|
|
Post by prairiegardens on Sept 25, 2017 10:33:40 GMT -5
Not really a rant, more an observation.
There was an extensive and vigorous discussion in a FB group about a young couple who found themselves with no money for food after paying deposit and first month's rent. I was appalled that all the suggestions for food help rested heavily on things like cheap white bread and ramen noodles. The rationale was always that it would at least fill them up.
What was appalling and surprising! to me was that this is a homesteading group, where I had expected more understanding of both nutrition and value for money. One person suggested canned beans, the only one to suggest any legume or pulse. Nobody suggested any fresh veggies, not even onions and/or potatoes, nobody suggested any dried beans or pulses, only one person suggested rice, nobody suggested any other grains, not even oatmeal. Nobody suggested eggs. Almost all of the suggestions were processed foods.
The other thing that disturbed me was that none of the foods suggested involved them learning anything about how to cook, something they're going to have to do right quick if they are going to feed themselves for the whole month. She doesn't have a job, his is adequate pay but with house rent to pay, an old farm truck likely to need ongoing maintenance their only transport (and his work is 30 miles out of town) and now a baby on the way, money is going to be very very tight for them for a very long time.
I'm thinking to ask at the food bank to see if there are any efforts being made to teach people how to use " real" food, which is not only much much cheaper but also infinitely more nutritious. A bag of steel cut oats is not often found in the food bank donation bins, but all those sugar soaked processed cereals are there in abundance. Just maybe if kids had better nutrition there would be fewer child suicides, to say nothing of bullying and anger. Perhaps people wouldn't be on an average of ten drugs by the time they are fifty. And perhaps the next generation would not be the first not to live as long as their parents did.
|
|
|
|
Post by prairiegardens on Sept 26, 2017 12:21:06 GMT -5
I tend to think it's also a matter of people not knowing how or feeling they don't have the time to cook. At a time when there are more cookbooks than ever before erupting annually on store shelves, it's ironic that fewer people than ever before are actually cooking. Combine that with believing that growing veggies is difficult expensive and time consuming for them to do (although that seldom relates to what they want to pay for the food they eat) and it's a problem.
No idea about home ec now....do they even still offer it? ..when I was in school way back when, our home ec classes started out with classes on how to make tea and toast and never got very far beyond cookies. And how to make aprons. I wanted to take carpentry instead but at that time girls weren't allowed, we were automatically shunted into "girl" things and I was too shy then to make a fuss. I'd love to have one of those old sewing machines now though.
|
|
|
|
Post by richardw on Sept 26, 2017 13:14:18 GMT -5
The same problems with some peoples lack of self reliance is wide spread though maybe less here than in the US&Canada, at least kitchens are still built into every home or apartments. But bugs me are the ones with there hand out are so often the ones with 100% grass lawn back yards.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Sept 26, 2017 15:31:27 GMT -5
While I don't cook/preserve much lately (landlady has issues with too much kitchen use), when I retire I know I'll go bat-shit in no time were it not for the prospect of near-constant work on the farm.
|
|
|
|
Post by philagardener on Sept 26, 2017 20:06:57 GMT -5
There are a lot of US Citizens in Puerto Rico right now who have found themselves suddenly without electricity, refrigeration, gas, cell phones, bank cards . . . not to mention any sign of their Government by all accounts. Could happen to any of us, for too many reasons.
No, I'm not going full scale prepper but it shows none of us are as far from the edge as we might have thought.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Sept 27, 2017 1:11:08 GMT -5
I'm not gonna go all "yeah" on this at the moment, but yeah, things are way too techified/interconnected for my taste; I'm not a Luddite who wants to smash the "machines", I just want to have little reliance on them, because I don't trust them.
As for Puerto Rico, I'm sure the internet/electrical grid will take good care of them; oh, wait! All that shit's down. Well, Congress is going to consider their problems in a week or two; no shit! Hang in there folks! Don't doubt that Congress gives a husky fuck about you; I assume Puerto Ricans have been sending substantial "contributions" to their representatives to ensure this sort of needed support, so it will surely be coming, eventually.
As to EBT cards going kaput, I've not had a credit card for years, doing my business in Government paper (wanna get it out of my wallet while it's still worth something); given the likelihood of "The Big One" in NorCal, I have a stock of Government paper for trading with people who've not really come to grips with societal collapse. I don't really expect things to go to societal collapse. in the case of "The Big One", but there may be a difficult period; not what is happening in Puerto Rico, but dicey. I'm so glad I have my farm, off grid, with a well.
|
|
|
|
Post by prairiegardens on Sept 27, 2017 4:30:23 GMT -5
I've run into garden fatigue before when harvest time rolls around and I just look at it all and suddenly feel totally exhausted and want to run away  . Freezers are wonderful things, winter squash that sit happily on shelves until wanted even better. To some degree I am trying to raise much of what I need throughout the winter under lights. So putting stuff up is less urgent. Of course that won't be much good if the power etc goes /stays off in the dead of winter when we only get about 4 hours of very unenthusiastic daylight, gotta figure out that bicycle powered generator system in case no wind either. I want to get into pickling, recently heard of a very old technique, the name of which escapes me at the moment, which involved very little work and no special air locks or fancy equipment. The person who spoke of it sent everyone in the group into a tizzy of warnings about botulism. Although that's obviously a thing to be aware of, I have to wonder sometimes how we ever managed to populate the world so densely in spite of all our wars and such if everything people used to do until 80 or so years ago was all so deadly. You'd think people would stop doing things if everyone who did them or who ate the result keeled over dead. |
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Sept 27, 2017 5:05:44 GMT -5
I want to get into pickling, recently heard of a very old technique, the name of which escapes me at the moment, which involved very little work and no special air locks or fancy equipment. The person who spoke of it sent everyone in the group into a tizzy of warnings about botulism. Lactofermentation? |
|
|
|
Post by prairiegardens on Sept 27, 2017 7:30:12 GMT -5
No, although that's definitely intriguing.
It was inversion canning. Lactofermentation sounds even better. Have you ever tried it? If so, what did you think?
About the only canning I do these days is jam or jelly. Boil it til the right consistency (which can take a while as I usually cut back on the sugar so have to evaporate more water) pour it into dry hot sterilized jars, pour about a quarter or third of an inch melted paraffin on top, add lid and ring and call it good. They generally all seal anyway, any that seem maybe not to have popped down gets eaten first.. When I open a jar the wax gets thoroughly rinsed off with hot water and stored for the next season. Never had any problems but it seems that using wax is frowned on now as well. Tough.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Sept 27, 2017 11:54:42 GMT -5
No, although that's definitely intriguing. It was inversion canning. Lactofermentation sounds even better. Have you ever tried it? If so, what did you think? ... Never had any problems but it seems that using wax is frowned on now as well. Tough. No, I've never tried it, but I hope to some day. It seems to be the traditional method for kosher dills and saurkraut. Maybe kimchee too, but I've never seen a recipe for that. They seem to love it at permies and mother earth news. Seems pretty foolproof, IF you observe basic food safety and are diligent. Trouble is I have the attention span of a fruit fly. So I'm watching for a way that even I can't screw up. Got my eye on one where you ferment right in a canning jar, with the ring and a flat (with an airlock) in place. ... Mom canned peach jelly one year with parafin caps and no other lid. It didn't set up right, which I doubt is related. (Great on pancakes.) None of it spoiled. No one got sick. I once had an unscented candle fall over on the range top and land on the hole where the oven vented. A bunch of it melted onto my pork steaks. We were young and broke. I let the steaks cool and scraped it off. I couldn't tell that it made a difference. We use wax paper. It's probably bad for you, but probably less so than most of what's in the foods in the grocery store. |
|
|
|
Post by walt on Sept 27, 2017 12:24:00 GMT -5
I am near a small city, maybe 50,000. There is an organization that runs a women's homeless shelter and a free store.
The free store is mostly clothes, but a large grocery store donates bread and pastries that are near due date, and fruits and vegetables that are past their prime but still edible.
The fruits and vegetables are ignored by many people, but there are plenty of old folks who pick through them and nothing goes to waste. There are often things that most local people don't know. Oriental vegetables for example. But someone will know how to use them and will be glad to share how they fix them. Sunchokes are something that most people don't know.
What people won't carry off to eat, goes to chickens. The people who run the store know who have chickens and don't let them take much until near closing time.
This store is in the older part of town, with small less expensive houses. Mostly old folks. Younger folks come for the clothes and take bread and maybe fruit.
This city, Salina, KS, allows up to 6 chickens per household, no roosters.
|
|
|
|
Post by philagardener on Sept 28, 2017 5:25:03 GMT -5
I've experimented a bit with lactofermentation - amazingly simple and easy. I need to get some commercial airlocks to make it easier. Great looking row, toomanyirons ! I had a batch of jam this year that just refused to set. Happens to us all (even Mom!) now and then, I guess. Turned out to be a great raspberry sauce over vanilla ice cream! Got lemons, make lemonade. |
|
|
|
Post by jocelyn on Sept 28, 2017 10:46:34 GMT -5
Folks choose bread and fruit if they don't know how to use vegies.
Most folks actually like hash, stew and soup....think Soup and sandwich combos at Timmy's for a pretty penny. Hash is one of those clean out the fridge things, potatoes,turnips, onions, carrots, left over cooked greens, meat or mashed beans, garlic, all fried up together........and most folks would eat it, if they knew how to make it. Cheap and nourishing...but needs some cooking skills.
|
|
|
|
Post by walt on Sept 28, 2017 11:54:11 GMT -5
I haven't had hash since I was a kid. Thanks for reminding me. Good stuff and easy to make.
|
|
|
|
Post by prairiegardens on Sept 28, 2017 13:33:53 GMT -5
It's not just people in need who wont use free food it's also organizations. A few years back a grocery order came into camp the same day as a change of plans and the camp was to shut down. The crew took the meat, nobody had any interest in anything else. I had limited space to carry stuff but packed as much as I could of cheese and any other perishable expensive stuff I could cram in, since everything else perishable was going straight into the dumpster. I offered most of it to three different charitable organizations in turn, a woman's shelter, a youth shelter and another and all three said no, the woman's shelter said I would have to go through their board of directors, the youth shelter basically accused me of trying to poison them, the last wanted me to wait for three days until the boss came back.
Finally found a group ..a homeless shelter..who was delighted to get it all...there was probably about $300 worth of cheeses and butter alone...and as soon as I got there they made sure a group of guys came out so I didn't have to lift a finger, just tell them what to take away. THEY were very appreciative indeed. It was an instructive couple of days.
|
|
. Freezers are wonderful things, winter squash that sit happily on shelves until wanted even better. To some degree I am trying to raise much of what I need throughout the winter under lights. So putting stuff up is less urgent. Of course that won't be much good if the power etc goes /stays off in the dead of winter when we only get about 4 hours of very unenthusiastic daylight, gotta figure out that bicycle powered generator system in case no wind either. 
