The ethics of being a "Prepper" or "Stockpiling" supplies

[aruvqan_myers]

I actually love the rye wasa, I make some really old school foods like potted meat [just pressure canned, not depending on fat content!] and pickles, and conserved fruits, all of which match well with wasa ryes. One may also use them like matzoh in matzoh brei [soak snapped matzoh bits like french toast, and tray bake it, serve with a sploosh of jam or jelly]

Oddly, I have the 5 gallon bucket of wheat berries, rye berries, barley and buckwheat berries, and have a grinder if I don’t cook them down. We also have lentils, split green peas, garbonzo beans and cannellini beans [all dried] and we go through them in about a year so they end up getting replaced [nope, not mormon - mom was born amish in the depression and so frugality with food is sort of in my brain]

[puzzlegal]

The rye is what i get. I still eat a lot of it. I like it with canned sardines, and it’s also good with cheese.

[Jackmannii]

@StarvingButStrong

But…. what happens if one of these SHtF scenarios really happens? What are you, you personally, going to do if there is NO milk or cereal left in the store? And your neighbor has three hungry children and you have an entire shelf of powdered milk and cartons of oatmeal stashed away in your basement?

Cackle insanely.

Nah, if there’s no potable water or power, all that powdered milk and oatmeal won’t do me much good. Nor will my cache of home-grown frozen eggplant.

All I need is the foresight to stock up on toilet paper and coffee ahead of the next pandemic.

[aruvqan_myers]

love the flavors in different grains, seeds and nuts turned into flour and baked with =)

[nearwildheaven]

I discovered this YouTuber fairly recently. She has experienced food insecurity (thankfully, as a single person) and she’s the type who could read the phone book and make it interesting. She’s the first to admit that This Solution or That Solution isn’t for everybody.

Suttons Daze

[Broomstick]

@snowthx

Like the California gold rush, I think those selling prepper supplies are going to do better than the people buying all that stuff, as they will have amassed enough wealth and resources to ride-out a SHTF disaster longer and more comfortably than their rube customers

I agree that it’s the people selling stuff to fearful doomsday preppers who are profiting.

I keep a small reserve of stuff to help me over the speedbumps of life. That has served me well. But I’m not storing anything for 25 years or such nonsense. I also assemble my stash by largely buying ordinary stuff. Most self-stable stuff at the grocery store lasts 6-24 months anyway, which is plenty for my purposes.

Meanwhile, you have folks hawking “kits” and “buckets” purporting to have everything a person/family of four/whatever needs for some arbitrary time period. Having seen some of those “kits”… honest to Og, you can assemble your own bucket on your own with better/healthier/more food than provided for less money. And of course that’s how those purveyors of buckets make their money. They sell to people who are either too lazy or too ignorant or too panicked to figure things out for themselves.

Then there are the folks who sell budget bunkers to people.. oh, now that is a mess…

[Jackmannii]

You can run into problems even with a luxury bunker - one that’s 2000 square feet, buried 26 feet underground with two escape tunnels, billed as able to withstand a major earthquake.

Bunker envy is apparently a real hazard.