Potential Turnip Winter.

[Trig.Point]

I'm an apartment dweller (and I rent at that), stockpiling large amounts in my home simply isn't an option for me (though I have looked at storing some low value items at different locations).

Something I would like to prepare for is a scenario where there is a shortage of key food groups such as proteins and fats. A situation such as a 'turnip winter' which has occurred throughout history, in that a government is able to secure sources of raw calories (ie turnips or some other dense vegtable) but isn't able to supply enough nutrients. Like happened in Holland at the end of WWII, or off an on in Venezuela over the last decade.

So I'm thinking shelf stable oils, tinned meats, vitamin pills, that sort of thing. Rather than just a weeks worth of food, a supply that could balance out a tough diet for maybe a year.

Apologies if this has already been covered, it's just something I've been mulling over before I start cleaning out the cupboard.

[GillyBee]

Hi Trig.
We also rent and have 4 adults in a 2 bed maisonette so I feel your pain. Thankfully we have garden and loft space which helps a lot but is not suitable for food storage. I find dehydrated food is the most compact and can be bought online if you don't want or have room for a dehydrator.
I would suggest starting with some shelf stable recipes for a full meal and multiplying each up to make 7 days portions. Do that with another meal recipe to add another week of stored food. Make sure you LIKE your recipes and use them all regularly to keep the stock rotating through rather than leaving it alone for decades.
Some examples to get you started might be a curry and rice using rice and a tinned curry if you like the the canned versions. Or you can make a dried spice mix, add dried onions, tomato powder or pasatta and a protein of your choice - canned/dried beans or tinned beef for example. Canned salmon & instant mash plus herbs will give you salmon fishcakes.
Veg oil in a bottle is good for a year or two. The solid oils like ghee or coconut oil tend to last longer but a 25 year stash may not be realistic.
The vitamin pills are a very good idea. GPs are now reporting seeing people with scurvy and rickets due to being unable to afford nutritious food so they are just eating nutrient free calories

[diamond lil]

https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/d ... mixed.html

Two or three handfuls makes a very nice pot of soup and the stuff keeps practically forever. Good site that, have a look around it.

[jennyjj01]

Something I would like to prepare for is a scenario where there is a shortage of key food groups such as proteins and fats. A situation such as a 'turnip winter' which has occurred throughout history, in that a government is able to secure sources of raw calories (ie turnips or some other dense vegtable) but isn't able to supply enough nutrients. Like happened in Holland at the end of WWII, or off an on in Venezuela over the last decade.

So I'm thinking shelf stable oils, tinned meats, vitamin pills, that sort of thing. Rather than just a weeks worth of food, a supply that could balance out a tough diet for maybe a year.

Hi. You raise good points. I see an analogy with the storage of water. Absolute essential in quantity,, but likely to be available....
Anyway. Back to topic,.. you/we need to get max bang for our buck. I started my prep with a big sheet listing the calories and other qualities needed like protein and flavour etc per kilo and per £pound spent. So, for instance got masses of rice, pasta and mash and oil for ideal calories. Then canned fish and corned beef for proteins. Then lots of tomato based stuff to make it into meals. Finally augment with niceties like tea and milk. Thus I get max value for money and best use of space. Then continue to review the balance.
Water is another topic altogether.

[Vitamin c]

Pasta and rice both last almost forever, must be stored in a stable environment ie not yo cold or hot.
Dry chickpeas, peas,beans ,lentils all good for storage plus high protein and then flavours, herbs ,spices.
Fats long term is not so easy so cheap tinned meat that will contain fat , hot dogs , corn beef , fish in oil sardines is my go to .

The world won't end tomorrow so buy a bit of something try it could you eat it for months if yes then bulk buy.

[jansman]

My youngest and her chap live in a rental. They have a landlord who is a total W****r who doesn’t understand maintaining a house is a good idea…I’ll leave it there. They are looking for elsewhere- they were granted a mortgage and then it was taken away, ‘cos they made a mistake!!! That’s the financial ***industry*** for you. Again,I won’t go on.

Being the daughter of a prepper though,she has a fair stash of foods,consumables etc. Basically what we all store. When she moved in she had cupboards aplenty. However,she is on the verge of getting out of there,so carriage of goods and such are an issue. We all know that 3 dozen tins of baked beans take some moving! So before I packed up work,I got many,many 3 gallon ( square) lidded bakery buckets. Also some 5 gallon lidded barrels from our local Indian restaurant. Everything for prepping is now in those,well labelled and dated. When they move ,they can just whack them in the van. She is very practical and likened to me quite often!

Sadly the scumbag financial system has knackered her potential house purchase. Now she is insisting that they ‘down’ their possessions so they can deal with volatile house rental. She is also putting in a formal complaint about the scum financiers. That’s my girl!

Main thing though,they have preps.

[steptoe]

https://www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk/d ... mixed.html

Two or three handfuls makes a very nice pot of soup and the stuff keeps practically forever. Good site that, have a look around it.

Well i must say yet another great place , thank you lil , we do a lot of dehydrating and so on but we use to use i think their name was natures foods in northampton but thye got so over priced when the veggie gang found out about them we could not buy there , the site you have put up looks great and i am making a list of use to buy necxt month funds permitting , i can then pack them in my vacuum system with oxygen and moisture absobers and get even longer storage times and like you say throw a few handfuls in a big pot with a few bits of meat say you got a nice stew or thicken that up and have a huge blob of mash and this on the plate , i am doing a chicken stew tonight lol how easy for my wife to have this dried stuff and not have to chop , i do al lthe cooking as she struggles with grip but this means she can throw in a pan and well thanks for the tip off

[diamond lil]

Their dried fruit is nice too steptoe I compared it with Sainsbugs and it's def healthier looking.

[Trig.Point]

My intention is to prepare for a situation where there is food but it's of poor quality and lacks key nutritional components. There are several examples of that happening in the last 100 years.

So what I've allowed myself is a single 12"x9"x6" box. It's cardboard so I'm waterproofing it inside and out. I was orginally going to get bottled oils, but they only have a two year shelf life so decided to take 'Vitamin C's' advice to get my fats inside the tin, and went with canned fish, 8 tins of sardines, but because I want to be able to portion carefully I also went with 6 tins of anchovies. All in Oil.

Then I fit in a 500g bag of caster sugar, billingtons because it was in a strong plastic bag and a bottle of multivitamins.

There's still space for a bit more, so I'll probably squeeze in more tins of fish (which incidentally I can't stand).

Currently the box has I'd estimate less than 5000 calories, but if I'm in an environment where it's turnips or some other root vegetable 3 times a day, with careful rationing it might ward of the effects of protein/fat deficiency for a few months.

Any thoughts?

[Ara]

Trig
If you really can't stand tinned fish there is no point in even looking at it. You will still hate it if it's the only thing left to eat!