So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

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dlbww
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Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by dlbww »

Rachael wrote:I don't think ramen noodles are very nutritious either, but they taste good and are cheap. Old dried beans (>1y/o) will not cook right. The outer layers disintegrate in to mush, and they stay crunchy on the inside. Canned are better if stored for a while.
I think those beans would be fine if cooked in a pressure cooker, which BTW is a good investment IMO. They may have lost some nutritional value but FWIW the Jews during the siege in 70 AD according to Josephus were eating pigeon dung and paying a hefty price for it.

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Robin Hood
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Location: England

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by Robin Hood »

I recommend British military rations.
They have a shelf-life of at least 25 years, are ready to eat hot or cold, require no added water, include things like chicken curry, lamb casserole, beef stew etc, as well as breakfast cereal and snacks (including chocolate); all vacuum packed. One days ration contains 4,000 calories.

Apparently, during the Gulf War they became so sought after that American troops were swapping all sorts of things (digital cameras etc) for them.
I'm just about to order 200 of them.

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JK4Woods
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Posts: 2507

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by JK4Woods »

Robin Hood wrote:I recommend British military rations.
They have a shelf-life of at least 25 years, are ready to eat hot or cold, require no added water, include things like chicken curry, lamb casserole, beef stew etc, as well as breakfast cereal and snacks (including chocolate); all vacuum packed. One days ration contains 4,000 calories.

Apparently, during the Gulf War they became so sought after that American troops were swapping all sorts of things (digital cameras etc) for them.
I'm just about to order 200 of them.
Where can an order be placed here in the states?

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HorribleUsername
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Posts: 91

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by HorribleUsername »

It sounded good until I read this from MRE Info:

Features of the 24-Hour operational ration pack are:

An individual ration for normal use in the field.
Ration is designed to feed one person for one day.
It has been designed to provide a balanced nutritional diet.
Can be eaten hot or cold.
ORP provides an average of 3800-4200 Kcal per ration.
Ration is 10% protein, no more than 35% fat, 55% carbohydrate.
Continuous consumption up to 15 days, ideally no longer than 30 days due to nutritional qualities.
7 Menus consisting of Breakfast, Snack, Main Meal, Beverages, Sundries (matches, tissues etc)
Hot meals in flexible foil pouches.
Rations packed in waterproof outer cardboard boxes.
All ORPs have a shelf life of at least 3 years.
Presently, up to 2.5 million rations produced annually.
British military ORPs are packed in a production line within HM (Her Majesty?s) Naval base at Portsmouth, England, UK.

braingrunt
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Posts: 2042

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by braingrunt »

I'd still get some; MRE's of any sort cannot make up my food storage. For me, nutrition is one consideration, but then there's cost. A years supply of mres is so far out of my budget I can't even begin to think about them.

But, I'd happily put them into a 72hr kit, and I wouldn't mind getting a few to supplement the years supply with a bit of joy, maybe once a week or something.

brianj
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4066
Location: Vineyard, Utah

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by brianj »

My 72 hour kit includes one MRE and two freeze dried meals per day. Even four freeze dried meals per day would not provide sufficient energy, and three MREs would be way too many calories unless you are working hard. If you want to buy American MREs the Sure-Pak 12 by Sopakco are the closest civilian packs to military MREs that I have found, you can buy them with flameless ration heaters, and the last few cases I came with had sensors on them to let you know when they are getting too old.

US MREs are decent, but a lot of other countries have very good rations. Unfortunately some countries like Italy and Australia don't allow their MREs to be sold to the public and rations from other countries such as France and the UK are either hard to find online or expensive.

lost ark
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Posts: 257

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by lost ark »

Rachael wrote:I don't think ramen noodles are very nutritious either, but they taste good and are cheap. Old dried beans (>1y/o) will not cook right. The outer layers disintegrate in to mush, and they stay crunchy on the inside. Canned are better if stored for a while.
Dry beans must be stored properly. Many people, of the very few who actually bother to store food, just put it in the garage. If people store their food in the garage, of course beans are going to get hard, milk is going to taste nasty, and oils are going to go rancid. Sugar, honey, and salt can go in a hot garage. Everything else needs to be kept cool, dry, and dark.

I have yet to experience any problems with beans that we have stored for several years. It helps that we are pretty good about rotating, but still, even with 10-yr-old beans (before I became better about rotating) they cooked up fine with a pressure cooker/canner.

Other steps to take if your beans won't soften:
1. Put cooked beans that refuse to soften in the freezer. The water in the beans will freeze and thus break the cell walls of the beans, and the beans will soften.

2. Grind old beans into flour and use it to thicken soups.

3. Add some baking soda to the cooking water.

4. Do not add tomatoes to beans until the beans are completely soft. The acid in the tomatoes hinders the softening of the beans.

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Robin Hood
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Location: England

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by Robin Hood »

HorribleUsername wrote:It sounded good until I read this from MRE Info:

Features of the 24-Hour operational ration pack are:

An individual ration for normal use in the field.
Ration is designed to feed one person for one day.
It has been designed to provide a balanced nutritional diet.
Can be eaten hot or cold.
ORP provides an average of 3800-4200 Kcal per ration.
Ration is 10% protein, no more than 35% fat, 55% carbohydrate.
Continuous consumption up to 15 days, ideally no longer than 30 days due to nutritional qualities.
7 Menus consisting of Breakfast, Snack, Main Meal, Beverages, Sundries (matches, tissues etc)
Hot meals in flexible foil pouches.
Rations packed in waterproof outer cardboard boxes.
All ORPs have a shelf life of at least 3 years.
Presently, up to 2.5 million rations produced annually.
British military ORPs are packed in a production line within HM (Her Majesty?s) Naval base at Portsmouth, England, UK.
Just supplement with multi-vitamins/minerals.

Spaced_Out
captain of 1,000
Posts: 1795

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by Spaced_Out »

Some in the prepper fraternity are going nuts over the upcoming US election. There are many feeling/thinking the big rotten paw paw is hitting the fan.

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I’m not the only blogger out here in Bloggerland who thinks all hell will break loose regardless of who becomes presidents.

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And from the more liberal side of the unrest coin, an essayist for Cracked.com still comes to a similar conclusion. “Over the last few weeks a growing number of people have started wondering, “Is it possible the United States is heading for a new civil war?”…Every time I wanted to dismiss those headlines I thought about my visit to Ukraine last year, to cover their ongoing civil war. The most common sentence I heard was, “It’s like a bad dream.” Up to the minute the shooting started, almost no one thought civil war was a serious possibility.”
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Image

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HorribleUsername
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Posts: 91

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by HorribleUsername »

Robin Hood wrote:
HorribleUsername wrote:It sounded good until I read this from MRE Info:

Features of the 24-Hour operational ration pack are:

An individual ration for normal use in the field.
Ration is designed to feed one person for one day.
It has been designed to provide a balanced nutritional diet.
Can be eaten hot or cold.
ORP provides an average of 3800-4200 Kcal per ration.
Ration is 10% protein, no more than 35% fat, 55% carbohydrate.
Continuous consumption up to 15 days, ideally no longer than 30 days due to nutritional qualities.
7 Menus consisting of Breakfast, Snack, Main Meal, Beverages, Sundries (matches, tissues etc)
Hot meals in flexible foil pouches.
Rations packed in waterproof outer cardboard boxes.
All ORPs have a shelf life of at least 3 years.
Presently, up to 2.5 million rations produced annually.
British military ORPs are packed in a production line within HM (Her Majesty?s) Naval base at Portsmouth, England, UK.
Just supplement with multi-vitamins/minerals.
Absolutely, one could supplement with multi-vitamins/minerals. I hastily posted the above, without really finishing my thought. My apologies. I was focused on the MRE's as the only source of calories. They would be great to change up the monotony of just rice, beans and oats. We decided to go with this to help spice up the hard times, when they come:
0040630382809_A.jpg
0040630382809_A.jpg (197.42 KiB) Viewed 4954 times
From the manufacturer:

Thirty days of easy to prepare, home-cooked style foods that taste so good, you'll want to try these recipes now rather than wait for the next emergency. Water filter and fire starter are included to help get your cooking going.

About this item:

Food for 1 person for 30 days
307 total servings
54,670 total calories
1,822 average calories per day
(1) 7-gallon pail with mylar food pouches
Fire starter disk and water bottle with filter system

The food in this bucket actually tastes good. I was surprised. We have rice, beans, quick oats, flour, canned chicken, canned beef, salt, sugar, canned fruit, dried fruit, ravioli, chili, spaghettios, refried beans, honey, pancake syrup, dried milk, spices and the terrible ramen noodles (some of my children are quite picky, so I think some of the things we have will help them get through the initial shock).We also have 400 gals. of fresh water. We have enough for our family, twice, so we will be able to help others, if needed. We have other necessities, as well.

I do believe that variety will help out a bunch. Especially when we can't go to our favorite restaurants.

Have a fantastic day on that side of the pond, Robin Hood. :ymhug:

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Robin Hood
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Posts: 13112
Location: England

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by Robin Hood »

I agree about variety.
The bucket looks like a very good idea.
I am working on the assumption that cooking food could be difficult, and that water could be contaminated. Therefore, I am avoiding too much dry or dehydrated food as I think we may need to ration water for drinking only.
We do have some dry rice, pasta etc, but we also have quite a lot of tinned food (you guys call it "canned") for this reason.
So we have a lot of tinned:
Baked beans (I think you call it "pork and beans" - only we don't have the pork fat in ours)
Tuna
Corned beef
Mackerel
Fruit (peaches, apricots, pears, apple, strawberries, grapefruit etc)
Vegetables (carrots, corn, peas, green beans, potatoes etc)
Pre-cooked rice (Uncle Ben's)
Evaporated milk
Rice pudding

All of this can be heated, but can also be eaten cold straight out of the tin if necessary.

You have a fantastic day too over there in the colonies. ;)

freedomforall
Gnolaum ∞
Posts: 16479
Location: WEST OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by freedomforall »

Robin Hood wrote:I agree about variety.
The bucket looks like a very good idea.
I am working on the assumption that cooking food could be difficult, and that water could be contaminated. Therefore, I am avoiding too much dry or dehydrated food as I think we may need to ration water for drinking only.
We do have some dry rice, pasta etc, but we also have quite a lot of tinned food (you guys call it "canned") for this reason.
So we have a lot of tinned:
Baked beans (I think you call it "pork and beans" - only we don't have the pork fat in ours)
Tuna
Corned beef
Mackerel
Fruit (peaches, apricots, pears, apple, strawberries, grapefruit etc)
Vegetables (carrots, corn, peas, green beans, potatoes etc)
Pre-cooked rice (Uncle Ben's)
Evaporated milk
Rice pudding

All of this can be heated, but can also be eaten cold straight out of the tin if necessary.

You have a fantastic day too over there in the colonies. ;)
Ideally it is a good idea to have 1 gallon of water per person in the family, per day, for one year.
Cruddy water can be purified by many means. Here is a website showing various filters, I use Sawyer. And something to look for is a filter that not only filters out dirt and slime, etc, is one that will filter out bacteria and toxic chemicals.
And: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6sDGA8X6k" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway, check different sources, you may be pleasantly pleased.

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gclayjr
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Posts: 2727
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by gclayjr »

RobinHood,
Just supplement with multi-vitamins/minerals.
Maybe people don't understand the purpose of either field rations or a 72 hour kit. These are not for ideal conditions. They are pretty good solutions to nourishment for difficult situations. None of us eat these every day during good times when you can just go to the supermarket and get whatever you want

By the way, I have some American MREs for my 72 hour kit, but I haven't eaten enough of them to appreciate how delicious they are or are not.

However, when I was in the Marines, I had the opportunity to eat a lot of C-rations and K-rations. I suppose MREs might be a bit better than those. Probably prepared differently too. Does anybody today, make a nipple out of piece of c-4 and light it off in order to cook it. Does anybody today even know what c-4 is?

Regards,

George Clay

EmmaLee
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Posts: 10884

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by EmmaLee »

We just bought this very thing - one for each of our kids away at college.
HorribleUsername wrote:Thirty days of easy to prepare, home-cooked style foods that taste so good, you'll want to try these recipes now rather than wait for the next emergency. Water filter and fire starter are included to help get your cooking going.

About this item:

Food for 1 person for 30 days
307 total servings
54,670 total calories
1,822 average calories per day
(1) 7-gallon pail with mylar food pouches
Fire starter disk and water bottle with filter system

The food in this bucket actually tastes good.

freedomforall
Gnolaum ∞
Posts: 16479
Location: WEST OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by freedomforall »

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Last edited by freedomforall on November 4th, 2016, 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

brianj
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4066
Location: Vineyard, Utah

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by brianj »

gclayjr wrote:By the way, I have some American MREs for my 72 hour kit, but I haven't eaten enough of them to appreciate how delicious they are or are not.

However, when I was in the Marines, I had the opportunity to eat a lot of C-rations and K-rations. I suppose MREs might be a bit better than those. Probably prepared differently too. Does anybody today, make a nipple out of piece of c-4 and light it off in order to cook it. Does anybody today even know what c-4 is?
I had a Gunny who boasted about what a master chef he had been with c-rats, describing mixing contents of different cans to get something halfway palatable. Most of the meal MREs I have had taste pretty good without any manipulation, just needing to be heated. But if you go more than two or three days on MREs you will pay the price when they become meals, ready to excrete.

C-4 is still in inventory, but nobody uses it to heat rations. These days MREs come with flameless ration heaters, a plastic bag with a pouch inside holding powdered magnesium and table salt. Add a little water, slide your ration in, fold over the top, and lay it down for a little while, then a chemical reaction produces heat and hydrogen gas.

When I was in we didn't have the flameless heaters. We were given a chemical disk similar in size to a poker chip but thicker. We would make a small hole in the ground, drop the little puck in, light it on fire, then put a canteen cup over the flame. The MRE would be in the cup with water, and we were always warned to not drink that water after heating it. Of course at night the light from those flames could be seen a long way away, so the flameless heaters are a big improvement.

butterfly
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Posts: 1004

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by butterfly »

Rachael wrote:I'm not really in a financial position to do much except buy some extra Ramen noodles and ranch style beans ( they taste pretty good even cold), so I'm kind hoping the Christian rapture thing doctrine is true,and I can go up in the clouds to meet Jesus before all this tribulation stuff starts. Or get to die in somewhat peace like Hezekiah before the Babylonian captivity, or Lamech before Noah's flood.
It's good to give the Lord different options that you'd be happy with; I'm sure He can make sure one of your ideas work out ;)

mmm...I miss ramen. Can't eat it ever since I learned how bad it is for you. And the healthy version tastes a little too healthy.

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HorribleUsername
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Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by HorribleUsername »

EmmaLee wrote:We just bought this very thing - one for each of our kids away at college.
HorribleUsername wrote:Thirty days of easy to prepare, home-cooked style foods that taste so good, you'll want to try these recipes now rather than wait for the next emergency. Water filter and fire starter are included to help get your cooking going.

About this item:

Food for 1 person for 30 days
307 total servings
54,670 total calories
1,822 average calories per day
(1) 7-gallon pail with mylar food pouches
Fire starter disk and water bottle with filter system



The food in this bucket actually tastes good.
"Money well spent," I would say. :ymhug:

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gclayjr
captain of 1,000
Posts: 2727
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by gclayjr »

Brianj,
I had a Gunny

Semper Fi, Marine. And in anticipation of next Thursday, an early Happy Birthday.

Regards,

George Clay

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gclayjr
captain of 1,000
Posts: 2727
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by gclayjr »

By the way, one of the "advantages" of the c-rats, was that the can that held the crackers, could be also used as a stove to cook the rest of the meal. It came with a Sterno tablet for cooking, but as mentioned, many preferred to use a piece of c-4.

I guess there are people who want to "pretend" to military experience that they never had. I had a friend once, who showed me one of those little can operners that came with the c-rats, and asked me what it was. After I told him that it was a p-38 can opener, and that it was nicknamed a "John Wayne", he was comfortable that I wasn't BSing him.

Regards,

George Clay

JohnnyL
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Posts: 9832

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by JohnnyL »

dlbww wrote:
Rachael wrote:I don't think ramen noodles are very nutritious either, but they taste good and are cheap. Old dried beans (>1y/o) will not cook right. The outer layers disintegrate in to mush, and they stay crunchy on the inside. Canned are better if stored for a while.
I think those beans would be fine if cooked in a pressure cooker, which BTW is a good investment IMO. They may have lost some nutritional value but FWIW the Jews during the siege in 70 AD according to Josephus were eating pigeon dung and paying a hefty price for it.
There are other ways to cook them, too...

brianj
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4066
Location: Vineyard, Utah

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by brianj »

It's usually pretty easy to identify posers. Everybody who passes through San Diego or the Island learns about things like the Mameluke Sword and places like Tun Tavern, and any Marine can tell you what Boot platoon and company they were in.

I once came across a pretend SEAL and asked him about BUD/S. He thought I meant Budweiser.

JohnnyL
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Posts: 9832

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by JohnnyL »

We bought some bucket food--I might have preferred pigeon dung. I hope A's is better.

In other countries, you could get really good-tasting, nutritional, pre-cooked wet meat curry sauce/ toppings (at least 6 flavors to choose from, about 3 brands), good for at least a year.: 3 packages (each package enough for at least 1.5 big adults) for US$2.30 . IF you ever could get them here in the USA, they would be at least 6x that price.

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gclayjr
captain of 1,000
Posts: 2727
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by gclayjr »

Brianj,

I don't want to brag, but while I was stationed a Parris Island, I was never trained at either PI or San Diego... I was trained at Quantico, and I actually owned a Mameluke Sword

Regards,

George Clay

brianj
captain of 1,000
Posts: 4066
Location: Vineyard, Utah

Re: So if you believe things might "Hit the fan " what are you doing?

Post by brianj »

I was enlisted. I joined the church after enlisting, was granted two years away to serve a mission, and when I returned the unit was overloaded with NCOs so I never made Corporal and never owned an NCO sword.

You weren't Army so I'll skip the 2nd Lt jokes.

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