Letter Re: The Least Expensive Way to Stock Up on Storage Food?

Sir,
In regards to TJD, "Somewhere in Kansas" lamenting that he is in the middle of nowhere and can't easily stock up on food, I must say I find his worries a bit hard to understand.

In the Bible, Joseph stored up seven years of harvests to prepare for seven years of famine. Those stores were made up of grain crops. That is how Egypt made it through a great famine and gained great wealth by selling their grain at high rates to nations that did not prepare.

Being from North Dakota, I know that the title for greatest wheat producer in the USA bounces back and forth between Kansas and North Dakota. He is in one of the most bountiful food producing regions in the world. He could probably travel to any small town grain elevator within 5-15 miles and fill up all his white 5 gallon pails with various grains (wheat, oats, corn, etc). Between bread and sprouting seeds, there's plenty of energy and nutritional content in wheat and other grain crops. It doesn't seem like he should have a hard time finding food. It is the crops grown in his state, perhaps not far from his location, that currently keeps America fed.

I think it is a testament to our modern society and the dependent and helpless nature of the people, that most people think food comes processed and prepared from the grocery store, and have no idea where it comes from. If a starving family in a big city was given a few bushels of grain, they'd probably look incredulously at their benefactor, leave the grain to spoil in the elements and continue their search for whatever scraps of prepared/processed food they could find. A pretty ridiculous situation but I don't think it's too far from the truth.

I think it was old time survival writer Mel Tappan who said if you want to store food cheaply and quickly, you can buy salt, grains and beans, and various vitamin tablets. You may miss some of the variety that you are accustomed to at the grocery store, but you won't starve or develop nutritional deficiency diseases such as scurvy, goiter, etc.

TJD might want to look into storing bulk grain at elevator prices, and add desired variety with some of the bulk foods he can obtain at Sam's Club such as rice, bulk condiments (ketchup, mustard, salsa, mayo), canned foods and some frozen foods. I think frozen foods have a place in preps as they can be eaten in the first weeks or months of an emergency situation, while families get their bearings and figure out how they are going to ration their long term food and prepare for the next growing season. - M. "Somewhere in ND"