We are approaching the hungry gap....

[British Red]

Many cultures developed a flat bread, heavy/filling and uncomplicated to make.

I enjoy flatbread - risen is easy too with sourdough starter or living yeast. I just wish I had a simpler way of grinding wheat in the long term.

[jennyjj01]

I force new potatoes and reckon on the first boiling by Whitsun. In our ‘just in time’ world,the Hungry Gap is not ( at the moment) an issue. In fact,most folks wouldn’t understand that term.Of course there are always tinned and dried potatoes to cover the gap twixt Spring and the first earlies.

These days of course, carbohydrates come in less ‘British’ ways ,if you get my drift. Rice and pasta is a modern equivalent. Indeed ,we carry 6 months supply of both.

When you say "we carry 6 months supply of both." do you mean 'We' as a nation, or 'We' as in 'Mr & Mrs Jansman'?

The hunger gap is something we in the West have pretty much forgotten about. but as preppers, we are right to revisit it. The reason it's forgotten is that it's been defeated by peace, international trade and international industrial agriculture and for some war torn countries by international aid. We tend to see rice, pasta, wheat, soya and potatoes as the absolute last things we will be short of. And in our lifetimes that has always been true. Do we, or should we prep for a world without international food trade? Surely an apocalyptic situation.

We can't grow our own pasta (OK Wheat) down on our allotment, nor rice, nor soya nor oats. We can do some spuds and parsnips and greens. It wouldn't take much to render our industrially home grown produce useless. It already hasn't taken much to cut us off from Russian and Ukrainian wheat.

If you ever saw Greg Wallace on his visits to UK food factories, like McVities, you would get a sense of how easily it could get a spanner (or bomb) in the works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckjpg6pR0WY
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/ ... he-factory

We are already seeing this in Ukraine which has plentiful wheat, but blockades and closed ports renders it lost to it's people and lost to all of us. Let's face it, Starvation in the civilised West is just unthinkable, except by we crazy preppers.

Heaven forbid if we ever need to prepare to live off what we can grow in our own gardens and allotments. For now, we just try to keep the skills alive while our peers take deliveroo and groceries for granted.

[British Red]

Heaven forbid if we ever need to prepare to live off what we can grow in our own gardens and allotments. For now, we just try to keep the skills alive while our peers take deliveroo and groceries for granted.

This is very much where our focus lies. As we've seen recently, we are not self sufficient in diesel or fertiliser. We are definitely not self sufficient in food. We have a negative balance of payments and spiralling debt that we have no hope or repaying. It's far from a remote possibility that we will have to exist on our own resources - so that's what we are trying to learn. Of course some measure of storage provides a buffer - but that's all it is, a means to buy time to transition to a different way of living. But, in our plan at least, we need to know HOW to live that way. An example is blight. We had it last year because the field adjoining ours was planted to potatoes. They were chemically sprayed repeatedly and it still got them. In a world where there are no sprayers or sprays, a reliance on potatoes is a recipe to recreate the Irish potato famine. For this reason we are trying to diversify and understand the pros and cons of other carbohydrates - grains, parsnips, Jerusalem Artichokes, Oca etc. I know it's not the way everyone preps, but it makes sense to us.

[korolev]

I force new potatoes and reckon on the first boiling by Whitsun

What do you mean by "force" ? Do you threaten them with unspeakable violence ?

[jennyjj01]

This is very much where our focus lies....
For this reason we are trying to diversify and understand the pros and cons of other carbohydrates - grains, parsnips, Jerusalem Artichokes, Oca etc. I know it's not the way everyone preps, but it makes sense to us.

I've checked the rules and while I understand the moderators here perhaps not wanting links out to monetized sites, I discovered that British Red has a very on topic and original content and useful website and Youtube Channel.

Kudos to British Red for not spamming this site with outlinks, but I urge Jansman or another moderator to give a shoutout to BR's site. Or maybe to permit me to do so.

*deleted as it's referring to a monetised site, which we don't allow*

[British Red]

Thanks for those kind words Jenny

For us self reliance is a lifestyle, not a preparation for the future - but the overlaps are enormous, from preserving eggs to seed saving

I quite understand that no-one wants people directed off the site to other places so very happy to refrain from posting links ( although I must admit there are times where it's easier to explain a topic in a detailed video or downloadable recipe). Anyway thank you for the lovely sentiment.

[jansman]

This is very much where our focus lies....
For this reason we are trying to diversify and understand the pros and cons of other carbohydrates - grains, parsnips, Jerusalem Artichokes, Oca etc. I know it's not the way everyone preps, but it makes sense to us.

I've checked the rules and while I understand the moderators here perhaps not wanting links out to monetized sites, I discovered that British Red has a very on topic and original content and useful website and Youtube Channel.

Kudos to British Red for not spamming this site with outlinks, but I urge Jansman or another moderator to give a shoutout to BR's site. Or maybe to permit me to do so.

* deleted as it's referring to a monetised site, which we do not allow*

There’s reasoning behind monetised links not being accepted. However, I would suggest anyone interested in the link mentioned sends a private message to British Red for the link, which can then be bookmarked, subscribed or what not. Job done.

[jansman]

I force new potatoes and reckon on the first boiling by Whitsun. In our ‘just in time’ world,the Hungry Gap is not ( at the moment) an issue. In fact,most folks wouldn’t understand that term.Of course there are always tinned and dried potatoes to cover the gap twixt Spring and the first earlies.

These days of course, carbohydrates come in less ‘British’ ways ,if you get my drift. Rice and pasta is a modern equivalent. Indeed ,we carry 6 months supply of both.

When you say "we carry 6 months supply of both." do you mean 'We' as a nation, or 'We' as in 'Mr & Mrs Jansman'?

The hunger gap is something we in the West have pretty much forgotten about. but as preppers, we are right to revisit it. The reason it's forgotten is that it's been defeated by peace, international trade and international industrial agriculture and for some war torn countries by international aid. We tend to see rice, pasta, wheat, soya and potatoes as the absolute last things we will be short of. And in our lifetimes that has always been true. Do we, or should we prep for a world without international food trade? Surely an apocalyptic situation.

We can't grow our own pasta (OK Wheat) down on our allotment, nor rice, nor soya nor oats. We can do some spuds and parsnips and greens. It wouldn't take much to render our industrially home grown produce useless. It already hasn't taken much to cut us off from Russian and Ukrainian wheat.

If you ever saw Greg Wallace on his visits to UK food factories, like McVities, you would get a sense of how easily it could get a spanner (or bomb) in the works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckjpg6pR0WY
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/ ... he-factory

We are already seeing this in Ukraine which has plentiful wheat, but blockades and closed ports renders it lost to it's people and lost to all of us. Let's face it, Starvation in the civilised West is just unthinkable, except by we crazy preppers.

Heaven forbid if we ever need to prepare to live off what we can grow in our own gardens and allotments. For now, we just try to keep the skills alive while our peers take deliveroo and groceries for granted.

Me and the boss! We have 6 months of carbohydrates. I usually grow enough spuds to keep us going from Whitsun to January- just. Parsnips are in there too, along with a lot of Jerusalem artichokes, ( they make a superb Summer screen twixt the neighbour and us) and the yield is huge. I also grow Winter squash; Spaghetti Marrows. One and a half dozen as a rule, and they keep. We ate the last one yesterday.

It’s true that stored food is just a buffer for the transition to another way , but I am glad we have it, and another way.

[jansman]

I force new potatoes and reckon on the first boiling by Whitsun

What do you mean by "force" ? Do you threaten them with unspeakable violence ?

I plant them in pots , an hour ago actually, and put them in a cold frame inside the poly tunnel. I am a week or two late to be honest. Other pots will be sown tomorrow and placed in the tunnel itself. Main crop will go into the ground around Easter.

[itsybitsy]

I've checked the rules and while I understand the moderators here perhaps not wanting links out to monetized sites, I discovered that British Red has a very on topic and original content and useful website and Youtube Channel.

Kudos to British Red for not spamming this site with outlinks, but I urge Jansman or another moderator to give a shoutout to BR's site. Or maybe to permit me to do so.

*SIGH*

Advertising is not allowed. Other members have not had the privilege of posting links to monetised sites, even when they have asked beforehand. We don't make exceptions.

And please stop trying to circumvent the rules of the site. They are in place for a reason.