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Food? I horde guns and ammo so I dont need to horde food.

 

Duh

I read an interesting article the other day about large numbers of people trying to live off the (same) land. Simply put: it wouldn't work for more than a couple of weeks.

 

It didn't take many years to deplete most of the northeast states of their large game. Numerous species were hunted out of existence.

 

Yeah, we have guns and ammo. It's a cozy to know you have a .22lr (rifle or handgun), which has been dubbed the ultimate "survival" gun. But think about it. Even where I live, in the semi-sticks, the squirrel population would be gone in a week. I walk in the woods all the time and I rarely see rabbits. Deer? OK, one will feed a family for a couple of weeks, but when everybody is after them they'll become scarce in a  very short time.

 

Bottom line: Don't think because you have guns 'n' ammo that you'll be ok. 

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I read an interesting article the other day about large numbers of people trying to live off the (same) land. Simply put: it wouldn't work for more than a couple of weeks.

 

It didn't take many years to deplete most of the northeast states of their large game. Numerous species were hunted out of existence.

 

Yeah, we have guns and ammo. It's a cozy to know you have a .22lr (rifle or handgun), which has been dubbed the ultimate "survival" gun. But think about it. Even where I live, in the semi-sticks, the squirrel population would be gone in a week. I walk in the woods all the time and I rarely see rabbits. Deer? OK, one will feed a family for a couple of weeks, but when everybody is after them they'll become scarce in a very short time.

 

Bottom line: Don't think because you have guns 'n' ammo that you'll be ok.

That's not the direction I was going with that....

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Ok, then, why don't you explain?

Sure. Stockpiles are good for the initial shock. Thieves, marauders, and truly desperate people WILL find those stockpiles. They will either perish from being defended against, or the others will from trying to defend. Regardless, only the strong survive. So as much as you think the area would be overpopulated and the food source would run out, I think that the human population would rapidly decrease. Millions in the first 6mo of a long term event.

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Ok, then, why don't you explain? 

 

The dangers of being under-armed are pretty serious. Especially if the person just doesn't get it.

 

One of my best friends has one of those 12 months worth of food set ups, plus some other supplies.

He also has 1 gun that he shoots maybe once a year.

 

After Sandy, he was busting balls saying "If this had lasted longer, you guys (me and our other friend, also a gun guy) would've been trying to make gunpowder sandwiches while I would've feasting on beef stew."

We looked at each other and broke out laughing. When he was like "what's so funny?" I explained that given our long-standing friendship, we could've worked out a deal where he shared his food and we didn't shoot him.

 

Of course we were kidding. But others wouldn't be.

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The dangers of being under-armed are pretty serious. Especially if the person just doesn't get it.

 

One of my best friends has one of those 12 months worth of food set ups, plus some other supplies.

He also has 1 gun that he shoots maybe once a year.

 

After Sandy, he was busting balls saying "If this had lasted longer, you guys (me and our other friend, also a gun guy) would've been trying to make gunpowder sandwiches while I would've feasting on beef stew."

We looked at each other and broke out laughing. When he was like "what's so funny?" I explained that given our long-standing friendship, we could've worked out a deal where he shared his food and we didn't shoot him.

 

Of course we were kidding. But others wouldn't be.

I still don't get it. In an emergency or semi-SHTF scenario, say where ShopRite is closed for two months, I'd rather have two months worth of food, one carefully chosen gun, and a few hundred rounds than a dozen guns, 10k rounds, and no food.

 

Even if you live in the sticks like me, where game is relatively plentiful, if you have to depend on your gun for food you're probably going to starve because 15,000 other guys are in the same boat. If you're in the burbs or decent sized city you're certainly going to starve, no matter how many guns and how much ammo you have.

 

Unless you really weren't joking about two-legged game.

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Sure. Stockpiles are good for the initial shock. Thieves, marauders, and truly desperate people WILL find those stockpiles. They will either perish from being defended against, or the others will from trying to defend. Regardless, only the strong survive. So as much as you think the area would be overpopulated and the food source would run out, I think that the human population would rapidly decrease. Millions in the first 6mo of a long term event.

If you're talking about a situation where hordes of marauders go home to home, then you have to hope enough people are armed that they get picked off. 

 

I'm trying to think of a time in history, outside of war (where an armed citizen has about as much chance as a kitten in an alligator tank), when this occurred. Or circumstances under which it might occur in 2014. I'm having a very hard time of it. 

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If I was living in Roselle Park I would stockpile guns too. But also would have a month or two worth of food too.

 

Over in Newton, ( Newtonian?) the deer are everywhere. Bears can be eaten too. But I agree, SHTF and the wildlife will be hunted away quickly. So you need to stockpile food too. And guns. And plenty of ammo.

 

My opinion, and I could be wrong, is in a real, extended SHTF scenario, things in the city and close suburbs would get bad quickly. NYC, Newark, Linden, etc would have hungry people looking for food. And they would head west. Towards Newton, and PA.

 

Those living on the way west will need to be prepared and organized. You will need to get through the initial first few months. It will be crazy. Think two days into Sandy when fights broke out at gas stations. Now multiply that by hundreds. It aint gonna be pretty.

 

Organized, prepared, stockpiled communities will fare much better.

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Food? I horde guns and ammo so I dont need to horde food.

 

Duh

 

I believe he was talking about looting.  Dedicated preppers like to say that looting is not a substitue for a plan.

 

IMHO, there are roughly two possible situations for which we are prepping.  The first is a natural or man-made disaster where food and other supplies could be in short supply for a period of up to a few months.  Then there's the full blown apocalyptic EOTWAWKI, as it is commonly referred to.

 

The former is far more likely, in fact even probable.  Having a few months supply of freeze-dried food, water, and other supplies (with guns and ammo to defend it) should probably suffice.  In the latter case, which I think most would agree is far less likely, one would need to be able to grow food, hunt, and be able to live primitively off the land.  At some point one needs to decide how much time and money to devote to his preps.

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As far as food in your house goes, there's no point in having a year's worth of food, unless you have a year's worth of ammo and people on watch around the clock to defend it (and someplace to dump the bodies).   The way I see it, food storage is more for power outages... if you bug out, you ain't takin' much food with you. If you have a bug out house in the mountains stocked with food, that would be different. 

 

For me, all this "prepping" stuff comes down to 2 categories:

 

1) the more realistic one: natural disaster/power outage...  food, ammo, gas, etc.  Short time frame. A couple of weeks, MAYBE a month.  Most people don't have 55-gallon drums of gas.

 

2) serious STHF, whatever that might be: (EMP strike, nuke in NYC/radiation, etc) in which case you'd probably be packing up and leaving anyway. Simply going away from the people, with only your most vital possessions.  If things are THAT bad, I'm not gonna' worry about defending freeze-dried food or my house. I'm gone. To wherever the people are FAR LESS in population than they are here, and with more people of my own kind, like my extended family.

 

Besides-  a power outage is a great opportunity to lose some that excess weight... lol

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Water is the most important prep. Without it, none of your food, guns, etc will be of any use. You can live for weeks without food but only days without water.

 

Which is why a water FILTER... like the kind campers use....  is even more beneficial than storing water. Takes up alot less space too. You could filter water out of a pond, stream, river, or mud puddle.  Sure, it's a little work and takes a little time, but when water runs out, at least you'll still have the CAPABILITY to make more.

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Living in a very dense city food is a concern of mine. I do keep a short term supply of food but nothing long term. 60 days max. If its longer than that..... Hope to never have to use my other supplies. For food I use mylar food bags with desiccant  and food or new painters 10 gallon buckets. I prefer freeze dried to dehydrated. But my budget is dehydrated. 

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This spring I will be starting a small garden....I'm hoping I dont suck at it.  I'm also almost hoping for the day i can legally shoot all the F*@#king squirrels and rabbits in my neighborhood.  lol

 

Don't be afraid of sucking. You WILL suck at it, it is a learning experience.

 

Start with things easy to grow like tomatoes, herbs, beans, lettuce, summer squashes, etc. You will f'it up. You will lose plants. You will have the bunnies cut the stems of your beans, you will have bugs eat your leaves, squirrels steal your tomatoes, storm knock over your plants.

 

Guess what, all of these things will be even worse if you really need to supplement your diet with your garden, so you better learn do deal with it now when your dinner plate doesn't get lighter for it. You learn how to minimize all of these things over time. You learn how to attract pollinators, how to plant companion plants that help each other out, etc.

 

Also, its fun.

 

Also %^&* bunnies, I finally broke down and built an ugly rabbit fence. If the zombies come, I'll shoot the bunnies first even if the skin walkers are in the garden at the same time, out of spite.

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In a SHTF situation where you are relying on your garden for food a very important thing to remember is you have to let some of it go to seed for the next crop. Also carrots and potato's are really good additions to a survival garden because they are easy to store for extended periods of time without refrigeration.  

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GARDENING:

 

Great subject!!  I too have wanted to start gardening.  Can anyone recommend a good "garneding for dummies" book for those of us who have never done it before?

 

There are TONS of gardening advice sources.  For two good but opposite points of view, I recommend "Square foot gardening" by Mel Bartholomew and "Gardening   when it counts" by Steve Solomon. 

 

There are also lots of gardening forums, survivalist forums with gardening sub forums, etc.

 

The thing you should start with it looking at your property.  How much sun are you getting? How does the sun move across the land at various times of the year? Do you have any wind breaks? Can you plant in such a way that the grading of your land sends water towards the plants to reduce the need for watering? 

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Guns, ammo, dehydrated food, a dehydrator, and canned food here and about 200 empty mason jars with new tops. I am pretty well stocked I think.

 

Do you dehydrate and store meat?  If so, what is the expected shelf life?

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I do dehydrate meat either beef, venison or bison usually. I have heard so many conflicting reports on how long dehydrated meat will last partly because there are allot of variables. Fat content, moisture content, storage package, and storage temp all are major factors. For long term storage I prefer venison or bison because they have less of a fat content than beef. dehydrated fat will still go rancid after only a few weeks. When packaging I put the dehydrated meat in Mylar bags with an O2 absorber and then vacuum seal it with my "seal a meal". where I store my food supply's the temp range is between 58-68. I just opened a bag of bison jerky that is 13 months old and its just as good as when I sealed it. This year I am up grading to a better/larger dehydrator so I will be able to start stocking up on dehydrated foods. Fruits and veggies are even better in the dehydrator, They last way longer than meat. Also I have started getting into dehydrated soups. You dehydrate all the ingredients for the soup and package it all together. when your ready to eat you just put the contents into water and simmer it for an hour or two depending on the recipe. The soups are great for survival food supply's I think.  

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Thank You, I like the soup idea. 

 

Alton Brown of Good Eats made a food dehydrater with a box fan and some air filters - the coregated types used in home HVAC systems.  He placed meat in the coegations, sandwitches multiple filters on top of a home box fan, bungee corded them in place and turned the fan on high.  This dried out the meat nicely.  I'd like to give this a try with some meat, veggies and fruits.  I live in a small house with limited counter space or extra room for a dehydrater so I hope this would be a good alternitive. 

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The one thing I can say about home gardening is that there is no one size fits all method. What you grow will be determined by trial and error. Somethings like tomatoes will grow anywhere whereas beets may not produce as well for you. Certain varieties may produce better than others. Find out what grows well for you and stick with it. Start composting those leaves in the fall and saving those grass clippings in the summer. We grow asparagus, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, string beans, carrots, onions, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, beets, peppers, potatoes and watermelon. We also have, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, aronia berry, ground cherries and strawberries. I won't go into the herbs, that's my wife's department.  In our garden, we stopped growing cucumbers, squash, and collards because the squash bugs and cabbage looper's were too hard to control on these plants. But they may grow well for you, you might not have as big of a problem. That's why you have to experiment.

 

I find that in town I have a lot more disease and insect problems than those who live in the suburbs or country. So those who are gardening in the city or town may find it more challenging, but don't be discouraged.

 

My preferred method of gardening is in raised beds, about 8" high by 3 feet wide by 22 feet long. The elevated beds don't flood out in the rain and they "heat up" early in the spring. Never walk on a raised bed and it will stay loose and manageable, once established you can turn it easily with a fork (you shouldn't have to use a tiller). Some find it desirable to box in a raised bed with wood or cement block etc. but it really adds to the cost.

 

As far as gardening advice, I go to my local library and check out as many books as I can. When I find a book that is especially helpful I go on ebay and buy it used for my own reference. (Goodwill sells a lot of books cheap on ebay). I have books on organic gardening, insect identification, plant diseases etc. I also scavenge as much info off the "net" as I can. 

 

A FoodSaver vacuum sealer and a dehydrator are good investments. We use our dehydrator on many of our garden herbs and  recently we've looked into "freeze drying" some of our garden produce using dry ice.

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As for store bought items (non fresh produce)... canned goods, cereals, etc... We buy on sale and sometimes in bulk. Many items are good for years BEYOND their "Best buy" date. Canned meats such as, tuna, chicken, turkey and beef have stamped best buy dates of 3-4 years to start with. We tag our items with color coded stickers that represent the year due and write the number of the month due on the sticker. That way you can quickly see items that are coming due and rotate stock more efficiently. Best buy dates on cereals are usually about one year, so when you see a sale on something you like stock up.

The only things that are impossible to stock up on are fresh milk and eggs, but we purchase powdered whole eggs and milk in #10 cans through Honeyvillegrain.com. FYI: Powdered eggs reconstitute to something similar to whipped eggs and are easy and great to use in baking. Instead of messing with raw eggs, you just measure out some powdered egg into the dry mix and add the required amount of water to the recipe.

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