For us it would be rice. We can catch fish and pick oranges, mangos and coconuts.

 

Yes rice because you can mix fish you catch or wild greens. Beans would also be good.

 

potato

No native pests, grows in massive bulk per square inch, high in starch, used as a staple world wide, normally blight resistant. (have more then one variety and you wont face the Irish Potato famine.

Also it is easy to store, and can last years in a cool, dark, dry root cellar.

IMHO I call the potato the North American Survivalist food of choice.

 

canned chili

 

Ultimately, protein and carbohydrates/ starches. Everything those books tell you, you can learn right here...for FREE. I bought into the Y2K crap years ago. I bought books from "experts" , read every article, subscribed to Y2k magazines, ect., ect., Ad Infinitum. After all was said and done ,I sat there looking at all the wasted money I spent for naught, and realized these people didn't believe a flippin' word of what they wrote. It was all about making $$$ off gullible people. Fear sells books just as much as sex, tragedy, and bad news sells newspapers. Nothing will come of this 2012 B.S. . Make "prepping" a lifestyle, and you will not have to worry about some MANUFACTURED impending doomsday. Coincidentally, you will be better off if something REAL actually happens, like a tornado, hurricane, blizzard, job loss, financial crisis. As for food, stock what you use, and use what you stock. When you shop , buy 3 of every can, to get started. One to use, one for your pantry, and one for your reserves. As you use one, buy two to replace it. Rotate stock. Rice is a good , stable , easily stored food that is very cost effective right now. Dried beans are as well, and have protein. Canned meats , such as tuna, chicken, and Spam are good to get you started. Set aside staples, salt, pepper corns ( and a grinder), sugar, instant coffee/ tea, sugar. Then get some comfort foods. Don't buy into the hype...literally. BTW, Recently for fun I did a google search for some of the authors of these old Y2K books...nothing. Y2K was a great business move for them. TP

 

Thanks. That's kind of what I figured. I have learned so much here and from the 2 books that I own and other blogs online. I am at a point where I don't think that those books can tell me what I don't already know generally speaking. Of course I always need to learn specific skills, but that's not what these people are touting. They are very good at catering to our fears.

 

Wheat Flour.

 

wheat grain and and a grinder will last longer.

 

For us having a large stock of freeze dried and dried fruits is important. Rice would be my second choice since we do not grow it.

We have plenty of long term meat,fish and potatoes,veggies & beans we grow here but not enough producing fruit trees. At least our wild blackberry crop is always doing well.

Red

 

WATER is always number 1. Without it nothing else matters!

 

The bigger issue with water would be having a method for purification. You can stockpile for short term disasters (1 gallon per day/person) but for larger scale you need a means of purification. We use 5 gallon water bottles for our cooler. I try to keep a minimum of 10 on hand and rotate continuously.

 

tators and rice.

 

salt,suger......

 

you can live off salt and sugar? Wish I could.

 

Nobody wants to say the obvious?? BEER, of course.

 

I can brew beer, I can ferment and make wine, Make moonshine sometimes just for fun..........But I can't make tequilla

But I don't go to a store and buy groceries without buying a bag of rice, beans, or pasta.

 

I go with beans and rice. In equal amounts because I haven't learned of the actual preferred ratio. After those, my preferred items to augment beans and rice are probably tomatoes and onions.

Beans, rice, tomatoes, and onions, when mixed into a meal, can sustain us and remain palatable for a long time.

 

I go with beans and rice. In equal amounts because I haven't learned of the actual preferred ratio.

The ratio most often quoted for maximum utilization of amino acids is about 3 to 1 in favor of grain. You'll often see quotes of 270-300 lbs grain to 70-100 lbs beans.

Something tasty that you don't mind eating... for a LONG time... over and over and over again....

Anything can be made tasty if you learn to cook with it. Rice for example. Who wants to eat plain white rice all the time? So don't so it! There are cultures all around the world that use rice as their staple grain and have developed entire cuisines around it. There are so many different things you can do with it that you could eat it a different way for each meal and never have the same meal twice in your life if you wanted to.

Even with the simple staples of rice and beans, there are tens of thousands of possible ways to make it. So there's no excuse for plain, boring food.

 

I have adopted the premis of "Store what you eat, eat what you store". It is possible to add a little extra of those foods you eat regularly to form the basis of your LTS.

In my case, when I'm buying tinned tuna I buy it by the case on sale. I buy my pasta the same way. My family enjoys rice, so rice is a staple for us.

To me there's no point of buying something for storage if it's not part of your existing diet.

 

Something tasty that you don't mind eating... for a LONG time... over and over and over again....

 

I buy a lot of canned meat as we are big meat eaters. Every time I go to our Family Dollar, I buy a couple of canned hams and every can of barbecue chicken they have. In fact, I just got 3 hams and 12 cans of the chicken about an hour ago.

 

I second this one. Meat and Fat are essential the the diet. Both contains the essential amino acids for cells. Being a diabetic (not on the needle) I have discovered that the human body can live without carbohydrates. If you look at nomadic peoples through out of history you will see that they subside on extremely low carbohydrate intake with Inuits and Eskimos living on almost none (in history, since the introduction of sugers and flours in their life they have gotten heavy and their teeth have fallen out).

Ask any medical expert you know they will tell you (unwillingly) that there is no "absolute" need for carbohydrates in the diet but go without proteins and fat and you are going to die of malnutrition.

 

Wheat. You can grind it, boil it and sprout it. It's not the perfect protein but you would be able to survive. I also like the canned chili and beer suggestions. :thumb: It would sure make the wheat taste better.

 

We focused mainly on wheat,rice and beans. We add stuff every day. But when we made our initial "food stores" that is what we started with. We are currently focusing on oils, canned goods and spices.

 

The one you haven't stocked yet.

 

As I think you can see it is different for everyone. How about a scientific approach. Save every receipt for a month or two would be preferable. See what you actually buy by quantity and in what ratio. Then do your preps in that ratio. If 40% by weight of what you buy is rice then have 40% of your preps be rice. If 20% by weight is fruit make 20% of your preps fruit.
JMHO

 

Pretty much what we did. Bought what we eat and like the most that will give us best bang (nutrition) for the buck.

 

Ramen noodles?. :xeye:

Seroiusly, imo it's the staple that your body tolerates the best.
Some have allergies/sensitivities to wheat, corn, soy etc so those wouldn't work for them. Beans- how many of y'all would be temporarily 'bugged out" by the rest of your group? :upsidedown:

 

I'd say wheat. Whether people realize it or not, it's the staple of the western diet. And that's why traditional food storage routines such as the Mormons always depended on it as a staple. It's far more nutritious than the typical white rice that most of us store. It can be sprouted to provide live enzymes and nutrients that are hard to get in typical storage foods. I see a lot of people overlooking it because it requires a grinder to get the most benefit from, but that's a shame because grinders don't have to cost a fortune.

 

The very first thing we bought was 400# wheat. :thumb:

The grinder we got with a few accessories http://www.mykitchencenter.com/Details.cfm?ProdID=1393

 

Agree with Wheat. It is just so versatile. For bread, of course, but also dumplings, pasta, hot cereal, pancakes, tortillas, thickening gravy, etc... depending what else we can scrounge up.

But, while it's an interesting question, variety is best for us, so we stock a moderate amount of many different items.

 

Fat. Without it we die.

 

I've always been told it's the Wheats, especially Einkorn, Spelt and Kamut .
If your allergic, then it would be brown rice, beans, oats, and suprisingly white and yellow corn.

 

Rice goes with everything. You can mix in beans, spices, gravies, cold or hot, it's tasty and keeps for 1 or 2 years in original packaging. Wrap it, flatten it, fry it, all kinds of recipes for rice. I always have at least 80lbs. of it white, dark and mixed.