When you stashed food for Y2K, what did you have too much of? Too little? Forgot?

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I had far too much soup. Not enough cans of small shrimp.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2001

Answers

Ah, not enough powdered cheese for "mac n cheese"... still have plenty of teenagers in the house...this is something they can make...

forgot... roofing tar... extra gallons of paint on hand for repairs and just plain ole maintenance... extra plexiglass to temporary window fixs... thank goodness I had one piece that worked when the bathroom window broke...so now I have a huge pieces as I have lot larger windows than the bathroom one...

whoops... I went beyond food here... that I calculate pretty good and have maintained

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001


I was going to do another thread on non-food after this, so hold that thought!

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

I didn't have too much of anything. We gave away a lot of the canned food to people who needed it, so in truth, we didn't have any waste at all. I wish I had been canning meat all summer. I could start doing that now that I'm mostly unemployed.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001

I originally stashed powdered milk. Although I've used it up now, I used a lot more than I would've normally so that I didn't lose it (make sense?).

I've gone to canned milk this time around. I don't use that much milk, so this isn't a highly expensive option for me.

I no longer stock canned ham or spam, but I am continuing to stock canned tuna, sardines, shrimp, and chicken. The ham was just too salty, and I never got it to taste good in dishes. The fish, on the other hand, is fine.

For good or ill, I've also gone to freezing veggies instead of canning them. There just wasn't time this season to do the canning that I wanted to do, but I did spend an afternoon blanching and packing half a freezer with veggies. The other half is "TV" dinners that I've fixed myself (my version of fast food). I'm assuming that the power will either stay on or it will soon be cold enough to store food outside if the power goes off. Previously, I had mostly canned veggies.

Last change: I went from Campbell's and no brand soups to Progresso and a local variety. Again, more expensive, but better taste. This is "fast food" for me because I normally bake bread and simmer my own soups when it's colder.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001


Welll, I've still got way too much powdered milk cause the only way I could get the kids to drink it was to mix it 50/50 with fresh. The powdered eggs I sent away for in aluminized mylar bags with oxygen absorbers inside are unfit for human consumption any way we've tried. We never touched the 2 cases of MRE's I bought in a weak moment. Most of the canned goods were things that we always kept on hand, just alot more of it right around then. Why you ask???

-- Anonymous, October 05, 2001


I asked so that we might help out new preppers (we have a lot of lurkers).

For instance, coffee and tea last a LONG time. The coffee and tea I bought was placed into ziplock bags, air squeezed out (or sucked out with a straw if I had plenty of time) and then put into empty 5-gallon buckets (formerly containing icing, obtainable from your local supermarket bakery for free), which were sealed with duct tape. We're drinking two-year old coffee and tea at the moment and it does not appear to have suffered any loss in quality. (Tea is Twining's, coffee is mostly Millstone bean.) I know some people recommended turning the cofee every now and then, something to do with rdistributing the oil. I didn't do that and I don't think it made any difference.

For those who didn't know, Sweetie was laid off in a dot.com axing for three months this year and the supplies were a godsend--saved us a bunch of money. I'll never be without a stash again!

Also of interest--we donated some items to the soup kitchen (like powdered milk!) and the director told us properly stored canned goods last almost indefinitely, never mind the date on the can.

-- Anonymous, October 06, 2001


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