How to tell I am a Prepper!
Oct 4, 2016 23:40:22 GMT 10
graynomad, perthprepper, and 1 more like this
Post by shinester on Oct 4, 2016 23:40:22 GMT 10
Ha, that's a while ago and those aren't exactly topics that are aligned with the title or general theme... so prepare for 'offtopic waffle' [OW] to answer your questions....
[OW]
If you put a tea-light candle in your container and be careful not to blow it out or disturb the air, as soon as you close the lid it will try to burn what is left of the oxygen in the container. Once there's not enough oxygen for combustion it goes out. The steel [supermarket stuff is mostly stainless now] or iron wool will rust, aka oxidize taking further oxygen from the air over time. They use iron filings in the oxygen tabs, so it's essentially the same thing. If you seal it with silicone, the air is less likely to get in and disturb your mostly co2 trapped in the container.
My current thinking is akin to this, though I would do one or the other. In terms of longevity, apparently that is the case for 'white' rice. I also have a ton of rice I haven't stored this way at all and figure I'll get 10 years from it without issue. Actually I'd be surprised if it didn't last 30 years without any kind of preparation at all. For beans they dry out and take much longer to cook consequently [from experience] and I would suspect the same with the rice. I have thought of digging out some older buckets and trying some food out.
I'm not at all worried about storing canned food after watching video after video of people eating sealed food that's still good after 60 years in cans, I'm hardly concerned. The advantage is the lack of heating needed, almost all [pretty sure it's all] canned food can be eaten out of the can as it's been precooked. There's some advantages there in that you have cooking smells or need for fuel. The disadvantage is 10-20 times the initial cost of rice/kj. Rice and all grains that I know of that haven't been processed have to be cooked to denature [change] the anti-nutrients. So I would very much be considering a means of cooking your rice as part of your costing.
I did a post a while back about how at least for beans, unless you have a free source of fuel, it's better to buy canned beans in terms of cost and obviously ease. It would not be the same sums for rice however and I suspect it's still cheaper to have it and a means of cooking it. I have the means to run my microwave every day if I needed to via solar, though gas/wood etc would also do that.
Over all I would recommend white rice, it lasts ages even if kept poorly and because it's super cheap. I would also recommend anything canned as it seems to last an incredibly long time, though it's more expensive.
My 'peasant' supplies [something I'm working on] are 3x 750g bags of safeway rolled oats to 1 can of coles sweetened condense milk, which is $5 for 4.8 days of food and it's easy to remember the ratios. Breakfast every meal lol. The nutrient analysis and it's pretty decent, only thing you need is the missing vitamins which could be grown [much easier than trying to grow enough staple food] though a vitamin tablet would do the trick.
Aquaponics - I like to do lots of research before I commit to things, I take my time learning about what I'm doing before I spend the cash. With aquaponics I have some issues with it and I didn't fully proceed , in particularly for my region and for prepping to my mind it's not the way to go for food production. As a hobby, sure it would be lots of fun. Let me expand on it a little though.
Problems
- fish, in Victoria we get too hot and too cold for the better species, we can use trout but they get too hot and have very dangerous [for them] levels of low oxygen during summer, grow relatively slowly. I did try 'every' species in terms of looking at the data [still have the spreadsheets] even ones that weren't commonly available attempting to crack that problem. Silver perch and similar are suitable for Queensland and might work out. There's one pretty decent species that self produce, can live almost anywhere, can eat almost anything and are very tolerant of conditions. For those exact reasons they're also considered a noxious species and are illegal to have in Victoria and I believe NSW [not sure on other states] called Tilapia. Perhaps with them it might work for Vic, I did think about getting them from WA... The main things the fish need to do are - self reproduce,
- food, how do you expect to feed the fish in an Austere environment? The food they 'mostly' use is made of fish because many species, particularly the carnivores need the oil requirements. Black Solider flys [bsf] which feed on food scraps/human waste 'could' supplement some of the diet [up to 1/3] though for most species you'll need more variety. I also thought of using insect traps [UV lights with fans that blow the insects into the water at night] as another means of supplementing. The problem still being the need to feed the fish, even at say 1/2 the rate means you have to store fish food... to feed your fish, who's poop then feed your plants.
- instability - the system runs on some maximums of production and so is inherently unstable. A blown water pump and fish will die and keep dying until there's enough oxygen in the water to maintain them, this can happen in less than an hour on summer days. This is not the only issue, your nutrient levels effect the fish and the plants [less so but do]. The system requires constantly cycling/pumping which means things will break down. This wouldn't matter if you had a few days and spares and some species are more resilient than others and you might have 2 pumps to reduce this effect for instance.
- power - you need a lot of power to run it, this means batteries and solar.
- time inefficient - it requires constant monitoring and watching about 30-60mins/day and so the most precious resource, your time, to which in a SHTF event I think would be better used on security matters.
- set up cost - the cost to bring to table your food, including the fish food is MUCH higher than alternatives.
Alternatives
- Growing in the garden is a good choice. Combined with mulching 'everything' including your poop [leave for a year] will keep your soil and therefore nutrient quality. Tried and tested. Have some bags of fertilizer and the usual assortment of pest control and you'll be growing great, assuming you have some experience [start!] and space. This is my go-to, been doing it for years in small and large sizes, it's easy, water levels and labor the issues here.
- I haven't entirely researched chooks though they look promising, even just for their eggs. That protein and fat is very helpful to any diet. I can't where I am currently so haven't yet gone down that road. How to feed them sustainably has been done, though I'm not particularly educated here.
- Rabbits would be great if it wasn't Australia and our two diseases. Aka not worth it, had a prepper friend who lost most of his.
- No pump hydroponics is my current experiment. I've still got strawberries and herbs that I haven't touched that got right through winter [and poor sun] suffering from having the water level too high for them. I think this will be my go-to, though I need a few more years of practice to be sure. No labor, no water or fertilizer added, lol.
[OW]
If you put a tea-light candle in your container and be careful not to blow it out or disturb the air, as soon as you close the lid it will try to burn what is left of the oxygen in the container. Once there's not enough oxygen for combustion it goes out. The steel [supermarket stuff is mostly stainless now] or iron wool will rust, aka oxidize taking further oxygen from the air over time. They use iron filings in the oxygen tabs, so it's essentially the same thing. If you seal it with silicone, the air is less likely to get in and disturb your mostly co2 trapped in the container.
My current thinking is akin to this, though I would do one or the other. In terms of longevity, apparently that is the case for 'white' rice. I also have a ton of rice I haven't stored this way at all and figure I'll get 10 years from it without issue. Actually I'd be surprised if it didn't last 30 years without any kind of preparation at all. For beans they dry out and take much longer to cook consequently [from experience] and I would suspect the same with the rice. I have thought of digging out some older buckets and trying some food out.
I'm not at all worried about storing canned food after watching video after video of people eating sealed food that's still good after 60 years in cans, I'm hardly concerned. The advantage is the lack of heating needed, almost all [pretty sure it's all] canned food can be eaten out of the can as it's been precooked. There's some advantages there in that you have cooking smells or need for fuel. The disadvantage is 10-20 times the initial cost of rice/kj. Rice and all grains that I know of that haven't been processed have to be cooked to denature [change] the anti-nutrients. So I would very much be considering a means of cooking your rice as part of your costing.
I did a post a while back about how at least for beans, unless you have a free source of fuel, it's better to buy canned beans in terms of cost and obviously ease. It would not be the same sums for rice however and I suspect it's still cheaper to have it and a means of cooking it. I have the means to run my microwave every day if I needed to via solar, though gas/wood etc would also do that.
Over all I would recommend white rice, it lasts ages even if kept poorly and because it's super cheap. I would also recommend anything canned as it seems to last an incredibly long time, though it's more expensive.
My 'peasant' supplies [something I'm working on] are 3x 750g bags of safeway rolled oats to 1 can of coles sweetened condense milk, which is $5 for 4.8 days of food and it's easy to remember the ratios. Breakfast every meal lol. The nutrient analysis and it's pretty decent, only thing you need is the missing vitamins which could be grown [much easier than trying to grow enough staple food] though a vitamin tablet would do the trick.
Aquaponics - I like to do lots of research before I commit to things, I take my time learning about what I'm doing before I spend the cash. With aquaponics I have some issues with it and I didn't fully proceed , in particularly for my region and for prepping to my mind it's not the way to go for food production. As a hobby, sure it would be lots of fun. Let me expand on it a little though.
Problems
- fish, in Victoria we get too hot and too cold for the better species, we can use trout but they get too hot and have very dangerous [for them] levels of low oxygen during summer, grow relatively slowly. I did try 'every' species in terms of looking at the data [still have the spreadsheets] even ones that weren't commonly available attempting to crack that problem. Silver perch and similar are suitable for Queensland and might work out. There's one pretty decent species that self produce, can live almost anywhere, can eat almost anything and are very tolerant of conditions. For those exact reasons they're also considered a noxious species and are illegal to have in Victoria and I believe NSW [not sure on other states] called Tilapia. Perhaps with them it might work for Vic, I did think about getting them from WA... The main things the fish need to do are - self reproduce,
- food, how do you expect to feed the fish in an Austere environment? The food they 'mostly' use is made of fish because many species, particularly the carnivores need the oil requirements. Black Solider flys [bsf] which feed on food scraps/human waste 'could' supplement some of the diet [up to 1/3] though for most species you'll need more variety. I also thought of using insect traps [UV lights with fans that blow the insects into the water at night] as another means of supplementing. The problem still being the need to feed the fish, even at say 1/2 the rate means you have to store fish food... to feed your fish, who's poop then feed your plants.
- instability - the system runs on some maximums of production and so is inherently unstable. A blown water pump and fish will die and keep dying until there's enough oxygen in the water to maintain them, this can happen in less than an hour on summer days. This is not the only issue, your nutrient levels effect the fish and the plants [less so but do]. The system requires constantly cycling/pumping which means things will break down. This wouldn't matter if you had a few days and spares and some species are more resilient than others and you might have 2 pumps to reduce this effect for instance.
- power - you need a lot of power to run it, this means batteries and solar.
- time inefficient - it requires constant monitoring and watching about 30-60mins/day and so the most precious resource, your time, to which in a SHTF event I think would be better used on security matters.
- set up cost - the cost to bring to table your food, including the fish food is MUCH higher than alternatives.
Alternatives
- Growing in the garden is a good choice. Combined with mulching 'everything' including your poop [leave for a year] will keep your soil and therefore nutrient quality. Tried and tested. Have some bags of fertilizer and the usual assortment of pest control and you'll be growing great, assuming you have some experience [start!] and space. This is my go-to, been doing it for years in small and large sizes, it's easy, water levels and labor the issues here.
- I haven't entirely researched chooks though they look promising, even just for their eggs. That protein and fat is very helpful to any diet. I can't where I am currently so haven't yet gone down that road. How to feed them sustainably has been done, though I'm not particularly educated here.
- Rabbits would be great if it wasn't Australia and our two diseases. Aka not worth it, had a prepper friend who lost most of his.
- No pump hydroponics is my current experiment. I've still got strawberries and herbs that I haven't touched that got right through winter [and poor sun] suffering from having the water level too high for them. I think this will be my go-to, though I need a few more years of practice to be sure. No labor, no water or fertilizer added, lol.