Independence Days
As well as Earth Overshoot Day, preparedness has been in the UK news recently. Apparently it's National Preparedness Month and national advice includes preparing a 72 hour grab bag. Local news agencies have loved this and are immediately on the case with talks of bug out bags and the zombie apocalypse, declaring that heading to the Winchester and waiting for it to blow over is not an option.
I must confess to being fascinated by preppers. There's something about the self-containment that appeals (back to Enid Blyton and The Secret Island) but I've never had any desire to stockpile a years worth of tinned food , breed tilapia or store hundreds of packets of dried military rations (MRE's). I don't want to eat any of that stuff, and what do you do in 25 years time when it's expired? Chuck it away and start again?
Keeping a well stocked larder does make sense though. There are times when you may need to shelter in place or simply not be able to leave home to get supplies. I live in a country with the least threatening weather possible and yet we still occasionally get snowed in or the main road out of the village floods. We're also prone to power cuts and burst water pipes, all making life a bit more uncomfortable that we're used to, and yet most of my neighbours don't even keep a loaf of bread in the freezer, let alone the means to make more. Everybody should have enough food to feed their family and pets for at least three days and ways to prepare and cook it. Kev at An English Homestead did a really good series on being prepared on a budget. Any food you store should be food your family will happily eat and be part of your regular diet. This way you don't make a potentially stressful situation worse by expecting the family to eat unfamiliar foods and you can rotate your stores, topping up regularly, meaning you don't suddenly end up with a pantry full of out of date Spam and sardines because you're eating these foods anyway. Do remember you'll want to heat foods at a minimum and so you should have an alternate method of cooking to your ordinary kitchen stove- wood burner, camping stove, rocket stove, trangia or similar.
Sharon Astyk has written extensively on resilience, being prepared and the future of the food production and supply systems. Independence Days covers food storage and preservation, but sustainably. Buy pantry staples, adding an extra packet or two a week, as you can afford it, whilst building a resilient system of your own. Few people can (or should) aim for complete self sufficiency. Instead, grow what you can and build up community systems to buy or barter what you can't. Protein is difficult to produce in large enough quantities- we don't all want to breed fish in a swimming pool- and is ideal to buy locally; find local farmers and develop relationships with the producers.
Sharon created the Independence Days challenge- aim to do these things every week to build a resilient food system rather than a doomers basement full of dehydrated meals. I find I struggle to maintain planting, for example, over the year. I have a mad flurry of planting in spring and then it falls apart. I need to improve my succession planting and following this challenge should help:
PLANT SOMETHING: In my climate I should be able to plant or sow something from February to September.
HARVEST SOMETHING: Anything, any quantity. Fruit, vegetables, foraging, eggs...
PRESERVE SOMETHING: Again, everything and any quantity. Dried herbs, catering quantities of jam and chutney, leaves for tea, herbs and weeds for the chickens, freezing their eggs, it all counts.
WASTE NOT: Reduce food waste, composting, reducing landfill waste, reusing and upcycling.
WANT NOT: 'Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.'
EAT THE FOOD: Eat out of your storage, make good use of what you have. Try new recipes and cooking ideas.
BUILD COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEMS: Can you improve other people's food access or make your local food system more resilient?
SKILL UP: 'What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes. Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.'
I'll be trying this challenge if anybody wants to join me.
I must confess to being fascinated by preppers. There's something about the self-containment that appeals (back to Enid Blyton and The Secret Island) but I've never had any desire to stockpile a years worth of tinned food , breed tilapia or store hundreds of packets of dried military rations (MRE's). I don't want to eat any of that stuff, and what do you do in 25 years time when it's expired? Chuck it away and start again?
Keeping a well stocked larder does make sense though. There are times when you may need to shelter in place or simply not be able to leave home to get supplies. I live in a country with the least threatening weather possible and yet we still occasionally get snowed in or the main road out of the village floods. We're also prone to power cuts and burst water pipes, all making life a bit more uncomfortable that we're used to, and yet most of my neighbours don't even keep a loaf of bread in the freezer, let alone the means to make more. Everybody should have enough food to feed their family and pets for at least three days and ways to prepare and cook it. Kev at An English Homestead did a really good series on being prepared on a budget. Any food you store should be food your family will happily eat and be part of your regular diet. This way you don't make a potentially stressful situation worse by expecting the family to eat unfamiliar foods and you can rotate your stores, topping up regularly, meaning you don't suddenly end up with a pantry full of out of date Spam and sardines because you're eating these foods anyway. Do remember you'll want to heat foods at a minimum and so you should have an alternate method of cooking to your ordinary kitchen stove- wood burner, camping stove, rocket stove, trangia or similar.
Sharon Astyk has written extensively on resilience, being prepared and the future of the food production and supply systems. Independence Days covers food storage and preservation, but sustainably. Buy pantry staples, adding an extra packet or two a week, as you can afford it, whilst building a resilient system of your own. Few people can (or should) aim for complete self sufficiency. Instead, grow what you can and build up community systems to buy or barter what you can't. Protein is difficult to produce in large enough quantities- we don't all want to breed fish in a swimming pool- and is ideal to buy locally; find local farmers and develop relationships with the producers.
Sharon created the Independence Days challenge- aim to do these things every week to build a resilient food system rather than a doomers basement full of dehydrated meals. I find I struggle to maintain planting, for example, over the year. I have a mad flurry of planting in spring and then it falls apart. I need to improve my succession planting and following this challenge should help:
PLANT SOMETHING: In my climate I should be able to plant or sow something from February to September.
HARVEST SOMETHING: Anything, any quantity. Fruit, vegetables, foraging, eggs...
PRESERVE SOMETHING: Again, everything and any quantity. Dried herbs, catering quantities of jam and chutney, leaves for tea, herbs and weeds for the chickens, freezing their eggs, it all counts.
WASTE NOT: Reduce food waste, composting, reducing landfill waste, reusing and upcycling.
WANT NOT: 'Adding to your food storage or stash of goods for emergencies, building up resources that will be useful in the long term.'
EAT THE FOOD: Eat out of your storage, make good use of what you have. Try new recipes and cooking ideas.
BUILD COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEMS: Can you improve other people's food access or make your local food system more resilient?
SKILL UP: 'What did you learn this week that will help you in the future – could be as simple as fixing the faucet or as hard as building a shed, as simple as a new way of keeping records or as complicated as making shoes. Whatever you are learning, you get a merit badge for it – this is important stuff.'
I'll be trying this challenge if anybody wants to join me.
ReplyDeleteOoh, that is such fun. Maybe it's the squirrel impulse in you as you go into autumn! I am completely unorganised, always, on the preparedness front, but I always have several kilograms of lentils and chickpeas stashed somewhere, so vegie lentil soup will be sustaining us come the apocalypse. Also, I find that preserving pretty much does this for me - I mostly have a year of jam, salsa, passata and stewed apples on hand, although it would be handy if the apocalypse didn't happen in late spring when all this is running out and the new harvest not quite ready to be preserved..
Yes, I'm a bit all or nothing with this as well as planting. I got everything sorted and then either I forget to keep topping up as we eat it or I feel I ought to be saving things for an 'emergency' which may never come. I just need to be managing it properly.
ReplyDeleteI have been interested in it for years and do keep a basic pantry of staples anyway, but I think the trigger at the moment is the talk of a hard Brexit. There seems to be very real concern that there may be problems, at least temporarily, with supply and demand if we leave Europe with no agreement in place. I'm not planning to keep us fed on dried lentils and milk powder for a year but I do think making sure I've got my act together in case there are supply issues in the following couple of months won't hurt. But we will also be eating lots of lentil soup...