Posted: 5/21/2008 11:22:10 AM EDT
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Why do most food storage programs seem to be wheat based? I would think the backbone would be rice and beans. Rice, when combined with beans, forms a complete protein. I have wheat, but it is not the main item. |
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Don't forget that it's a regional thing too. In Asia, rice is their "staff of life". Here in the States, wheat grows much better than rice, hence it is a storage staple. Wheat is also very versatile, look at what you can make with wheat, versus what you can make with rice. GET BOTH! 
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Sprout it, roast it and you have...MALT! Need to put some barley on the list...
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That is true. They were able to sprout wheat that had been entombed with one of the Pharoahs......and no, it wasn't packed in Mylar with Dessicant or oxygen displacing gas! Here is an article about a 2,000 year old Date tree seed that was sprouted that mentions the wheat as well. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/12/MNGJND7G5T1.DTL |
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Cpt kirks: It's a cultural bias. Pure and simple. This country is/was primarily wheat based. Our fore-fathers largely came from Europe, which was also wheat based. We grow wheat. Quite frankly I personally think wheat is less than optimal for storage uses. Yes. it does store forever. However, wheat is NOT an easily processed food. It requires grinding which means you must have specialized equipment and expend energy grinding. Once prepared as flour wheat required additional preparation: baking into bread, etc. Yes it can be sprouted. Wanna eat a steady diet of sprouts? You can simple crack it and boil it up as a hot cereal but most north americans have intestinal systems unaccustomed to processing this sort of bulk and roughage. Rice may well be better suited to survival diets. properly prepared it has a 30+ year storage life. It requires no specialized equipment. It is easily digestible. It can be readily prepared with no more than an old can and a cup of water. Preparation does not require specialized skills, ovens, or other culinary tools or supplies like yeast. Rice simply IS the staff of life for most of the world's population. It has many advantages and we tend to ignore it simply out of cultural bias. (want a real life example? Do some research into early Viking settlements in Greenland. They lived on the cold hard edge of starvation trying to eke a living out raising grains while they pretty much ignored some of the richest fisheries in the world - Chalk it up to cultural bias) |
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Wheat is real nice, for the simple ease of storage, and the number of uses you have for it. Granted, from a pure energy expended vs. energy gained, wheat is a poor choice. However, with a little bit if investment, wheat can be quite viable. Think on a bit larger scale then 5 gallon buckets too. When you get serious about wheat, you start using 55 gallon drums, and you have 10 to 15 of them. That's enough to not only feed your group of 20 for a year, but it also leaves enough seed to replant for 2 years. Country living grain mills are all but indestructable, and can be had for under 300 dollars. A few attachments, and it will be money well spent over time. I think the biggest under utilized grain is corn. it is a LOT easier to grow, harvest, and properly preserve when compared to wheat. You can also chop it into silage, if your having a poorly produces crop, and it makes great feed for the beef in the winter. Compare the man-hours of harvesting corn, versus harvesting wheat by hand. |
Brown rice, which doesn't store well, was the staff of life for asian countries, and has been domesticated over 2500 years. (2500 years is for soybeans, and rice is even older.). Polished white rice, which stores great, is a more recent introduction. |
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The true survival grain for North Americans would be corn. It saved the Pilgrims from starvation. It was part of the Three Sisters and the one that would store the best. Entire cultures were founded around it such as the Mesa Verde and Pueblo societies. As noted- easy to plant, wide planting range, easy to harvest, easy to store. But then, most folks don't think of it as "food" these days. My kids though will fight you over the last piece of cornbread! |
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Actually, rice is just a small part of my plans and my starch like I was raised is potatoes. Freeze dried in all kinds of different configurations, potatoes have a 10-15 year shelf life and at $7 a #10 can not bad for freeze dried foods. I can't predict the future, but have always followed a plan of doing what I can when I can a little at a time. If you are in a hurry, certainly go buy rice and beans. They keep well and its cheap. If not, try your best to stick to what you are use to eating. Remember it isn't he who survives shtf by suffering the most who wins but he who barely notices shtf that wins. Tj |
Do the standard instant potatoes store well? I was thinking of getting some of the big bags and storing the flakes in a bucket. My 10yo will live on instant mashed potatoes if you let him. |
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I have a very good book titled "How to Live on Wheat", can't remember the author's name sorry. This book details many ways to maximize wheat for optimal digestion and health over long-term, for example the vitamin content of sprouted wheat is MUCH higher than berries, and ESSENE BREAD is a very classic way of sprouting and making bread, with very little energy required (heat or manual labor). I think it's important to consider the energy and requirments that go into making a food edible, not just 'how much can/should I store'. Rice is the perfect example of an easy, low-energy requirement food that is loaded with calories. But it's boring as hell and I'd need a 50-gal drum of soy sause to eat all I've got if that was all I was going to eat. Yes, rice and beans provide a whole protien, but there is a tremendous variety and health available with wheat when used to it's potential. I have rice, beans wheat and taters stored. Rice and beans in equal parts, much less beans and taters, but potatoes can be grown and beans can go hard over the years. |
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I want to contribute to this thread, but I'm afraid I don't know the answer. The grasses, including wheat, millet, barley, oats, and many others, some probably long forgotten, were easier harvested from the same fertile field year after year. When this was realized, a people who had roamed the land found it more productive to linger around the fields that produced the grains that kept them fed. Early people no doubt took many lessons from the wildlife around them, and seeing mice, rats, etc. storing grain was all it took for them to try it themselves. So it paid to use the same fields and to stay with their larder. So we know wheat has been called "the staff of life" for many reasons. |