Drought and Food Ravages Future Food Costs

Did anyone see the national news on ABC on March 28, 2009?
They did a story about the 3-year drought in California causing drops in crops. Last year the drop was noticeable, a loss of 100,00 acres in Central Valley in 2008. But this year the acreage planted is dropping by as much of 450,000 (in Central Valley alone), there will be a loss of as many as 40,000 jobs, and a lose of as much as 1.5 billion dollars in revenues. Current unemployment in Central Valley is at 35%.

How that translates to you…food costs are going to rise, swiftly! The cost of fresh California produce will go out the ceiling this year. Frozen vegetables and fruits, and canned products based on California produce will skyrocket as well.

You saw the stories on the Fargo, North Dakota floods, on the late winter blizzards over the plains states as far south as Oklahoma in late March, and the flooding all the way through the Gulf Coast of Mississippi all these coupled with drought in California will cause massive impacts on your food budget. Did I say budget? Forget a budget, just to eat you will have to increase your outlay for food by gargantuan amounts.

Now add into the above natural disasters the increase again in gas costs occurring, and then you swell the energy and transportation costs as well. Add all this up and you spell disaster on a grand scale for the simple American just trying to support their families with just the basics.

All of the above news supports the concept of returning to the Victory Garden. Plan and plant a garden this season. If you have never done it, now is the time to start! If you have had a garden in the past, consider enlarging it, so that you grow enough for the year, and maybe have some to share. Learn to freeze, can, and dehydrate your foods for storage. Learn about safe storage practices! Prepare, prepare prepare!

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of planning for your families needs. Buy what you think you will need of the staples that you cannot grow, in advance of the rising costs. Flour and sugar, rice and oatmeal, toilet paper and other paper goods can be gotten and stored for future use while the costs are still down.

If you live in an apartment the issues become more difficult. There is virtually no room to grown food in and very little extra storage space in an apartment. But here are a few ideas people have utilized for many years: use the patio or balcony for potted and hanging plants, store food in plastic containers under beds, behind the sofa against the wall, and buy locally! Buying locally grown food cuts all the shipping costs out, keeps the food fresher and healthier, and keeps the economy stronger in your area. Try finding Community Garden spaces; some people will even rent out an area on their property so that others may garden.

Victory Gardens - An Old Idea Revisited

During World War II when food and so much else was rationed, people made their ration stamps for food go further by growing Victory Gardens. Today when there is so much pressure on us all to cut back our family budgets, going back in time and revisiting the Victory Garden seems a wise idea. If we just shuffle through our memories from last summer we would dredge up the salmonella scare on fresh fruits and vegetables. By growing our own, we eliminate that threat to our families. Two very good reasons to plan a garden now…. plant it…. tend it…. and harvest it.

It is time to stop complaining about rising food costs and try and do something for our own benefit for a change. It is time to stop looking to the government and big brother for the next fix. Our new president is doing everything in his power to help the American people come through this economic crisis. They are even planting a garden on the White House grounds this season…If the Obamas can do it, why can’t you?

An idea I was toying with was encouraging everyone to write Mr. President, request him to remind people about the Victory Gardens of the WWII era, and ask him to encourage the American people to follow his lead in just that effort. The rest of us can go to our local Town Councils and ask for Community Garden Space to be made available. We can grow more than we need, and knock on the single mothers door down the street, or the aged guy in the apartment complex where your elderly mother lives (you know the kind of people I mean!) and share your produce. Some food banks even accept produce that is locally grown, call, and find out if your excess can feed someone else this year. Someday you may need the same help!

Many of us have already cut expenses to the bone…. we own no credits cards, no loans, drive as little as possible, cut the car insurance back to state legal limits, have cut off cable or satellite TV, and have started our own Victory Garden…. We are making the effort to conserve…how about joining us?

Depression Era Revisited

The economic outlook for America is pretty gloomy right now. Much like the Great Depression of 1929-1932. Our Grandparents made do with less. So can we. Bringham Young once said, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” If we live by that as our motto, as our grandparents did in the Depression, we too will survive as they did.

Following are a few of the recipes from that period. I have laid them out like menus. It makes it easier to imagine eating it! There is something here for any meal, so browse, try them out, and enjoy spending less, doing with less and doing it well!

Day 1

Breakfast:

Depression Rice Pudding
½ cup long grain white rice
½ cup sugar
1 can evaporated milk, diluted to make one qt [must use evaporated milk]
1 cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
Cinnamon to taste
Grease a glass 9" x 13" Pyrex dish with solid shortening.
Preheat oven to 300F.
Place all ingredients except cinnamon in pan.
Generously sprinkle top with cinnamon.
At least once during the baking, stir cinnamon crust into the rice and sprinkle top again with cinnamon.
Let bake until rice is tender, or approximately 1-½ hours.
Let cool and serve either warm or cold.

Hard Times Coffee
Mix well 2 qts. Wheat bran and 1 pt. yellow corn meal.
Add 3 well-beaten eggs and 1-cup sorghum molasses.
Beat well, spread on pan and put in dry oven, on very low heat. (Wood stoves were kept warm at all times.)
Take great care to stir often while browning.
A handful is enough for two people.

Lunch:

Potato Soup

4 large potatoes, rinsed, peeled, cubed
Water
salt & Pepper
4 Tbsp plain flour
butter

Cook potatoes in water until overdone and falling apart.
Take some of the broth in a coffee cup.
Add the flour and wish with fork until smooth.
Pour into the potatoes and stir. Add Butter and serve.

Quick, Muffins

1/2 cups of flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup of butter or butter substitute

Mix into a bowl the flour, and baking powder, salt, sugar and egg.
Add milk, pour gradually into the bowl with other ingredients, beating with a fork as it is added. When the mixture is smooth, add butter or butter substitute melted.
Beat until the dough is smooth and creamy; this takes but a moment.
Grease the tins and only fill them half with the batter.
Place in hot oven 400 degrees F. Bake 25 Min.

Blackberry Tea

Pick the blackberry leaves and dry them. When you want to make tea, just crumble a couple of teaspoons of leaves to one cup of boiling water. Steep for five to ten minutes, and you have blackberry tea.

Dinner:

Meatless Loaf

1 cup rice
1 cup peanuts crushed
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients together.
Bake in a loaf pan, for 30 minutes, or until loaf is good and set.

Scalloped Corn

1 can corn
3 eggs
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups sweet milk
1/2 cup soda cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Beat eggs separately, put 1 teaspoon of butter in baking dish and 2 tablespoons butter melted butter into cracker crumbs. Add yokes of eggs, milk, salt and sugar to corn, fold in whites of eggs. Bake in casserole dish for fifty minutes in moderate oven.

Dessert:

Candied Orange Peel

4 oranges, peeled
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
8 drops oil of peppermint
1/2 cup cinnamon candies

Cut orange peel into thin strips with scissors.
Put in a saucepan, cover with cold water and let come to a boil.
Drain, cover again with cold water and bring to a boil again.
Drain; Add sugar and water.
Bring to a boil; Add cinnamon candies, continue to cook slowly until all but one tablespoon of syrup has boiled away.
Dredge in sugar.

(My kids are adults now….and every Christmas my son still begs for this candy!)


Day 2

Breakfast:

Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast

Makes a white sauce with butter melted in the bottom of the pan. Turn off the heat and add flour until it is a thick paste. Slowly add milk, whisking constantly to keep smooth. Add enough milk to dilute to the consistency you want. Slice on package of chipped beef and add to the white sauce. Turn the heat back on and warm though.

Serve over toast

Lunch:

Depression Salad

1 can yellow hominy, drained
1 can black eyed peas, drained
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, diced
1/4 cup cooking oil, optional
1/4 cup vinegar salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the above ingredients together and serve hot or cold.

Dinner

POOR Man's Casserole

1 small head of cabbage
2 large potatoes
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 pounds of hamburger
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 stick butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon salt, more or less.
Depending on taste pepper to taste
Dash of paprika

Cut cabbage into cubes, salt and pepper to taste and cook until well done.
Drain. Peel and quarter potatoes. Salt and cook until well done.
Drain and mash potatoes with butter but make sure the mash potatoes are on the dry side.
Place hamburger in large skillet, add onion and cook until well done.
Drain off all the fat. Stir in the cumin. Line baking dish at least 3" inch deep with cabbage.
Place the meat mixture on top of cabbage.
Cover the top with the mash potatoes, sprinkle with paprika.
Bake for 25 minutes at 350/o. makes 4 large servings.
In the casserole you had your whole meal.

Wilted lettuce
1 large bowl of fresh clean garden picked lettuce pieces
8 slices of bacon fried and crumbled. (More if you like)
1 small onion diced small
3 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons sugar

Break lettuces into a large bowl and salt and pepper.
Add remaining ingredients to bacon fat in frying pan. (Use not more than 4 tablespoons of the bacon fat)
Bring this to a boil stirring constantly, pour over the lettuce, and toss lightly with salad fork and spoon until the lettuce is wilted.

Poor Man's Bread

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Water
Stir in enough water to make a batter and pour into greased skillet. (Use a cast iron skillet.)
Fry until brown on each side like a pancake.
Tastes great with homemade butter and jam.

Dessert:

ScrewdoodlesRoll

A piece of bread dough into a 8" rope, twist, fold in half and pinch ends. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. (This was always my favorite part of the meal!)

Three Sisters Gardening

In late spring, we plant the corn and beans and squash. They're not just plants- we call them the three sisters. We plant them together, three kinds of seeds in one hole. They want to be together with each other, just as we Indians want to be together with each other. So long as the three sisters are with us we know we will never starve. The Creator sends them to us each year. We celebrate them now. We thank Him for the gift He gives us today and every day.
Chief Louis Farmer (Onondaga)

For more years than the people have counted, the Three Sisters, have been planted together. These three plants were the vegetable base for native diets, they provided balance. When the Staving moons were here, and meat was scarce it saved many from death. Many eastern seaboard tribes have claimed the origination of this planting method. The Haudenosaunee (hah-dee-no-show-nee), or "People of the Long house" are just one of many.

These three plants were so important in the lives of the Native American that many rituals revolved around them. Among the Cherokee they were: In late June or July was the Green Corn Ceremony, the dates scheduled for the celebration depended upon the time the first corn ripened. It was performed when the new corn was ripe enough to eat. New corn was not to be eaten until after the ceremony took place. In August or September came the Ripe Corn Ceremony, it celebrated the maturing of the corn crop and is one of the few ancient ceremonies to last into the 21st century

Myths among the people also reflected this importance of these three plants, especially corn. Among the Cherokee there is the story of Kanati and Selu (corn). Among the Sioux we find the myth of The Forgotten Ear of Corn and The Hermit, The Origin of Corn. Among the Abenaki we find The Strange Origin of Corn.

The traditional Three Sisters garden forms an ecosystem by creating a community of plants and animals. This system creates a beneficial relationship between the three plants- each plant helps the others grow. This is a form of companion planting. Corn provides support for beans. Beans, like other legumes, have bacteria living on their roots that help them absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use. (Corn, which requires a lot of nitrogen to grow, benefits most.) The large, prickly squash leaves shade the soil, preventing weed growth, and deter animal pests. The three sisters also complement each other nutritionally.

To plant the Three Sisters wait until the soil warms in spring. Make a mound of dirt about one foot high and two foot in diameter. In the center of the mound plant 5 or 6 corn kernels, tamp down the ground well. Space the mound approximately 4 feet apart, remember you will be dodging squash vines to cultivate and harvest.

When the corn sprouts and reaches about 5 or 6 inches high it is time to plant the bean seeds, make sure they are the climbing variety. You will want to plant 6 to eight of them around the top of the mound. You do not have to plant just green beans, grow some kidney beans, or pinto beans if you like.

About 1 week later, after the beans emerge from the ground, plant the squash seeds on the flat ground around each mound. You can plant all the way around or choose to plant just two opposite sides of the mound, to possibly control some of the rambeling that the vines do. If you plant all the way around 6 to 8 plants are sufficient. If just on opposing sides then 2 or 3 per side is fine. Also consider planting diferent types of squash to make a more varied diet.

Good companions to plant either interspersed thoughout the garden or making a border around the Three Sisters are: Marigolds, to keep bean beetles away; Sage, to encourage bees; Nasturiam, to discourage squash borers; Catnip, to discourage been beetles; Summer Savory, discourages the Mexican bean beetles; Dill, French Tarragon and Basil lure bees.

To keep up tradition, plant more than you plan to consume…..first for the wild critters…..seconly, considering todays economic situation, it will give you produce to share with family, friends, less fortunate people or food banks.

Disaster Preparedness - Clean Drinking Water in Any Situation

Whether you have a natural disaster, like an earthquake or hurricane, or just need to be sure the water you consume is clean when hiking, it is important to know how to find and purify water for safe consumption.

After a natural disaster that threatens the water you drink there are several sources readily available to you that were safe before the problem arose, and if you can reach them are most likely still safe and clean. Every home in modern America has a hot water heater….this water is safely contained and housed from contamination and may still be used safely. You also have within your home toilets that have reserve tanks, this water stands a good chance of still being clean if the tank is not breached. Also check your freezer…ice cubes are a good source of water.

A very good idea is water storage. Putting water in clean, hard plastic bottles for future use is excellent planning. You can use any container that once held drinkable liquids, do not use bottle that held bleach or other household chemicals! Also one note on bottles…although gallon milk jugs with screw caps work, you will find that the seams on the bottle do not hold up well. Water can be stored for up to a year safely. The main complaint is that the water tastes “flat”, this is due to the oxygen slowly leaving the water, so just re-oxygenate it by pouring it from one container to another before consumption.

How much water should you plan on storing you might ask…. A normal active adult should drink at least 1/2 gallon of water per day. Additional water is needed for brushing teeth, bathing, cleaning cooking utensils, and also for cooking food in. Store as much water as you have space for, but a three days supply is considered to be a minimum amount. Do not forget your companion animals when planning amounts of water to store…..if you do not plan on their consumption then you will go through water faster than you imagined.

If your water storage gets ruined in a disaster or you are hiking and run out of potable water, the need arises to obtain clean water for survival. If the water you find is cloudy you need to filter it before anything else……there are ways to do it with next to nothing available. Take a funnel, if you have one, or make one from an old 2 liter soda bottle or a rolled leaf into a cone shape (large, waxy leaves like those of the Southern Magnolia work well). Place the funnel into a collecting container. Inside the funnel place a rolled up white sock, pour the water slowly over the sock (a white sock allows you to see when the sock gets dirty and needs to be replaced).
Next take the filtered water and boil it for 10 minutes. This kills many of the bacteria found in water. If bleach is available you can then add it to the water to finish the cleaning process. Bleach must be the type that says on the label that is contains 5.25% hypochlorite. You then take an eye dropper and add it in the amount of 8 drops per gallon of clear water and 16 drops per gallon of cloudy water. For 5 gallons you use ½ tsp for clear water and 1 tsp for cloudy water. Let this stand for 10 minutes before consuming.

For additional information call the EPA - Safe Water Hotline (800) 426-4791.

Disaster Preparedness - Food Storage

Many people 'put by' food, either in the fall after harvest and canning, or when things are on sale at the grocery. There are still others who make it a habit to have extra food on hand at all times, the Mormons have a policy of having 1 years food supply for all members of the family at all times, many survivalists do also.

There are some issues with doing this....knowing proper, safe methods of storage, and proper rotation, so that everything stays as fresh as possible.

Following are some suggestions for your stores list:

Food Supplies – rotate every 6 months

BEVERAGES
· Milk - Dehydrated or Evaporated
· Soda
· Coffee, teas, instant cocoa - remember, drinks with caffeine in them will move water through your body faster, so you might consider storing 1/2 again as much water.
· Powdered Beverages as desired - Don't forget, these will require extra stored water to make.
· Fruit, tomato and vegetable juices
· Sport drinks, such as Gatorade

Grain Products
· Multi-packages of individual serving breakfast cereal
· Instant HOT cereal in the paper packages
· Pancake mix - get the type that requires water only
· Bread - store in freezer
· Pasta
· Flour
· Corn meal
· Soda Crackers
· Rice

Protein Sources
· Canned Meat: bacon, spam, sausages, meat spreads, chile con carne, beef stew.
· Canned Poultry; chicken, turkey
· Canned Fish: tuna, salmon, sardines
· Cheeses: hard wax wrapped cheese lasts longer
· Dried Eggs

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
· Canned berries
· Canned pears, peaches, apricots, plums
· Canned citrus fruits
· Canned vegetables
· Dry peas
· Instant mashed potatoes
· Dry packaged beans

STAPLES
· Salt
· Sugar
· Cooking oil
· Shortening
· Baking Soda
· Honey

SEASONINGS AND SPICES
Include seasonings appropriate for the meals you choose to store. Spicy foods increase the consumption of fluids

SNACKS AND OTHER FOODS
· Nuts
· Peanut butter
· Hard Candy
· Dried fruit
· Jerky
· Dry soup mix
· Canned soup

Disaster Preparedness

Here on the east coast of North America we are headed into hurrican season, in California it is Earthquake season all the time, and in the center of the country it seems to be severe flood season right now. If a disaster, natural or manmade, were to strike right now do you have a clue how to be ready and how to survive?

If your answer was no....then read on. The surest way to survive any unknown situation is to be prepared. To be prepared takes planning and time. I want to survive, my family and pets with me. So I have taken time to think things through, and have sought out advice from the Red Cross, FEMA, and anywhere else I could find reliable information. I plan to share some of this information in the next several posts with you. I hope it helps.

The first thing I did was to prepare an emergency kit for in the car, if someone gets stranded in a winter blizzard they can survive with this kit. (or any other unforseen issue that makes getting back to safety a problem)

HERE IS A LIST OF ITEMS WHICH SHOULD BE KEPT IN YOUR CAR'S MOBILE SURVIVAL KIT:
· Nylon Carrying Bag or Day Pack (I used a backpack and everything is in it)
· Bottled Water
· Non-perishable Food-Candy Bars, Dried Fruits, Jerky, Cookies, Crackers, Etc.
· Can Opener (if needed for the food packed)
· Transistor Radio and Extra Batteries (or a wind-up style)
· Flashlight and Extra Batteries (or a wind-up style)
· First Aid Kit
· Routine Medications - Aspirin, Tylenol, Cold Tablets, Etc.
· Gloves
· Essential Medication-Extra Prescription Medications
· Blanket, Sleeping Bags, Space Blanket
· Sealable Plastic Bags
· Pre-moistened Towelettes
· Small Tool Kit
· Matches,Lighter, and Candle
· Chemical Light Sticks
· Walking Shoes and Extra Socks
· Change of Clothes
· Jacket
· Entertainment Pack - Family Photos, Notebooks, Reading Material and Games
· Cash (Small Denominations and Coins)

There may be other things you think of that are necessary for your personal needs, add them also.

REMEMBER: You could be stranded for up to 72 hours. Make sure that you have enough supplies to meet your needs