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My ex-Boss was Mormon, dude had a barrel of water and all kinds of **** in his garage. Problem was I wouldn't have known what to do with it. He had big silver bags labelled "wheat" but I'm a city-boy you might as well give me sand, it would have equal value. I have a vague notion it can become bread, or maybe beer.
I'll risk a year's worth of vienna sausages over that, especially if they are the higher quality ones that are more pink than gray.
Newenglandgirl, I think it is do-able. From what I understand, there are people in our country now living in the mountains and swamps or wherever and growing their own food. They may not have mouths full of teeth or glamorous lives, but they're "surviving."
Seeing how things have played out I sometimes wish I had been born Amish. For them, life is going on as usual and they don't have to worry about the recession or peak oil. It seems like a much simpler life and a life that actually has a future.
Just remember that as fuel prices increase, so will FOOD prices increase. Most people notice the various packaged items that are increasing in price. Did you notice that SAME packaged item is decreasing in SIZE?
A 6 oz item is now only 4.5 oz, yet increased in price, as well. Think about that for a minute. You are getting LESS product for MORE money.
Last edited by springazure; 04-29-2011 at 11:03 PM..
yes, I did notice the size thing. I used to feed a family of 4 on one pkg of mac and cheese. Now only 3 of us can eat... ridiculous. When will it get to the point where I don't even buy their products anymore?...
The food production and distribution system in the USA is nothing short of miraculous. Food is unbelievably cheap in the USA, compared to most other countries in the world. The average American family can eat for about 10% of their income, while in much of the rest of the world, food costs more than half the family income and consists of very little variety and limited protein.
Learn how to can and preserve food, if a crisis is what you're worried about, and put up the groceries you can buy at the supermarket. Trying to grow a couple hundred dollars worth of food will use up a huge amount of land and will be a full time job for the whole summer.
The average American family can eat for about 10% of their income...
Sorry, not true, not unless you are buying the crappiest food from the big box discount stores. If a modest family income nets $1500/week (try less) they would be hard put to feed their family on $150, unless they are mostly vegetarian and don't buy snacks and drinks. Certainly not with quality foods.
These days you might as well factor in gas cost to get to the market and back ($10-$20-$30 perhaps, depending on the vehicle and how far and now many trips).
Trying to grow a couple hundred dollars worth of food will use up a huge amount of land and will be a full time job for the whole summer.
Not so. You can grow quite a bit on good soil in a sunny back yard, 1/8 or 1/4 of an acre plus container plants on porches and decks. Once planted, all you have to do is mulch heavily with ground up leaves and hay in spring and harvest as needed. I have done this while working 50 hour weeks at a job.
Sorry, not true, not unless you are buying the crappiest food from the big box discount stores. If a modest family income nets $1500/week (try less) they would be hard put to feed their family on $150, unless they are mostly vegetarian and don't buy snacks and drinks. Certainly not with quality foods.
These days you might as well factor in gas cost to get to the market and back ($10-$20-$30 perhaps, depending on the vehicle and how far and now many trips).
The median household income in the US is arouind $45K, which is take home pay in the neighborhood of $3000 a month. A family that NEVER eats out can easily keep a stock of groceries, nutritious and for varied taste, for $300 a month, shopping weekly at the nearest supermarket, and with mom at home cooking scratch food instead of convenience packs. Of course, if you need to order a pizza a couple of nights a week, and go to an upscale restaurant every weekend, and your kids eat most of their meals at McDonalds, and you have to put $50 worth of steaks on the grill every Saturday, and nobody even knows how to boil potatoes, and your bananas have to be organic and shade-grown, it's nobody's fault but your own if you don't manage it, but it CAN be done. My comment was about the cost of basic food in the USA, not about the propensity Americans have to buy only the choicest cuts and throw half away uneaten, or how much it costs to drive 20 miles to a special exclusive upscale market that has "quality" food.
Most American households use more gas driving to restaurants, than to grocery stores.
I wonder if you could raise a force-fed goose and remove only part of it's liver to eat at a time, giving ample time to regenerate in-between.
Probably. A federal court just cleared the way for stem cell research so there should be a solution forthcoming shortly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newenglandgirl
Never approach goslings when their mother is nearby, she will attack.
I never had that problem, but animals seem to like me.
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Originally Posted by newenglandgirl
I'd get a goat instead of a cow, or better yet, make my own soymilk and grow grain along with a garden.
Goats are good, maybe even better for homes on small lots. I can't recommend sheep, because they eat the grass roots and all (cows and goats don't), and goats will eat just about anything.
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Originally Posted by CaptainNJ
im not sure why you would need a crisis garden. i suppose you would be in trouble when your food runs out but i think you can cover many more issues with long term storage and the garden has very few scenarios where it will pay off.
Long term storage is not self-replenishing or self-propagating. I know that for a fact. I did an experiment where I put to cans of lentil beans in a closet and checked it at periodic intervals. After 1 year, there were still only two cans of lentil beans there.
It won't be too long before you won't be able to get what you want, and if you can, it will be very expensive, so it's easier to grow things you need.
In a few hours I'm going to have a bone-in ribeye steak with a big beefsteak tomato. Kroger's doesn't have those, and hasn't for maybe 25-30 years now. Neither does Meijer's and I don't shop at Wal*Mart. So if you want a beefsteak tomato you'll have to grow it yourself or get it from a roadside stand.
I can't believe you people can't taste the difference. Tomatoes get their flavor by ripening on the vine. Those tomatoes you get at the Kroger's and elsewhere come from Mexico and Latin America and they're picked green and gassed with Carbon Monoxide to turn them red.
That's why they taste like a wet Brawny paper towel.
For almost nothing you plant a few pole beans or greasy beans and get bushels of beans. String them up (with needle and thread), dry them out and they last forever. It's best to use a pressure cooker when you cook them, but you can soak them just like any other dried bean.
Instead of spending $12/month on canned-green beans, you can spend it on something else. A few tomato plants will give you 30 pounds of tomatoes, and at $2.89/pound you can spend that $80 on something else.
The more you garden, the better you get at it.
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