Rotating Our 72 Hour Kits

I briefly considered living on this 72-hour pack for 3 days to see what it was like. But thought better of it because I will never do kits this way again. I ordered these kits through a group order thing at Relief Society almost seven years ago! As I was cleaning out my cold storage room I found them and  decided to open them up and let the kiddos have at the contents. These kits were assembled and delivered in these large mylar bags. The contents are written on the outside but I never had seen what the products were until now.

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IMG_2119This is day one’s contents. The idea is to warm the soup with the pack of matches and then save your can for the other two days to heat water (the 2 liters) I was suppose to be storing with these kits, for the cup-a-soup packets.
Day 1 calorie count is 693 calories

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Here is day 2’s contents. Oh and the can from day one is used to mix up your hot cocoa, cider and oatmeal. Can you imagine? There wouldn’t be a way to clean the can out very well since the 2 liters of water would be critical for eating and drinking only.
Calories count for day 2 is 842.

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Each day was packed up in a freezer quart zip lock bag. It was nicely organized. Each kit also had a pack of juicy fruit chewing gum.
The calorie count for day 3 was 834 calories. None of this food has very high nutritional ratings. But at least it was something I guess.

The beef jerky was very very hard, like a cracker. Our dog Whisper would eat it. Most of the pieces went in the garbage. The best buy date on the jerky Feb. 22. 2007. The saltine crackers also went in the garbage. They had taken on the taste of the jerky. The candy, fruit snacks and trail mixes all eaten by the kiddos. Julz opened the soup cups and made up the one with noodles. She took a small bite and dumped it down the drain. The cider and cocoa seemed to be liked by those who drank it. And I put the oatmeal packets in my pantry. None of this processed food is compliant on my cleanse.

The kit you can see in the photo, included a clean spoon and napkin for each day and a survival blanket.

I don’t remember what I paid for these kits. But having them provided me with some comfort. Although now that I see what was included I am glad I didn’t have to use the kits. I feel it was money well spent, but I had way too much peace of mind for the tiny amount of nutrition and storage life it provided. This kit was basically good to use for about a year after I bought it!

PS. My husband tried a bite of trail mix and spit it out immediately. He says, “yep, food goes bad!”

 

 

Pizza

Tonight I made pizza for dinner. The dough was so easy I whipped it together before I ran to cub scouts. When I got home the dough was ready to roll out and bake. I use my ceramic baking sheet and pre heat it in the oven at 425 degrees. I sprinkle the sheet with cornmeal before I set the pizza crust on the ceramic baking sheet. I like to bake the crust without toppings for about 10 minutes first.

I topped the pizza with freeze dried sausage crumbles and freeze dried mushrooms, rehydrated. I always mix some tomato powder with a cup of pre-made pasta sauce. The tomato powder thickens the pasta sauce just enough. I usually add about one tablespoon of tomato powder to one cup of pasta sauce.

When the crust is half baked I spread on the sauce and the mozzarella cheese. I love rehydrating freeze dried mozzarella cheese. Tonight I had fresh mozzarella on hand so I shredded and used that instead. Once the sauce and cheese are on, I top the pizza with the rehydrated  sausage and mushroom slices.

Then I bake the pizza for another 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

Its so lovely to have shelf stable pizza.

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I almost forgot to take a photo of the baked pizza. Here is the last piece a few hours after it came out of the oven. It turned out so yummy.

 

A Year Supply of Food for Our Family

I miss blogging about what we are eating everyday from our food storage. I made tortillas tonight. But I mixed it up and did half wheat flour and half white flour. They turned out delish!

Here it is!! A one year supply of food for six of my people.

Flour/Grains 

10 pounds of popcorn

72 pounds of rice

44 pounds of oats

222 pounds of flour (4.5 cups per pound of flour)

180 pounds of pasta

Dairy/Eggs

12 #10 can of Instant Milk

3 #10 can of non instant dry milk

9 #10 cans scrambled egg mix

2 #10 cans whole egg powder

15 #10 cans of Thrive freeze dried cheese

Vegetables

12 #10 cans freeze dried onions

6 #10 can of each of the following freeze dried vegetables

cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, peas, zucchini, celery, tomato dices, green beans

2 #10 cans Dehydrated carrots

8 # 10 cans of potato beads

2 #10 cans Tomato Powder

12 #10 cans of freeze dried corn or 72 cans of canned corn

54 cans of tomato dices

Fruit

120 #10 cans of freeze dried fruit, any combination. Favorites are listed below

Fuji Apples

Grapes

Peach slices

Mangos

Pineapple

Bananas

Strawberries

Raspberries

Blackberries

Meat and Beans

6 #10 cans of freeze dried sausage crumbles

12 #10 cans of ground beef

132  pints of canned chicken (my home canned chicken) 66 pounds of fresh chicken
I need to acquire a lot more pint jars for my canned chicken

84 cans of beef chunks (14.4 ounces)

3 #10 cans  Pinto beans

12 #10 cans Black beans

1 #10 can White beans

3 #10 cans Lentils

24 cans of Refried beans (15 ounce)

Cream of …

Chicken soup 60 cans

Mushroom soup 36 cans

Oil/Fat

60 pounds of butter

36 quarts of oil or 9 gallons

Sugars

36 pounds of raw honey

6 quarts of maple syrup

1 gallon of agave nectar

96 pounds of sugar

Thrive Express

6 Variety Packs

Extras to add:

24 #10 cans of drink mixes

6 #10 cans brownie mix

6 #10 cans of macaroon mix

8 pounds of salt

2 pounds of sprouting seeds like alfafa

25 cans of coconut milk 15 ounce

1 case of 24 shelf stable whipping cream 8 ounce

Extracts: vanilla, almond, lemon, maple

12 pounds of mixed nuts and seeds

1 brick of yeast

24 pound chocolate chips

25 cans tuna fish

6–64 ounce containers of peanut butter

Monthly Totals for a Family of Six

This is the fun part, adding up all the food we ate throughout the month from our food storage. This was one of the main objectives for why I wanted to do this challenge. I wanted to figure out how much food my family would eat in a whole year.

So many preparedness companies offer a year supply of food for one person or more people but has any one actually lived off that package of food for a whole year? I would love to know. I am guessing the packages are created from projections of food to keep you a live. Honestly, having children complain about food around makes me crazy. I might rather die than listen to how terrible cornmeal mush tastes.

Food storage is such an individualized thing. What works for my family is one thing and what works for your family is another thing. But these numbers will hopefully help you get an idea of how much food your family would consume in a month’s time. If you only are a family of 3 divide it by two. If you are a family of 12 multiply the numbers by two.

Flour/Grains

1 1/3 cups of popcorn

12 cups of rice 6 pounds

10 cups of oats 3.63 pound

83 cups of flour (4.5 cups per pound of flour) 18.444 pounds of flour

15 pounds of pasta

Dairy/Eggs

1 #10 can of Instant Milk

1/4 #10 can of non instant dry milk

3/4 #10 can scrambled egg mix

48 whole egg powder

14 cups of Thrive freeze dried cheese

Vegetables

1 #10 can freeze dried onions

1/2 #10 can of each of the following freeze dried vegetables

cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, peas, zucchini, celery,

Dehydrated carrots 1/5 of a #10 can

7 cups of potato beads

Tomato Powder 1/6 of a #10 can

Cans of corn 6

Cans of tomato dices 9

Cans of green beans 5

Fruit

We opened a lot of fruit during our month challenge. I didn’t want to ration fruit I wanted us to eat what we wanted to see what that would amount to over a months time

We opened and ate all of the following freeze dried fruit in #10 cans.

2 Fuji Apples

Grapes

2 Peach slices

Mangos

Pineapple

Bananas

Strawberries

Raspberries

a pantry can of blackberries

10 and 1/3 can of fruit! Whoa.

Meat and Beans

1/2 #10 can of freeze dried sausage crumbles and 1 #10 can of ground beef

11 pints of canned chicken (my home canned chicken)

7 cans of beef chunks (14.4 ounces)

Pinto beans 2 cups dry

Black beans 6 cups dry

Lentils 2 cups dry

Canned  beans:

3 cans of Black

2 cans of Refried

1 can of White

Cream of …

Chicken soup 5 cans

Mushroom soup 3 cans

Oil/Fat

5 pounds of butter

3 quarts of oil

Sugars

1 64 ounce container of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup

4 cups of raw honey

16 ounces of maple syrup

4 ounces of agave nectar

15 cups of sugar

Thrive Express

6 pouches

There it is. A month supply of goods for a family of six, two adults and 4 kiddos.

Our Empty and Stocked Refrigerator

I wanted to post a photo of what our refrigerator looked like on the last day of our food storage challenge. February 28, 2013

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Here is what it looks like today stocked with food. March 1, 2012 Reese ate his whole lobster tonight. I wish I had gotten a picture of him and his big ole lobster.

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Pagey has been asking about crepes with ice cream during this past month. Tonight I made them for her after dinner. I love this recipe for crepes. My friend Melissa gave it to me years ago.  I make it with fresh eggs and milk or powder eggs and milk. It fantastic either way!

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Our butter rationing worked. At the end of our challenge we had about three quarters of a cube left. I was worried about three weeks into our challenge that we would not have enough butter to make it through. So we started rationing our fresh butter. We need a cube of butter every two days.

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