An Emergency Food Storage Plan: Getting Started

Have you thought about gathering an emergency food storage stash in your home? In the case of a job layoff, natural disaster, crop shortage, power outage or other crisis, having thought ahead could make a huge difference for your family and allow you to continue to eat well even with limited funds or lessened food availability.

I've been reading Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook and it's an excellent resource. If you feel overwhelmed, start with the LDS food storage calculator, which is very simple. However, the amounts seem to be a bit less than the recommendations in Making the Best of Basics.

With the rising price of grain, building an emergency food storage is more expensive than it used to be, but possibly cheaper than it will be for some time. The key is to buy whole natural foods, in bulk, at the best price you can find. My mother-in-law bought my wheat in Kentucky because it is $10 cheaper per 50-lb. bag there than it is where I live. I found bulk peanut butter online, and bought it at $2.20/lb. before finding it at Trader Joe's for $1.69/lb.

I found bulk coconut oil and other natural products at Wilderness Family Naturals, which I recommend. Definitely go for a quality oil rather than cheap soybean oil which will NOT nourish your family. The five-gallon expeller pressed coconut oil is an excellent buy. Shop around and build your reserves up; you'll never know when you might need it most.

Want to get started on your own emergency food storage? Here's an in-depth primer: How to Store Food for Long-Term Survival.

Grass Fed Beef That's Tender: It Exists!

We just purchased a side of grass fed beef from Shagbark Mountain Cattle in Maryland/ West Virginia. It is amazingly tender and absolutely delicious. John and I happily enjoyed our rib steaks the other night, especially since we'd been eating only chicken since ordering our beef a month ago. The flavor of this grass-fed beef is excellent, in my opinion, with an incredible tenderness.

Finally, we've found beef that meets the high standards we're used to after being spoiled by John's family's grass fed beef in Kentucky. We previously bought beef from another farm, in Virginia, a half one summer and last fall, but the results were not as good. The meat had a gamy taste to it and while the ground meat was good, the steaks and roasts tended toward dryness. Even rare, the meat was not as tender or flavorful as we expected.

My friend Anne (who got me into Nourishing Traditions in the first place ... but that's another story) found the Shagbark Mountain through EatWild.com and spoke at length with the rancher before placing an order for a whole animal, which we split.

According to their listing, Shagbark Mountain raises "Black Angus and Simental cattle on over 200 acres of clover, broome and orchard grass—naturally without hormones or chemical fertilizers." We enjoyed meeting the owner and his sons, who kindly showed our kids the goats, kids, sheep and donkey near the office while we completed the transaction.

We ended up with 191 pounds of meat, and 5 pounds of organ meats. The price per pound, packaged in the freezer, came to $3.87. (Hanging weight price was $2.85/ lb.) That's ground meat to sirloin steak, and everything in between. I didn't even include the soup bones and suet in that price calculation, although the butcher delivered them as promised.

There are several grass-fed beef ranches near us, but we're so pleased I expect we'll order from Shagbark Mountian again, if we don't have our own cattle by then. We've even recommended them to our friends already -- some things are too good to keep secret.

I'm looking forward to marinating and grilling and spicing and roasting our meat over the coming months. My friend Anne recommends the Grassfed Gourmet cookbook, which I will buy as soon as the budget allows.

What's your favorite source for grass fed beef? I'd love to hear from you!

Natural Health & Nutrition Links

I'm busy this week, but don't want to ignore Raw Milk Mama. So, to provide you with some reading material and to be concise at the same time, I've decided to share with you some links for further reading on topics I love. Some articles I even wrote myself, so it keeps me from feeling like I'm neglecting you.

• What makes Raw Milk so healthy? Check out this page at Real Milk to learn more.
  
• Curious about switching to whole foods and what to stock? Check out the Natural Food Pantry List at my Natural Health Information site. While you're there, subscribe to the Natural Health Information Blog and stay on top of my latest articles.
  
• Looking for a substitute for commercial sports drinks for the summer season ahead? Try coconut water and enjoy a delicious, hydrating beverage that has nothing artificial.
  
• If you've switched to grass-fed beef, you'll want to check out the Grass-Fed Gourmet cookbook, which is nice enough for a wedding shower gift.
  
• Do you know someone with autism? Learn more about a autism diet that is changing children's lives.
  

That should provide a little reading material until I check back in.

What books do you recommend, and what online sources have inspired or helped you? Let me know in the comments, below.

Simple Container Gardening Tips

My soil is clay and full of rocks, discouraging to even the most avid gardener. My green-thumb sister tried planting cabbages in my backyard but gave up. After a couple disappointing summers, I turned to container gardening as both a creative outlet and means for food production. Container gardening is simpler – and more productive – than you may imagine.

There are many benefits to container gardening, especially for a beginner. It's easy to start small, with only a few varieties in several pots, and grow more each season without feeling intimidated by a large untamed garden plot. You can also start your plants inside late in the winter and move them back indoors after the summer, extending your growing season.

This spring, I felt very inspired and have started 150 seedlings as my container gardening project for the year. I planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, herbs and more. Peas and cucumbers will follow, but I'll start those later this spring in outdoor pots.

Want to try container gardening for yourself? Pick some seeds, find some containers, and get started!

Seeds

My favorite seeds are heirloom varieties, and I love the huge selection at Seed Savers. But really, any seeds will do, and organic varieties are widely available. Just avoid hybrid seeds in order to save the seeds from your plants each year. Choose several varieties, keeping in mind your family's preferences.

Containers

There is no need to spend a lot of money – or any money, if you're creative – on container gardening. This year, my containers are an eclectic group of nursery plant pots (saved by my sister from her home landscaping projects) old enamel pots (from a junk heap) and 5-gallon plastic pails someone discarded. To ensure proper drainage, drill several holes in the bottom of each container and put a layer of gravel or clay pot pieces under the soil.

Soil

Use any combination of your native soil, potting mix, composted horse manure, chicken manure, and compost that is possible. Use a soil test kit to learn what your soil needs. If it is low in nitrogen, add a little chicken manure.

Plant Food

I prefer to avoid chemical fertilizers, so I use an organic sea mineral supplement to feed my plants. Also look for organic fertilizers and plant food in stores if your soil is not rich in nutrients. See minerals are an excellent way to add nutrients to the soil.

Container gardening really is that simple. Choose your containers, prepare them with proper drainage, mix and add your soil, plant your seeds ... and expect great things from your container garden. I can't wait to make a tomato salad from my garden's bounty.

Inspired? Pass it on! Share your container gardening plans (or tips) with other readers, below.

Making Bread with Fermented (Soaked) Flour

One of the principles of traditional diets is that whole grains must be soaked, sprouted, or fermented before cooking and eating.

When life is busy, this is one of the hardest steps to do since it requires planning ahead and knowing what you will back days before you make it.

I have recently gotten into a rhythm with my bread making, however, and begin soaking the flour for the next day's bread while the previous loaf is baking. Now, we don't run out of bread and the process is painless for me as it has become habitual.

This is my recipe for soaked grain bread:

1 cup water (warm)
1/4 cup butter or coconut oil
1 TB whey (or 1/4 c yogurt)
3 cups whole wheat flour (fresh ground at home is best)

1 TB Rapadura (succanat)
1 TB honey
1 tsp warm water
1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 egg, beaten
1 tsp sea salt
extra flour as needed

First, combine first 4 ingredients to form a dough. I use the bread machine and allow it to mix them into a dough before unplugging it. Allow to soak/ferment for 18-24 hours.

Remove dough from mixer/ bread machine. In mixer/ bread machine, combine next four ingredients (sweeteners, yeast, warm tsp. water). Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes. Add egg and salt.

Begin breaking the dough into small pieces and add a few to the machine. Turn on and keep adding more pieces of the dough until incorporated. You will need to add a little flour to get the right consistency. For this, Sally would be ok with unbleached white flour, you could also do sprouted grain flour if you have it. I just use wheat.

After the dough forms, allow the bread machine to continue on dough setting. When done, remove and put in buttered floured loaf pan and rise for 45 mins or until doubled and bake for 30 mins. on 350 F.

I hope that recipe works for you; you will likely need to experiment a little. I adapted it from Sally Fallon's recipe as well as my conventional bread machine recipe. If you have a KitchenAid but not a bread machine, you should allow it to rise for about an hour after it forms a good dough and is kneaded for about five minutes. After the hour, punch down and form into a loaf, then continue as directed.

Longing for a Farm

Top 10 Reasons I wish I Lived on a Farm:

10. For space to live without feeling crowded.

9. To return to my roots, having grown up on a small vegetable farm.

8. Baby animals in the spring.

7. To reclaim part of the earth for organic, sustainable living.

6. Chickens and farm fresh eggs.

5. Real work, that mattered, for all of us.

4. The chance to grow heirloom vegetables.

3. For increased self-sufficiency.

2. Our kids' childhoods would be farm life experiences.

1. Fresh, raw milk from our own grass-fed cow.

Local Harvest: Finding Natural and Organic Food Near You

Local Harvest is an incredible concept and an excellent resource for locating natural foods nearby. It is similar to the website Eat Wild, but seems to have a more extensive listing of local farms and also features a Local Harvest blog, Local Harvest Newsletter, information on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a web forum and more.

The Local Harvest slogan is "real food, real farmers, real community," all three aspects of which are dear to my own heart. I want to feed my family real food, the way God intended it, not the way some Big Ag company decided to make the most money off of it. I want to support real farmers when I can't produce the food myself (currently, that's 100% of the time). And in supporting real farmers, I want to be better connected to my community.

I put in my zip code on Local Harvest and found two farm listings of people I already know, several farms I'd heard of or done business with, and plenty more I'd like to explore. The chickens at Beatrix Farm (photo on right) are happy and healthy in their grass pasture. What's available in your Local Harvest?