Dismantle Civilisation

Excellent article from Sharon Astyk.

So you want to get started, and you don’t know where to begin. Here are my suggestions.

1. Allot some space to food in your life. This could be as simple as taking the heart shaped cake pans and bundt pans you use only three times a year and moving them up to a back shelf, or it could involve getting rid of a bunch of stuff in a closet or building shelves into a basement area. You want it to be somewhere away from light, reasonably cool, ideally, and not too moist and without critters in it. Stable temperature is more important than cooler temps – that is, it is better that the place not swing betwen 20 and 90 degrees and that it be more like 65 all year round. This applies to dry foods like beans, grains, spices, canned goods and not to root cellared veggies, which is another discussion.

2. Inventory what you’ve got. Figure out what you have in your pantry. I know, it is boring, but sit down and figure out how much food you have. You can then compare quantities roughly with this guide – it isn’t perfect, but it gives you a sense of what a year’s supply of food for your family might look like (I ignore the stuff on jello and shortening ). http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

3. Start eating from your pantry – pick some recipes that rely primarily on storable ingredients adn make them. Do you like them? Do they need jazzing up? Do the jazzing. Then consider buying larger quantities of the components of this recipe. So, for example, my family always has the ingredients for a thai-style noodle dish we like – tofu (we make our own but you could buy shelf-stable), rice noodles, vegetarian oyster sauce, chili garlic paste, etc… The only thing we need to add are greens, and we usually have those either in the garden, in the root cellar (cabbage mostly), lactofermented, or as sprouts. Now try some more recipes – what do you like for breakfast? To drink? As a side dish. As you add pantry compatible recipes, add some more of that to your stores.

4. Start check out bulk resources, both locally (don’t forget local farmers) and online. There are a host of them here in the comments – http://sharonastyk.com/2008/12/20/best-food-preservation-and-storage-internet-resources/. If you have a local coop, buying club or bulk store, you can go through them. Even if you are part of a small household, consider dividing bulk-purchases with others, since they minimize packaging and have a smaller environmental impact.

5. I’ve been emphasizing food storage over preservation, because it is January, and there’s not much to preserve, but now is a good time to begin experimenting with preservation techniques – so consider making a little apple butter out of those apples that are going mealy, or lactofermenting some of your greens. And begin thinking about what foods, both home grown and wild or gleaned, you can add to your stores. Remember, it isn’t that big a project if you do just a little at at time. Now is also a good time to keep an eye out on freecycle and online for equipment like canning jars or dehydrators, or to start building projects.

And, of course, if you live in a better climate than mine, nothing should stop you from diving right into making orange marmalade or dried bananas. If you click on “food storage” in the sidebar you’ll find a wealth of articles.

That’s really it – the baby steps! Not so bad, right?