is opened and out-gasses. If you want iodine in your daily diet, it would be better to add Lugol’s Solution 3% to your supplies, and paint 10 drops daily on your skin, than to store iodized salt. Sea Salt and Himalayan and other ‘trace mineral salts’ add both vital trace nutrients and flavor to foods. After you’ve used these alternative salts for a while, you will notice that standard white table salt really is tasteless and rather unpleasant.

  The sugar/honey or other sweetener gives you a boost of energy, delicious “comfort” tastes, and a break from routine.

  Other spices and herbs should be stored “to taste”, so whatever items you enjoy can be on that list. You actually can raise bread with a homemade “starter” (see recipes), but it’s quicker and easier to make bread if you have dry yeast or baking soda/powder.

  Oils are utterly critical to your diet and your wellbeing in very cold weather. Two gallons of oil per person per year is quite a bit less than you could use in severe climates, not only for cooking but for skin care as well. Olive oil has additional nutrients, and coconut oil is one of the medium-chain fatty acids that increases your metabolism and helps with generating warmth. The more oil you have, the better off you will be. Add it to everything you eat.

  What about food allergies?

  Why so much carbs and so little protein?

  This is a basic survival diet, not much variety, not well-rounded nutritionally, but a whole lot better than nothing. This is designed to protect you at low cost from death by starvation. If you have severe life-threatening food allergies to anything on this list, find an alternative you can live with and store that instead.

  In my opinion, the best diet for most people is something akin to the “primal” or “paleo” approach – fats, meat, lots of vegetables, small amount of berries, few grains or beans. This is not that diet. This list is basically the complete reverse of the paleo diet, heavy on the carbs from grains and beans, and light on the fats and animal proteins, with few veggies and no fruit. These additional items will be discussed in the next food chapter.

  If you are ever in a situation where the stored foods on this list are all you have to eat, it won’t make one iota of difference what you “think” is the best human diet – because when you’re that hungry, it is ALL GOOD.

  What if I’m not a good cook? Or don’t cook?

  Learn. It’s not rocket science. Doesn’t matter whether you are male or female, young or old, rich or poor – why be handicapped by lack of skills? There are thousands of books, websites, YouTubes, and probably friends and relatives that would be delighted to help you get started. You can still eat your mistakes.

  The entire purpose for storing these bare-necessities long-keeping supplies is to give you an easier transition to producing your own food. Any additional things you bring in during the transition adds to the diversity, nutrition, flavor, and enjoyment.

  How to Pack Your Bulk Goods

  You can acquire the basics a pound at a time, buy in bulk online or at big box stores, or even go down to the nearest livestock feed store and purchase whole grains there. The feed store route will be the cheapest because the grains are not ‘human grade.’ The grain might have come from poor fields and was undersized, was misshapen, has weed seeds mixed in very small amounts, or otherwise does not meet the published standard for human food. That doesn’t mean it is inedible or dangerous; it’s okay to feed to the animals who become our food, after all.

  We’re talking about whole single grains, here – wheat, barley, oats, etc. – NOT about mixes that have any other ingredients. The grain MUST NOT BE PINK. The pink color indicates it is for planting and that it has been chemically treated to resist soil pathogens. It can sicken or kill animals or humans who eat it, so don’t.

  There are four things you want to avoid in storage of grains: insects, moisture, air, and rodents.

  Avoiding Insects

  There is no natural grain that is free of insects or insect eggs; that’s the reality. For long term storage, if you buy it already sealed in #10 cans, it has either been nitrogen-treated, or sealed without air in the can. Both methods kill bugs and their eggs. If you buy your grains in a bag from any source, it’s probably been previously fumigated either with chemicals or with some natural product to reduce active insect infestation. After it has set around on store shelves or in feed stores, insects will creep back in. They’re pretty resilient.

  One very simple method to reduce insects is to freeze your grain, and keep it hard frozen for at least 4 days; two weeks would be better. After freezing, let it sit at room temperature overnight before the final sealing. That will help reduce the moisture level caused by condensation, too.

  Another method is to add about a half cup (a handful) of powdered food-grade diatomaceous earth to each 25 pounds of grain, and mix in well. Diatomaceous earth (DE) is a white powder, made from the finely ground shells of tiny marine creatures. It is actually mined from large deposits laid down in ancient seas thousands of years ago.

  DE is effective against insects because the minute particles are razor sharp, harmless to humans, but they slice insects and their eggs and cause them to dry out and die. Because it is a mechanical insecticide, the insects cannot develop resistance. Health food stores, feed stores, and online sites offer DE for sale. Only use food-grade DE, not the kind for pool filters. It doesn’t go bad.

  A side benefit of DE in stored grain is that it adds digestible calcium to the ground grain. It’s not necessary to remove it from grains before grinding, but you can remove some of it by “winnowing” the grain outdoors in a breeze (that is, dumping the grain from one container into another so the wind passes through it).

  DE can be irritating if it gets in your eyes. Rinse with clean water and don’t rub. Inhaling clouds of DE can be irritating to nasal passages. If you’re going to be using a lot, wear a protective mask, such as the N-95 used by health care providers or the dust mask you can get at hardware stores.

  By the way, insects found in your desperately needed grains will not harm you. It may be disgusting and re
pulsive to think about it, but you can grind and cook the insects along with your grain but NOT cockroaches or flies, which can carry diseases that affect humans. Grain-eating moths and tiny “thrip” type bugs are edible. You may be able to winnow or pick out insects and their eggs, if you want to go that route.

  Avoiding Moisture

  Moist grains either sprout, which is edible if done on purpose; or develop a fungus or mold which makes them toxic and inedible for man and beast. When you pack grains, they should be at room temperature and completely dry. Take a handful of grain and squeeze it – dry grains will fall loosely from your open hand; damp grains clump and stick together. If you dust the grain with DE, it may help reduce any residual dampness, as well. You may wish to either place your grains in a very low temperature oven for a few minutes to assure dryness, or even just blow a fan over them for a bit. Don’t pack damp grain. It will mold or mildew and become potentially toxic and inedible.

  Store packed grains where they won’t be subject to freezes and thaws, because that degrades the quality of the product and shortens its shelf life. Use an “oxygen absorber” (more shortly) inside each pack, too.