If your great-grandmother saw half the things you just throw away, I’m sure she’d have some stern words for you. These days, food comes pre-packaged, prepared, trimmed, peeled and neat.
While boneless chicken may be convenient for some, practically speaking, it’s robbed you of some of the most nutritious parts of the bird. (And charged you more for the privilege.)
Still, what do you do with all the extras? How do you turn the parts of food that people normally throw away into nutritious meals?
Someday, we may not be living in such a land of plenty. Practicing using up every last bit today, could save your life tomorrow.
Bones
I can’t help but laugh when I see frugal foods that our grandparents new, coming back into style like this generation invented them. Bone broth is my favorite example.
It’s the ultimate cheap food, and a great way to get the last little bit of nutrition out of an animal. These days, it’s marketed as an “artisanal food” and marked up to as much as a dollar an ounce.
What is it really? Bones. The same bones you scraped off your plate and trashed at the end of your meal.
Bone broth is extremely easy to make at home, and completely free if you do it right. Simply save the bones from your meats throughout the year in freezer bags until you have enough for a slow-simmered batch of nutritious bone broth. You’d be surprised at how many bones the average family throws away in a year. If you plan ahead, bone broth can be canned for long-term preservation. Each year, my family cans around 200 quarts, all made from the leavings off our plates.
If we bought the “artisanal” version, that stockpile would cost us nearly $3,000. Can you believe it? All made from bones we would otherwise throw away.
Even after you’ve made bone broth, you’re still not done getting every last bit of nutrition out of bones. It’s easy enough to process bones into homemade bonemeal to nurture your garden. Straight bonemeal is high in phosphorus, a nutrient that’s hard to come by from other sources, including compost.
It can sell for as much as $10 per pound in high-end garden stores, or you can make it yourself for free.
Organ Meats
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that knows how to make good use of organ meats these days. While beef sells for high prices, the most nutritious parts such as the liver, heart, and kidneys sell for as little as $1 per pound. Some butchers will even just give them away because they can’t find customers who want them.
Meanwhile, high-end restaurants are serving Pâté to wealthy customers who don’t know a cheap thing when they see it. It’s delicious, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be expensive.
If you’re squeamish about the texture, you can extract the nutrition from organ meats into organ meat stock to use in your everyday cooking. Organ meat stock adds an extra layer of richness to food that’s hard to match any other way, and it can be canned for long-term preservation in the same way as bone broth.
Bacon Grease
Chances are, your great-grandmother kept an old can or jar next to collect all the extra bacon grease after breakfast. That same grease was scooped out to make the perfect home fries, cut into biscuit dough, or was added to a hot cast iron pan for a truly authentic southern cornbread.
Related: Pressure-Canning Hamburger Meat for Long Term Preservation
The best part about bacon grease, besides the fact that it tastes like bacon, is that it keeps almost forever. That can of bacon drippings just sat there on the stove, ready to use, no refrigeration needed.
Stale Bread
Even in times of hunger, there was stale bread. Historically, bread was baked in batches to conserve fuel and oven time. By the end of the week, there likely wasn’t any fresh bread left. That doesn’t mean the stale bread was thrown out. Every bread-eating culture has traditional recipes for dealing with stale bread and turning it into something extraordinary.
What we call “french toast” the French call “pain perdu” or forgotten bread. Though you’ll find it at the brunch menu at fancy restaurants, it’s just a cheap way to use up stale bread.
Croutons are nothing more than stale bread that has been toasted and cut into cubes.
Breadcrumbs were a traditional way to work stale bread into meals, bulking up sausages and meatloaves at the same time. While today you can buy prepackaged breadcrumbs, they’re often not much cheaper than the meat they’re replacing.
Chicken Fat
These days, you can buy a fancy tub of rendered duck fat for close to the price of a whole chicken. Yet, at the same time, chicken fat is trimmed and thrown away. Chicken fat from healthy, free-ranging, bug-eating backyard chickens is just as tasty as high priced duck fat and was a traditional staple in home kitchens. If you’ve ever processed your own backyard chickens, you know that chicken fat is soft and yellow, full of natural vitamin A and omega fatty acids.
Exactly like high priced duck fat, but often overlooked. Ask the butcher at your local grocery store to save you off a tub of chicken fat to render at home. Odds are, he’ll let you have it for free and will be glad to be rid of it.
Related: 23 Things a Prepper Should Never Throw Away. Why?
Sour or Expired Milk
We all know that milk doesn’t really go bad on its expiration date. It’s good for at least another week, but even still, when it does “sour” it’s still perfectly good for cooking. Some recipes even call for soured milk and have you substitute fresh milk with a little vinegar added to sour it. Sour milk creates a wonderful texture and complex flavors in home-baked bread, and it adds extra lift to pancakes.
At some point, most people have had a gallon of milk go just a bit sour. While a bit sour is good for baking, truly spoiled milk can taste horrible. Once milk starts to get a bit sour, either use it immediately in baking or take the jug and put it in the freezer.
Frozen milk isn’t the best for straight drinking, but this isn’t drinking milk, it’s already soured milk that you’re saving for baking. Any texture changes in the freezer are irrelevant.
Our local grocery store has a bin in the back of their walk-in refrigerator where they keep expired milk for employees to take home. About once a month, I ask if I can have some to take home. It all expired the day before, which means they can’t sell it, but it’s got plenty of good shelf life left. Sometimes I can get 8 or 10 gallons. I keep one for fresh use and make cheese out of the rest.
Related: Debunking Expiration Dates: What You Need to Know
I now have several pounds of cheese that I can wax and store in my basement for long-term preservation, at no cost to me. If I don’t get to the milk in time to make cheese, it’s still fine to pop it into the freezer and save for baking later on.
Fruit and Vegetable Peels
Just about every type of fruit or vegetable peel is good for something.
Apple peels and cores can be cooked down into tasty apple jelly, no pectin or added sugar required. Literally just take the peels and cores, normally thrown away, and add them to a pot with some water instead. Simmer for a few hours, and then strain and cook the liquid a bit further until it jells. It can be canned for long-term preservation.
Citrus peels can be candied to add to bread or marmalade, or zested and used for flavoring. Limoncello, an expensive Italian liquor, is nothing more than lemon zest soaked in vodka with a bit of sugar added.
Since you’d normally throw away the peel, zest your lemons (or another citrus) into a jar of vodka before you use them. You can add them in one at a time as you use your citrus, and it’ll develop more flavor with each zest added. It takes the zest of about 5 lemons, plus about 1/4 cup of sugar, to make a pint of limoncello.
Related: How To Make Survival Dandelion Jelly with 2 Years Shelf Life
Just about any type of fruit peel can be made into vinegar by adding a bit of water and allowing it to ferment. It’s traditionally done with apple peels to make inexpensive apple cider vinegar. However, any peel from a sugary fruit, like a pear, mango or pineapple can be submerged in water and fermented into homemade vinegar.
Potato peels can be cooked in a little water to make “potato water” which when substituted for regular water in baked goods gives them a soft and pleasing texture. Rich “potato bread” that you buy in the store actually isn’t made with whole potatoes, just potato water in place of tap water.
Most vegetable peels can be saved in the freezer and added to stocks and bone broths. This is especially true of onion peels, which are rich in vitamin C, and add great flavor and color to stocks.
You may also like:
How to Make Delicious Biltong with 1 Year-Shelf Life
How to Build a Small Root Cellar & Bunker in Your Backyard with $400 (video)
Canning Pasta Sauce for Long Term Preservation
how do you make cheese from soured milk?
We pour bacon grease into paper egg cartons for a fire starter. Break them apart and store in a plastic bag for easy carry.
i use bacon grease or any fat as a fire starter as well! it works great.
Not to mention fresh green beans with bacon grease! That’s the only way I’d eat them when I was a kid. Just the mention of them makes me want some right now!
Try stuffing your egg cartons with dryer lint before adding either bacon grease or recycled wax from old candles. You’ll use less grease/wax and your starters will be just as effective
recycle old candles into new candles!!
there is a thrift store in a town near me that throws out used candles and new candles that do not sell in a short time.lots and lots of free candles from the dumpster.
i melt them on the wood stove and pour into pringels pototato chip tubes, using old busted tapers for the wick. i pin the wick to top of can in center using the thin wires from certain old mattress’s and add broken/ unwanted crayons to the mix. this way all my recycled candles are exactly the same length and diameter. i have a really big glass globe to fit over the candle and 2 mirrors angled at the back to project the light. so far ive saved over 300 pounds of free candles for emergency use!!
I love this idea but can not understand what tapers are?
Tapers are long skinny candles – tending to ‘taper’ from the base to the top.
What a waste of tasty goodness! LOL!
You add vinegar or lemon juice to it to make a nice spreadable pot cheese.
Per gallon of milk, one teaspoon of lemon juice. A colander, slotted spoon, cheesecloth, butter knife. Use a double boiler if you have one, it makes it a lot easier. Bring to a slow, rolling simmer, do not allow to boil.it should take only minutes to separate from the whey. Cut the curd into pieces easy to lift from the whey, put it in the cheesecloth. Drain the whey into a bowl! A lot of people use this for cream sauses and so on. When all the curd is in the cloth, allow to drain for about 12 hours, then gently lift the edges of the cloth and hang someplace for up to 24 hours. After that, it can be salted, or pressed to get out the rest of the whey. If the milk was rich (had cream) it can be eaten as is.
Thank you so much for that recipe. would adding a pint of whipping cream provide the ability to eat as is and how long should the curds age before eating?
Damn what a waste of bacon grease LOL. That can be used to flavor fried potatoes,in beans , corn bread ect but to each their own. I use dryer lint and sawdust in the egg cartons then pour melted wax over them. i sometimes just use and old slow cooker I bought at a thrift store and melt the wax,add sawdust and stir them pour into the cartons.
That may be OK for the grease left over from frying pork chops or hamburgers but even then, what a waste. But bacon fat? Dear Lord, that’s priceless! I use it in place of butter or other fats for just about anything fried, from eggs to cuts of meat, polenta or cornmeal patties, stir frys or just about anything you prepare in a skillet. It’s perfect as is and adds a delightful flavor to whatever you’re preparing. You can even sauté your onions and celery for soup in bacon fat first. The fat of 1000 uses!
Great read! I’m 72 and remember a lot of cooking
the “old fashion” foods. Don’t remember why I stopped,
but this was what my mother did, and her mother too!
i make my own soups and always get the cuts with bones and skin when possible. it makes the best tasting soup.
When done with those peels into the garden compost pile with them!
HOW DO YOU MAKE CHEESE OUT OF SOUR MILK??
You can make cottage cheese by cooking sour milk in a double boiler over simmering water until it begins to whey (when the watery part of milk separates from the curd, or cheese). Strain it through a towel to remove excess milk, and add in some cream and salt and pepper to taste.
Thank you
First of all, only raw milk actually sours. Pasteurized and homogenized milk does not. It rots. So, find a source of raw milk. Soured milk can be made by adding a smidge of vinegar, then waiting g for it to separate. The solids are used for making cheese and the liquid is good for other recipes.
Except for the bacon grease, this ALL sounds like “compost”. Which I will add to my gardens to grow some real food.
Let it all rot… mother earth will reclaim her own
But Sammy, these are great alternatives to get MORE use from these items BEFORE composting.
I don’t know how or when you got out of date milk or where employees can take it home, by law it can’t leave the store. For another reason, if it got into the wrong hands and was used and the person got sick, the store could be sued. My local Kroger marks down foods as “Managers Special” and a specially colored price tag and sells it before the expiration date, but not after expiration date.
Are you serious or joking? Anyone can “get” expired milk by letting their good milk they bought at any store sit in their refrigerator long past the expiration date.
Are you trying to big dog her like you did to your little sister?
There is always one person who knows more than everyone else. It’s milk, not plutonium.
Why they did it unknown maybe just to make the point of not trashing everything right away. The GREEN mold only the green is what penosilion is made from. In an utter emergency you can eat it as your medication but taste like shit
That would depend on the laws in your area!
If you look in stores now currently on the clearance or mark down area in the refrigeration area o find expired milk all the time. They figured out the expiration dates were just something the companies made up. I have used expired foods for years.
Why is the picture of moldy bread on here? Moldy bread is not the same as stale bread . . .
I don’t have any particular use for moldy bread. Perhaps it can be used for compost, I don’t know.
I do save the crusts of bread. I cut them in small cubes, lay them out singly on a plate and freeze them. When I am using the oven for some other purpose, I put them in the oven, thaw them and then dry them. I save the dried bread in jars for use in emergencies. If you come to my house in an EOTW situation begging for food and have nothing to offer in exchange, neither needed labor nor material goods, and have children, your children will receive the bread soaked in bacon fat. You, unfortunately, will have to go dig for dandelions or some other substance. If you present yourself as willing to work and have skills that can be utilized, I may allow you to borrow a pellet gun to hunt small game for the community pot. Dried bread won’t be as calorie dense as hardtack, but it appears to have the same storage abilities as hardtack. At least a year or so into the experiment it is still not moldy in the jars and doesn’t appear to have any visible degradation. It may be losing food value, but I don’t know of any way to test for various vitamins and minerals outside of a laboratory.
Good morning Left Coast Chuck. Re: mouldy bread. I did my boot camp at MCRD in Dan Diego in 1972, a while after you. When I spent my time on Mess Duty, part of my duties was to take all the unused bread, tear it into small pieces and put it in a laundry bag type tub. Then with my bare hands and arms I would reach down, in to the bottom of the bag and bring up the nasty mouldy bread to the top, making sure all the new bread was buried. Remember what the mouldy bread was used for? Meatloaf filler. Yummy!
Semper Fi
Wayne (also on the west coast )
Hi Wayne: Yes, I finished my eight year obligation in ’63 and was concerned about the way things were going in Viet Nam. I saw Korea all over again but hot instead of cold. I got my final discharge in ’63. I was a Parris Island graduate. I spent most of my four years active duty overseas.
We used moldy bread at home. My mother would trim the actual mold off the bread and use the bread for bread pudding or, as in the case of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children, in meatloaf. We also did the same with cheese that got a little mold on it, only we didn’t cut the mold off, we just washed the cheese with vinegar. I’m 81 and both my parents lived into their 80s, so we were either lucky or a little mold doesn’t hurt. It does taste kind of funky though if you have ever bitten into a piece of moldy bread without realizing it — before biting. You will realize it immediately after biting.
Flush moldy bread down the toilet to kick up the bacterial growth in your septic system.
bread mold may well be penicillin, and is not the kind of mold that likes to go swimming. the bread itself sinks to the bottom and becomes part of the sludge you have to pay someone to pump out.
Growing up, we were not wealthy. My mother would cut (slice) off ALL the mold and there you go good bread to eat, bake or cook with.
Same with moldy cheese. I still cut the mold off, wipe the cheese down with vinegar and it’s good to go. Been doing that for about sixty years and it hasn’t killed me yet. After all, we eat blue cheese and that is mold and a lot of it.
I absolutely agree with you on this point, In my family, the moldy bread was put into a Zip-Loc baggie, lightly sprayed with fresh water, before being put up in the cupboard above the refrigerator to culture more thoroughly. That green mold is the starter to culture penecillium mold.. All three of my children were treated with our homemade penecillen. When fully cultured, and pur through a blender to pulverize it, it could be measures and added to milk shakes or mixed with Coconut oil and applied as a topical anticeptic. My oldest is not 41 and the youngest is 33. None have expired from Daddy’s ‘Crusty old Red-necked cowboy medicine, though my wife the RN did object to some of my remedies.
Actually, bread mold is not the mold that produces penicillin. Grapefruit mold does that. However, bread mold is harmless to humans, according to my high school biology course.
When my mother would catch the mold in time, she would cut off the worse part and we’d have the rest in the form of french toast, dressing or whatever. Those were the days when we just didn’t have the money to go run and buy bread and there were fewer preservatives. She’d cut the mold from cheese also.
I use expired milk in my garden. Plants seem to like it.
So do the chickens if you have them. Really enriches the eggs.
and there’s a whole host of veggie parts that are usually garbaged – they can be rooted out and planted to re-grow the entire veggie ….
salvaging at it/s best ….
Yes love this
Great article! I am old enough to remember all those items. There is one very important exception. Commercially grown chickens are fed arsenic which collects in the bones, one of the reasons it’s not wise to give dogs and cats bones.
Great point
Wouldn’t the arsenic also collect in the fat? Which would mean do NOT get the chicken fat from the butcher? Actually, those chickens would be full of GMOs and glyphosphate anyway. I know in people everything collects in the fat. I would say to ONLY use fats from organically fed animals!
minerals tend to end up in bones. hormones tend to collect in fat, as do fat soluble vitamins. lead and arsenic cross system barriers. livers are front line in detoxing, and pull out medications, alcohol, toxins, etc and send to kidneys which send out of the body. l and k are damaged by same. oversimplification, but easy to remember generalities.
Cooked chicken bones present an extreme choking hazard to dogs.
Chicken bones are a choking hazard to begin with, but after they’ve been fried or roasted, they are much worse.
The simple solution to the choking hazard is to run them through a blender. The emulsion can be placed on sawdust and dried in the sun and stored to mix with other fertilizers and placed in the soil beneath a row of seeds before planting. It can be poured onto a piece of old sheet, placed in the sun for drying and stored in a container until gardening time. If you look through a well supplied gardening store, you will find raw Bonemeal and steamed bone meal. The solids left after you made soup[ is the equivalent of steamed bonemeal.
Exactly! That is EXACTLY why it is NOT GOOD to make bone broth from any commercially raised animal! Better get to know your local farmer that raises “clean food” (no antibiotics/no pesticides …or minimal). Every time you ingest that bone broth made from commercially grown chickens or commercially raised beef, etc., you are poisoning yourself with toxic heavy metals!!! PLUS, pretty soon, all of those animals will have mRNA vaccines injected into them, and you will become very ill over time and/or may die of cancer. or heart problems.
Yes, I know what I am talking about. I have been a Certified Natural Health Professional since 2006!
The apple peel thing is right on. We saved all our peels and cores from our apple trees’ harvest. Cooked down and strained through a sieve, the ‘throw away’ peels made many jars of applesauce.
Could use some recipes for using chicken fat. Each autumn sees the ‘retirement’ of a couple of older hens. They’re always well-stocked with the yellow fat. (roosters, not so much). I rendered some down to try making soap out of it, but other uses would be good too. What do you have?
soap may not harden w chicken fat. you can use it in cooking/frying by rendering it just like you would lard. keeps a long time in the frig or freezer, too.
Chicken fat or rendered”lard” has many uses try roasting or frying potato slices,home fries etc.,use to make biscuits,dumplings,fry eggs,but best of all use as “schmaltz” in chicken soup(the flavor is in the fat).
Rendered chicken fat can be used to replace butter in any baking or cooking recipes. I have used it to make wonderful cakes, frosting, cookies and breads.
Rendered chicken fat is called “schmaltz” where I come from.
You render the fat down over a low flame, then skim out the crispy “gribenes” that are floating in the fat. Then, add finely chopped onion, still cooking over low flame until the onion becomes transparent
Strain or leave the onion in, put into a jar, and place in the fridge. Schmaltz is good for spreading on a bagel, cooking an egg, any way in which you’d use butter.
That, to me, is “soul food” and reminds me of growing up.
Thought the whole point of this was to share information, not criticize those who do.
I’m ninety-seven and in my whole life have never seen any waste. But I have seen a tremendous amount of valuable resources not put to use. The point is if you see something as waste you will likely throw it out but if you see it as valuable you will find you will find many uses for it.
Small changes are made by changing the way you do things. Big changes are made by changing the way you see things.
How to information on anything is on the web
Arsenic collects in the chicken livers. Commercial chickens are fed Roxsarsone, containing arsenic, to kill internal parasites.
My dog loves chicken livers, I microwave one for her every night and chop it up and put in on top of her dry food. It’s the only thing she likes. I’ve tried wet dog food, and cat wet food and nothing will get her to the dinner bowl except chicken livers. Are you sure there is arsenic in them? I’m not buying her steak every night! Just so you know, I don’t spoil her, yea right!
You win the Internet with the best reply to a thought provocing, but incomplete article. Thank you!
Thank you fossil. I just lost my Native American elder friend who taught me to think like you. He walked on this past Friday during the Potent Blood Moon full lunar eclipse. Glad you are still around!
My sympathies for your loss but my accolades for having such a friend for any length of time!
Having lived in New Orleans for several years and taking on the local cuisine and learning how to cook it properly, one year we brought back to our home in Georgia some of that delicious “French Bread”. It is sold in a paper bag and it isnt even sealed up. Knowing it lasted a long time, we put two loaves on top ofthe fridge. We waited a year. It was no different then from the day it was baked! No mold or stale smell/taste. I havent quite figured that out yet. It is rather dry and maybe that is the secret. No moisture for the bacteria to survive. DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW THIS CAN POSSIBLY BE?
Don’t know how they do it for a year but I’ve had my times of making my own bread for flavor and fun. If you put Vitamin C in place of salt it tipples it’s shelf life. But my bread would still mold before store bought bread until I discovered via a health food store. The reason their/store bread last longer is it’s not cooked all the way. Just short of it by 4 or 5 min. I did it once bread did last longer but remember I was making it for flavor didn’t have that taste I wanted in it. By the way that loaf I didn’t cook all the way and put Vitamin C in on the shelf lasted well over a month almost 2 months.
This is a cool article. We do most of this as an added value. Never buy vegitable oil is an asthmatic because it evaporates and gets in the lungs. Animal far is better, anyway, without the hydrogen veggie oils pick up when cooking.
Hello, red. I’d like to ask, how does hydrogen get into the lungs through vegetable oil, and is it noticeable immediately, like smoke? I myself am not an asthmatic, thank the Lord, but my sister is. I’d like to know about things like this so I can pass them along to her. Does olive oil do any harm? She’s partial to olive oil; she uses it in nearly all her food that calls for oil. Thank you for your information. It’s very helpful. ?
Dear Avid Reader: I hope you don’t mind if I give you some good information on oils to ingest. Olive Oil, raw and not overly old (goes rancid very fast) is fine for eating like the Europeans do. HOWEVER, I know even doctors who think it is fine to fry food in Olive Oil! NO IT IS NOT! Olive Oil turns into transfat very fast in a fry pan. You can tell them the oil begins to “shimmer” or smoke. Avocado Oil is MUCH better for frying, is healthy for you, and is a higher temp cooking oil good for most food preparation.. That means it is much less likely to damage your heart by accidentally becoming over-heated during cooking. Always watch out for the shimmering, though, and the start of smoking. That means the oil in your pan is turning to transfat, which is deadly.
Great article! Only thing I disagree with is bacon fat left out of fridge. It may not “spoil” but I can detect a rancid taste after awhile. I pour mine off & put it in the fridge. In a shtf scenario, however, I probably wouldn’t be so picky. Lol
Due to my injuries my husband does all the cooking. We have bacon about twice a year and every time he tosses the bacon grease! Sometimes I wish he would save it for wilted lettuce and other treats!
So much of this well written and informative article has been used practically in my family for many years.In the mention of organ meats, I did want to add those of wild game as well. At several of the sited we have lived, there was a small contingent of avid hunters. To my dismay, they discarded some of the organ cuts away in field dressing. None had ever eaten venison tongue or heart until I cooked up a good venison tongue or heart stirfry. It rarely required more than a second taste of my Stir Fry to terminate my source of the meat.
I would say that if things were bad, it seems rather unlikely that anyone would neglect their food supplies. Foods spoil, but allowing a loaf of bread or basket of fruit to spoil and mold is just foolish. But sometimes foods begin spoil quickly without obvious clues or we can’t consume it fast enough as would happen on ships. Rats, maggots and worms and excessive humidity threatened their on board food supply. Scurvy was always a concern on those old ships.
Now immediately using foods that have suddenly soured is smart when food is in short supply. Using old foods before they turn bad as in poisonous or at least harmful means recovering supplies, so knowing how to make yogurt or croutons is a good thing. Finding a use for everything is another smart path to follow. A lot of these old practices emphasis a waste nothing approach and they can certainly benefit us more than we realize. Some take a little effort, but for example, tossing bones into a pot and brewing some broth is easy. And while the extracted nutrition is good for humans, bone broth is said to be excellent for improving appetites in dogs and improving overall canine health. It can be served as a nutritious drink or used to cook with and soup or ramen lets us use bits and pieces and create a meal.
My mother said when she was a young girl, her grandmother (my great grandmother) used to heat milk for hot chocolate and she’d skim the “skin” off the top and drop it into a jar, sprinkle some salt on it and keep it in the fridge or ice box. When it was nearly full, she’d make tasty whipped butter out it.
Can you use turkey bacon grease as you would pork bacon grease or are the rules of preservation different. Thanks in advance.
The turkey bacon is not a natural product- a lot of crap they put in- soybean oil and chemicals : you better have a real bacon- won’t kill you.
They try to scare you away from natural food so you can buy their food waste industry crap fashioned into “ dietatic” products.
I used to be big into health foods until I discovered that 90% of them cause more harm to your body than natural food with all the waste and junk they put in it, and some of it is in such a small amount that by law doesn’t have to be on the label. My health was going down heel the more I tried to eat health, When I gave up and said the hell with it all my health to my surprise was getting better. It’s not the health foods fault but the manufactures. Most of them from health food stores.
There is so much seriously good information contained in this message that I’m going to save it to my SHTF
file. Thanks to all who (not “that”) chose to share potentially lifesaving
info.
To the author:
Great information and ideas! Thank you!
To Ask A Prepper:
Thank you, as well, for finding these people and getting preppers (and the public) the best information around.
Just my opinion.
Jerry D Young
you keep referring to storing foods in the freezer, which is fine but when the power grid goes down for days, weeks , or months the freezer will be useless for that then so we need to think more about ways our ancesters used to preserve food. I remember my grand dad canning sausage. he cooked the sausage almost done , packed it in mason jars , poured the hot lard over it so that it was about I/4-1/3 full ,put the lid & ring on tight & turned the jars upside down. let the heat seal the jars & then stored them in the pantry until ready to cook & eat it. he always had enough to last them a year or more.
I wanted to pass along my favorite source for chicken soup from a large family reunion. So many purchase Kentucky fried chicken as their food potluck contribution. We bring along a stainless steel pressure cooker for family members to discard the KFC bones rather than discard them into the trash bags at the site. We pressure cook the bones # 10 pressure for about 30 minutes before cooling & deboning. Cooking longer or # higher pressure tends to generate bone meal. The cleaned bones are then processed through our garbage disposal & ported into sawdust to use as steamed bonemeal fertilizer. The broth may need to be reduced. That is a personal preference. We then pressure can the broth @ 15# & store for years if necessary. We do take the time to separate out the Barb-qued chicken from the regular chicken. Mixing Popeyes & home fried chicken doesn’t matter a whole lot; but straight KFC chicken does make a surperior flavored broth.
KFC tastes better because it is loaded with dangerous MSG!!
I’ve seen almost 8 decades and something my great grandmother taught me was to was my veggies well, I now use a drop or 2 of Dawn in the water that I use to wash them in, then save the peelings & pieces you snip off until you have enough to boil for a very flavorful veggie broth. The variety is endless, I just put it all in a gallon size storage bag, boil it down & strain it then normally jar & pressure can it if I don’t need it right away. Depending on what veggies were in there I may run them through the food processor and dehydrate the pulp for veggie powder to use for further flavoring. When canning tomatoes I save the peels to dehydrate for powder & if I’ve canned tomato juice I dry the pulp for powder also. A run through the processor makes a really good powder, If anyone disposes of my bacon dripping they’re in deep trouble. The drippings reside on my kitchen range in a place of honor so they can be used almost daily. Well, I didn’t start out to write a book so I’ll leave you with this. Have a Jesus blessed life.
I didn’t proofread very well. It sounds like I boil the veggie peels in the storage bag. I meant to say that I save them in the freezer until the bag holds enough to merit the time it takes to process them. Senior moment, sorry
I would not use the peels of fruit and most veggies because of pesticides. Our foods today are mostly a way to poison the population a little at a time.
if you grow your own fruits and vegetables then you can avoid the chemicals sprayed on commercially grown produce. If you don’t want to eat the peels or feed them to animals, then compost.
I harvested some container grown potatoes this morning, this evening I scrubbed them well with a soft vegetable brush and water. My wife cut them into wedges with the skins left on, coated them with olive oil and seasoned with garlic salt and a little pepper, then air fried them. She set three larger ones aside to bake in the next couple days. Fresh home-grown potatoes are just awesome!
Save all expired medications .
A major consideration is what zone you live in .whether it cold to freezing year round ,
or you live in Arizona where it can be 120′ give or take for weeks.
Two major general considerations are the WILL to survive and COMMON SENSE!
take NOTHING for GRANTED,
Good luck
Semper Fi
The SKIPPER
KFC chicken tastes best because it is LOADED with damaging MSG! Very bad for the brain, amongst other things!