Preparedness for when

Karmacat

1Tonsil, that sounds amazing! What a start! I hope, I really hope, that he's a politician who lives up to his word. And that he isn't taken down by vested interests outside Greece.

Mrs L, isn't that horrendous! You can only do so much ... Horses to water, and all the rest of it. It will pass. Somebody on another forum I go to said something like "stupid is supposed to hurt. Very stupid only hurts once". Its a bit stark, but its kind of true!

elaine241

Sneaks in under cover of a blanket as I also have been AWOL for quite a while!

Hello All if you are still speaking to me!

Another one where RL has totally reared up and bitten me on the bum!
Ive been trying to run round catching up with jobs left from over Christmas and before, decluttering, writing lists for decluttering more etc etc.

I have had a bad period of several weeks where anxiety has reached silly levels for no apparent reason (as usual!). It hits mainly when at home or if I have to go into town for anything, que complete nervous shakes inside, tense neck muscles, jaw tension, headache, total adrenaline overload followed by associated crash and complete inability to stay awake . Repeat daily for several weeks . Went to the docs for a meds review only to have it increased again and then , bombshell, signed off on the sick for two weeks. I have never been signed off before, ever, and had to ask Doc what to do with the sick note. I'm now using the time to catch up on some jobs that have been screaming to be done.

Prepping wise I have been a little lax! I am still signed up for the bee keeping course that starts in two weeks.
Tbh my preps have kept me when ive been feeling really bad so they have been doing their job. I've been sorting airing cupboards , turning old towels to rags for the workshop, recycling, organising blankets etc
I plan to inventory the 3 freezers, kitchen cupboards, preps in utility room, stashed in drawers, all dry foods, preserves etc and make a list of any items I need or that need using up.

I really have to sort cupboards of things "that may come in useful" as it is getting totally out of hand. I also have a redundant cowshed full of gardening stuff and other "useful" items. Trouble is I get so tired I can usually only tackle one extra job a day on top of every day jobs.

Anyway I have rambled again when I only meant to come in and say "Still here BoB, cant get rid that easily, I'm still lurking LOL"

Elaine x

RAS

welcome back elaine

You sound rather better organised than I am at the moment.

ALIBOBSY

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

There are days when I despair of the human race, I know I'm an old bird now but I've just had the most surreal conversation in a village shop. Given we're likely to have some wet and cold weather I went to get milk, bread and potatoes. The potatoes were a 2kg bag reduced to 90p from £1.79, still perfect, not green, not sprouting so I thought Great, bargain! At the checkout the young lady on the till scanned then and said 'Oh dear, these are yesterdays potatoes, it says use by the 27th, I don't think you can use them today' to which I replied' But they're potatoes, they are fine, they are safe to use, they aren't green and that's the only reason I don't use potatoes for, I'm happy with them, really!'she said ' But the use by date is the 27th, they might make you ill!' I said ' When you grow potatoes to eat in the garden they don't come with a use by date, you use them as long as they are sound, these are fine, really' she said 'Oh well, I'll reduce then further for you' and charged me 25p! Oh what a monster we have created with our litigious society and health and safety rules, I really worry for humanity should there ever be a SHTF situation for real, they will all be running round like headless chickens and probably if that conversation is anything to go by will very quickly starve to death!!!

On a simular theme OH and I couldn't believe the young american guy in New York, on the news who said he and his girlfriend had prepped for the coming storms by buying $40 of food and they would pass the time at home watching Netflix!!!!

No thoughts of if the power went off or anything and how long would $40 of food last :eek:.

Ali x

GreyQueen

Oh, the potatoes...........! Gosh, I'm still eating the ones I dug out of the ground in July 2014, it's a wonder I haven't keeled over and died of some terrible disease. Nice reduction, though.

Mrs Magic Greengrocer has told me the Pineapple Story a couple of times, she still can't get over it. A lady customer mentioned that she had thrown a supermarket-bought pineapple in the bin. Mrs MG asked why and was told it was past its best before date. So she asked if it was rotten and no, it was still green, hadn't even ripened. So why was it thrown away? Because it was past its BB date, the other woman stated as if it was obvious.

Today, I came back with a lot of cheap fruit and veg from the Magic Greengrocer, all for £1. There are three huge baking spuds which have little bits of damage, three peppers with tiny bruises, and 4 large plums on the point of over-ripeness (I ate them just now) and some apples with small bruises, and over-ripe bananas.

So, I cut the bruises out of the peppers, as this stops the damage spreading. They'll keep several days in the fridge like that, although I have plans for them in a chilli con carne tomorrow. The apples will have their bruised bits trimmed out with a knife when I'm ready to eat them, the bananas will be eaten, too.

The greengrocers tell me that people ask how long fruit and veg will keep for, as if it was an exact science. They're good until they're not good, and the time depends on the method of storage. So many people seem to feel that everything has to have a label and that directions, even nonsensical directions, have to be followed to the letter or disaster will ensue.

The only time I came near to poisoning myself was with hermetically-sealed and shop-bought IN DATE liver. As in well in date. I opened the pkt and it smelled a bit 'off' but hey, it was in date. I cooked it and it still smelled a bit 'off' but I was still trusting the label. I took the first mouthful, my tastebuds rebelled, my gorge rose and I nearly vomited.

I spat out what my senses were telling me was tainted meat; I literally could not swallow it. That's several million years of evolution leading to a mammal with advanced senses and a rational brain.

I won't discard something my senses tell me is OK because of a date, nor will I eat something my senses tell me is foul, because of a date.

Softstuff

Mrs LW, I'm always incredibly thankful that there are so many people who are dedicated to reading best before labels. They're the reason my fridge and freezer end up stocked with all manner of interesting things for not much money. If it weren't for them, we'd still eat cheaply, but probably wouldn't have such wonderful variety.

I've tried to help people convert to common sense around food expiry, but it doesn't work. So instead I just enjoy the rewards.

thriftwizard

I was given about 4Kg of spuds at pack-down time at the market last weekend, a pot of bruised pears and half a dozen cracked eggs. The spuds weren't going to sell because "they're not the right shape..." and the eggs, although intact & only laid the day before, had got cracked when someone dropped a bag of veg onto them. They went straight into a banana custard, the pears got baked with a toffee sauce, and the spuds will get baked as soon as we've finished the last of the current sack, which have started to sprout. I'd just spent a fiver on the half-price veg that won't last until the market opened again on the following Friday, something I do every week that I possibly can; it's a huge saving & keeps our resident veggie in clover (well, similar) all week.

I can vouch for the fact that anything kept in sensible conditions will last long after it "should" have been eaten. And that can vary from one veg to another; carrots & parsnips keep well in the fridge, but sweet potatoes will just rot & turn to slime in there. Onions need a cool but light place, potatoes cool & (very) dark. Kale (sorry, Mardatha) keeps best with its stalk in water ( a hyacinth vase works well; sometimes it even puts out little rootlets) & in the light, and once you've used part of a cabbage, it keeps best if you wrap the cut side with another leaf. Buy sprouts on the stalk if you can; we used the last of the Christmas stalks on January 18th, kept in a cool room (the conservatory) without refrigeration. Tomatoes keep all right in a fridge, but taste best kept in your kitchen in a paper bag or a colander & eaten or cooked fairly swiftly.

Almost nothing keeps well wrapped in plastic or shrink-wrap. If you buy it that way, take it out as soon as you get it home.

The only time I've nearly come a cropper with food was a supermarket chicken that was still well within its SB date. It didn't smell too good when I unwrapped it, but I had bit of a cold & assumed it was something to do with that. But after half an hour in the oven, it smelt so awful I couldn't ignore it any longer; it went straight into our Green Cone digester and we had fish & chips for tea that night instead.

DS2, who has attempted to live entirely on shop-bought pizza & chocolate for many years, came through to the living room last night, doubtfully sniffing a pint of milk with an SB date of January 24th. It had been in the fridge all along & smelt fine, so we advised him to use it, and he did, but not without a bit of a shudder. Which made us laugh - most of us prefer, and regularly drink or otherwise use, unpasteurised milk! And home-made fermented food & drinks, and home-dehydrated fruit & veg - it's a wonder we're still around to tell the tale, never mind laugh...

daz378

call myself a prepper ran out of baked beans will get some on way home from work tomorrow and for the next few days....housing association came today said i need new kitchen and bathroom.... good to hear but how long will i be waiting ..... on at 7 am tomorrow ouch and its already snowing......take care

MrsCD

Just popping in to add that I totally agree with using your senses to tell if food is ok to eat. Why would we have them otherwise????
Tonight I've made 2 small and 1 large banana loaves to use up some over-ripe bananas and some eggs dated 23rd Jan. To check if they're ok, I put the eggs in cold water, in their shell, and if they sink ok, if they float they're dead - like dead fish float! The cakes look and smell lovely!

moneyistooshorttomention

On the other hand, re people not wanting food that has passed its "expiry date" even if still okay, I am guessing that these people are just being well aware that food starts losing its "goodness" (vitamins, etc) the minute it gets picked. Therefore the longer the amount of time since the food has been picked the worse from the pov of remaining "goodness" in the food.

So, there are two different questions here. That is, edibility on the one hand and "goodness" on the other hand.

I just rather cynically tend to think "Well, you never know JUST how long food has been hanging around anyway..courtesy of the supermarkets". What with the way they do things like putting fruit into cold storage and the like for months and sell "fresh" fish that clearly isn't.

So, yep..I ignore "best before" dates too, but am still waiting for the day when my finances improve enough that I can buy as much as possible of my food locally and on the very day its been picked (or, obviously better still, my garden is fully "up and running" and I've grown it myself) and to be able to afford to throw out leftovers (again to have all my food as fresh as possible), rather than the current state of play (which involves endless getting very creative with leftovers and trying hard not to waste any food).

So, I don't blame people at all if they are going for "perfection"...I just cynically think that they don't realise just how much the supermarkets have already "done for" much of the goodness in their food before it even goes onto the shelf in the first place.