The ANYWAY, Very Cheap, System of Food Storage for Emergencies and/or Inflation, Part TWO

This post and the previous were written by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous, but gives permission for folks to spread amongst themselves as they see fit. Any responsible actions we can take to give ourselves and others a feeling of security in these strange times is a good thing to do. May we all get through this rough patch, emerging stronger in support for each other and fiscally wiser.

PART TWO OF TWO - The ANYWAY, Very Cheap, System of Food Storage for Emergencies and/or Inflation

By the way, I'm calling this the ANYWAY, Very Cheap System of Food Storage, because you are going to eat these foods anyway. You're going to eat them as part of your regular diet.

People with more money can store foods that are different from their regular diet. People with very little money cannot do this. They must store foods they'll eat anyway.... problems or (hopefully) no problems!

In Part One, you took care of water storage for a month. You also determined that you already have - or you bought - a manual can opener, and matches if you have a gas stove, and at least a month's supply of multi-vitamins.

Now we need to think about food. The initial food goal I suggest is this:

• To have on hand, at all times, enough natural and nutritious food - not junk food - to keep you alive for one month *without needing to cook anything*.
• This food must not require refrigeration - and it must keep a long time. You must be able to purchase it all at a regular, ordinary supermarket.

This seems to me a very reasonable *initial* goal; after you have accomplished this, then you can reassess the situation and decide where you want to go from there. You may want to stop there. You may want to get more varied foods. You may want to get some way to cook in an emergency. You may want to continue to with more of the same foods.

OK, how to accomplish this initial goal, and to spend the minimum necessary amount?

This is what I suggest; but I caution you: you are going to be eating these foods *regularly* and *anyway*. If you are allergic to any of the foods I suggest or cannot eat them for some other reason, or you just cannot stand them, then you need to find a substitute.

The quantities given are for one month for one person. If you have more than one person in your household, you will need to increase the quantities.

The first food that I suggest you buy is rolled oats: you can buy - in every supermarket that I have ever seen in the USA or Canada - regular rolled oats or quick-cooking rolled oats. (I hope you can eat oats; it is difficult to find a substitute for them because you can eat them uncooked, and that is not true of most grains. I know of two possible substitutes, but they cost considerably more. More on that later.)

Please don't buy instant oats which are generally jammed full of sugar and artificial flavor and are a rip-off. But regular or quick-cooking rolled oats are a very valuable food.

You may call these 'oatmeal' or (as in the UK) 'porridge' or 'porridge oats'. They're the same thing.

The usual brand I see in supermarkets is Quaker Oats. Store brands would be fine, and might well be cheaper. If you can get to a store that sells foods in bulk, they might well be cheaper there.

Yesterday, we bought regular rolled oats - in two large plastic bags - at a little general store here that has a few bulk foods. We paid $0.71 per pound - we bought approximately 15 lbs of rolled oats.

I eat these regularly. My husband also eats 'porridge' for his breakfast regularly - he prefers the quick-cooking oats and he has enough on hand at present; so we didn't need to buy any for him yesterday.

We'll come back to the price per pound in a little bit.....

You can eat these oats in one of three ways - and two of them do not require any cooking because oats are actually partially cooked before we buy them, as part of their processing. This is why we can eat them uncooked. I do eat them uncooked, regularly, in homemade muesli.

1. Cooked, in normal times. Then you have hot oatmeal for some of your breakfasts. This is a very valuable and nutritious food. Add raisins, or other fruit, and if you wish, serve with milk. My father didn't put milk on hot cereal (including oatmeal), he dotted it with butter or margarine, then sprinkled a little cinnamon and brown sugar on it. Hot cereal is nice that way too. You can cook oatmeal either on the stove top or in the microwave. Just follow the directions on the box. If you cook it in the microwave, it wants to puff up and get all over the place. Use a VERY oversized glass cup or casserole dish: that will prevent this.

2. Uncooked, and mixed with fruit and yogurt - this is called muesli. I eat it for breakfast most days. Just the uncooked oats, fruit, plus yogurt. Add raisins and sunflower seeds if you wish, during normal times. You can soften the oats by mixing them with yogurt (or fruit juice) ahead of time, or you can do it, and then eat them right away.

3. As a cold cereal: in this case (and I eat this too), you put the oats in a bowl, add raisins if you have them, perhaps a sliced banana if you have bananas. Then you pour milk over them and eat them as a cold cereal. If you have no milk, you could use fruit juice. If you have no fruit juice, you could use water.

The nutritional value of rolled oats (with no additions) is as follows:

Rolled oats, dry - 4 oz
Calories - 434
Grams of protein - 18

You could eat - IF YOU HAD VERY LITTLE OTHER FOOD AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF SOME EMERGENCY - 8 oz of oats daily. That would give you 868 calories and 36 grams of protein. This is a *very* substantial part of a woman's calorie and protein requirements; it's even a substantial part of a man's calorie and protein requirements, for that matter.

So I'm going to recommend that you wind up with 15 lbs of rolled oats *per person* for storage for emergencies - figuring on eating 8 oz of them per day. I do *not* recommend that you eat this many ounces of oats except in case of dire emergency.

I do recommend that you eat oats for breakfast two or three times per week *in normal times*. I do this, I eat about 4 oz of oats for breakfast (about 1/2 cup), along with fruit and yogurt. Or if I want a hot breakfast, then I cook the rolled oats with raisins, then slice a banana on top, and add milk. It's a very substantial and good-tasting breakfast.

How much will this 15 lbs of rolled oats cost? Well, let's assume that you must pay more than the $0.71 we just paid per pound. Let's assume you pay as much as $1.00 per pound. The 15 lbs of oats will have cost you about $15.

Once you have managed to save the 15 lbs, then you just keep replacing it; never let it go much lower than this. Or you can decide to buy more and keep 20 pounds on hand, if you prefer. Or 30 lbs or even 50 lbs. I wouldn't keep much more oats per person on hand than that. But they do keep a long time.

Note that you are now buying the oats *as part of your normal breakfast regime*. So you don't need to set aside separate 'food storage money' for oats anymore; you can use your normal food budget for this. This gives you more money for other food storage.

If you cannot eat oats for some reason, the only two substitutes that I can think of *that don't require cooking, do not require refrigeration, and keep a long time and are very nutritious* are sunflower seeds or Scandinavian-style crisp bread, such as Kavli and Wasa Brod. The crisp breads are available in normal supermarkets. The crisp breads are mainly whole grains; they are nutritious. I don't know if sunflower seeds are available in normal supermarkets or not. If they are, you want to buy uncooked, unsalted, sunflower seeds if at all possible. They won't keep as long as oats or crispbread, however. (Sunflower seeds would be a really valuable addition to your oats, if you can afford to buy them. In normal times, they should be kept refrigerated or frozen.)

Now what other foods do I recommend you start buying for the *bare bones minimal, cheapest possible, useful food storage*?

I recommend that you buy canned beans too. Not baked beans, just plain canned beans. There are many kinds, they all have approximately the same food values, and they all cost about the same as far as I know. If you live alone I suggest you buy the small cans of beans - approximately 16 oz per can. There are black beans, kidney beans, white beans, pinto beans, many, many varieties.

In normal times, you can base many, many dinners on beans - tacos, chili, soups, frijoles refritos, salads, beans and rice, etc.

In normal times, you'll probably want to cook most of the beans (but they are used in salads and cold plates too). You don't *need* to cook them. You can buy one kind of beans only, or two or three, etc.

I base our dinners on beans *at the very least* two nights per week. I recommend that canned beans be rinsed very well with cold water before eating (in normal, non-emergency times) if you are concerned about sodium. Even if you aren't concerned about sodium, I think they taste better if you rinse them first.

You can find hundreds, probably even thousands, of bean recipes on the Web. RecipeSource.com is one of my favorite recipe sites; just put 'beans' in the search box and you will be presented with 2008 recipes using beans! That's a lot of bean recipes.

Beans are *good food*, and they are a very versatile food. They are also good for your health.

I'm looking at a can of black beans; they are probably my favorite kind of beans. The can of beans has (the whole can, in total) 315 calories, and 24.5 grams of protein. If you ate the whole can of beans, which I only recommend in case of emergency, plus 8 oz of oatmeal, this would give you: 1183 calories, which - together with two other foods I will recommend in a minute - would be enough for a woman to keep going for quite a while in an emergency, indefinitely, in fact - unless you are already emaciated BEFORE the emergency. You also probably have at least some other food in your house, which you could add to your diet.

It would also give you 42 grams of protein. This is not the RDA for a woman's protein, but it would certainly keep you going for quite a while, well more than a month. You wouldn't develop malnourishment in a month's time if you were eating this much protein each day together with the calories you would have. Many women throughout the world live *their entire lives* with lower daily protein figures.

Other beans have very similar food values.

What does a can of beans cost? We can get them (or we could get them anyway, until very recently for about $0.50/can ON SALE ONLY). But let's even say that you need to pay $1.00 a can. I don't think you will, but I don't know what food costs in other places, after all.

If you plan to store 30 cans of beans (per person), then you would need to spend $30. BUT you can also start eating these beans regularly, as part of your normal food. And I would recommend that. Then if you know that you have eaten two cans of beans in a week, and you are still increasing your supply of beans, you buy four or six cans. Simple.

When you get up to 30 cans of beans, then reassess the situation. You can maintain that inventory, or buy more beans. Up to you.

Let's assume that you want to accumulate the 15 lbs of oats and the 30 cans of beans before you start eating them.... You have now spent $45. If you can only spend $5 per week for food storage, this will have taken you nine weeks. If you can spend more, you can do it faster.

But it's really not fair to consider these costs all as food storage costs; you are going to put these foods into your regular diet, after all. Some of this money can come out of your regular food budget.

Now what other food do I recommend you buy as part of your basic, bare-bones food storage?

I recommend that you buy cans of tomatoes too; they are very useful when cooking beans (in non-emergency times as well as in emergencies). You can buy stewed tomatoes, or diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes - they are equally useful. Perhaps the diced tomatoes are a little more useful. You can eat them without cooking them. They are perfectly safe to eat uncooked.

These will provide you some vitamins and some more calories (but not many). They will also make the beans much more palatable.

So for a month's storage for one person, I suggest you buy - as quickly as your money will allow - 30 (small - 16-oz) cans of tomatoes. I recommend that you use them as part of your regular diet also.

When you have 30 cans of tomatoes, you can either maintain that level, or increase it. Treat the tomatoes just as you are treating the beans: always replenish or increase your supply of them. Rotate them - eat the oldest ones first.

The last recommendation for a basic, bare bones emergency food storage supply: I'd get cans or jars of fruit. Applesauce is very useful and nutritious, and most people like it. If you live alone, get the smaller jars. It will make the rolled oats more palatable. Many people normally eat applesauce; it can fit into your normal food regime nicely.

I also recommend that you get some other fruit in cans - both my husband and I like canned pineapple packed in its own juice, so we keep a supply of that on hand. If you prefer peaches, then get peaches, or some of each, or some other fruit altogether.

I'd recommend building up to 30 cans or jars of fruit, just as you did with the beans and tomatoes. Treat the fruit just as you treat the rolled oats, beans, and tomatoes - replenish whatever you use.

At the end of this plan, you'll have the following on hand, and your supply of these will not diminish: you will always replenish them.

15 lbs of rolled oats
30 cans of beans
30 cans of tomatoes
30 cans or jars of fruit

All of these are now being eaten as part of your normal food regime, so all the money to replace them should now come out of your normal food budget.

NONE OF THESE FOODS IS EXPENSIVE. And you would have enough to live on for ONE ENTIRE MONTH.

Don't forget to take one vitamin pill per day.

Now that you have one entire month's food supply safely on hand, congratulate yourself on a job well done! Then think about what you want to do next.

The foods I personally would add next would probably be raisins and dry skim milk. Both would add interest to the rolled oats. And you can use both of them in your normal food regime.

The next thing I would probably want to buy is a guaranteed method of cooking food: Sterno would do (don't forget that you need matches to light it). You can probably buy it in a normal supermarket or hardware store - I have often seen it in regular, normal supermarkets. You can build a little holder for it from bricks. Then you put your pot on the bricks, and the Sterno under the pot.

After that, I would probably want a few herbs and spices - maybe oregano, cumin, and chili powder for the beans, and cinnamon for the oats. Some brown sugar would be nice on the oats as well. Maybe you already have these in your kitchen.

I cannot think of any initial, basic food storage plan that would be cheaper, and yet have the following features:

1. The food must all be nutritious. 2. It must all keep a long time without refrigeration. 3. You must be able to eat it uncooked if necessary. 4. It must all fit into a normal diet. 5. You must be able to purchase it all in a normal, regular supermarket.

If you do this, I absolutely guarantee that you'll be glad, and that it will give you a very good feeling of security.

I hope you will never have an emergency, but even if you don't, you will always feel a more secure with (at least) one month's food on hand. This is definitely worth the little bit of work and expense it requires.

You may want to continue and gradually build up to a three-month's supply or to vary the foods. You may want to think about non-food items too: garbage bags, a basic first-aid kit, whatever you would really need in an emergency.

But always keep that bedrock, bare-bones one month's supply - always replenish what you use.

The ANYWAY, Very Cheap, System of Food Storage for Emergencies and/or Inflation, Part ONE

This post and the next were written by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous, but gives permission for folks to spread amongst themselves as they see fit. Any responsible actions we can take to give ourselves and others a feeling of security in these strange times is a good thing to do. May we all get through this rough patch, emerging stronger in support for each other and fiscally wiser.

The author writes:

This message, and the second part, were written with someone in mind who knows nothing about food storage, and who has stated that she has essentially no money to spend on it. If you can do better than this, that's obviously fine. :)

While people in other countries MAY think that their government will come to their assistance in a natural disaster, and Americans *used to* think this, now Americans know that this is no longer true. I certainly hope it will be true again someday.

But we know from bitter experience in New Orleans and - now two entire years after Katrina - we know that poor people in Houston received very inadequate help after the recent Hurricane Ike.

So - to the rest of the world - we really aren't paranoid; we Americans have learned from bitter experience that we can no longer trust the government to do the job we pay it to do. Not at present anyway.

And we have a very large country, very prone to natural disasters of one kind or another. Hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, ice storms: the bad effects of at least some of these disasters can be mitigated by sensible preparations.

Americans have also seen TERRIBLE inflation in food costs for the past year. Foods costs across the USA vary a lot by area, but my husband and I estimate that - in our area - the prices for foods have risen from 30% to 40% *IN THE LAST YEAR*.

These figures are of course not reflected in the official government-issued statistics on inflation; the government removed both food and energy costs from the inflation statistics a while ago. But we are experiencing this terrible inflation in food costs, and we know darned well what we are experiencing. We aren't stupid.

OK, moving right along - what can we do?

Can you scrape together $5 extra each week for about three months (at MOST, and maybe you will need the extra $5/week for less time than this)? If you can, I can suggest a plan for you. If you cannot, then I cannot help you with storing food.

I believe that most people can manage $5 extra per week for about three months (at most). This can be in food stamps instead of in actual money; food stamps will work for this. If you can get food from a food pantry or food bank, that will also help. If you can get more money together, you can accomplish this plan faster.

But if you can only get that little bit extra money together - and not permanently, only for a while - you can do this plan; not fast, but you can do it.

In what follows, I'm assuming that you live alone, if you live with other people, you'll need to increase quantities.

1. First step: Set a goal, make a plan, write it down. Write down what you need to do each week to accomplish your goal. The initial goal I suggest is this:

============================= Initial Goal

To have on hand, at all times, enough water to keep you alive for one month. To have on hand, at all times, enough natural and nutritious food - no junk food - to keep you alive for one month *without needing to cook anything*. This food must not require refrigeration, and it must keep for a fairly long time.

================================

This - to me - seems like a very reasonable *initial* goal. When you have accomplished this initial goal, then you can stop and re-assess the situation.

You may want to stop there. You may want to increase the variety of food that you store. You may want to get some means of cooking in a power failure (assuming that your kitchen stove is electric, which is the worst case).

You can cook some of the foods I'm going to suggest, and that's probably what you will do in normal times. But if your power is off, and if you have an electric stove, you can safely eat these foods without cooking.

If you need to evacuate the area, if you have a car, or a friend or relative with a car, you can take some of this water and all of this food with you. If you need to evacuate the area and you must do it by public transport, then you can only take what you can carry. Some things cannot be helped. So there's no point in worrying about them. I try hard to be prepared for what I can be prepared for, and to let the rest go without fretting about it. I pretty much succeed at this now.

OK, so how are you going to accomplish this initial goal?

First, you must learn and follow the Basic Rule of Food Storage: Use what you store, and store what you use.

This means that you must ONLY store what you will actually eat. You will regularly eat all the items you store.

People with more money can afford to buy other foods for storage.

But people with very little money - like you and like me too - cannot afford that. We must USE WHAT WE STORE AND STORE WHAT WE USE.

I am assuming also that you can only get to a regular, normal supermarket. So I'm going to suggest a plan that can be accomplished completely, totally at a normal supermarket (as they exist in the USA, the UK, Canada, probably Australia and all of Europe and so on).

If you have an Aldi's you can get to, or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, these will probably have the same foods cheaper, so that would help. If you can get to a store that sells bulk foods, you can probably get one particular item cheaper, so that will help. But if you cannot - OK, you can do this at a normal supermarket.

Don't forget - you are going to set your own goal (which may be the goal I suggest or may not). And you are going to write down a plan to accomplish this goal; week by week.

Then you will start on your plan.

Here's what I would suggest for Phase One of your Plan. Phase One may take you a week; it shouldn't take more.

1. A hand-operated can opener. I think there are people who only have electric can openers (I myself have never had an electric can opener). If you only have an electric can opener, then please buy a hand-operated can opener the first week. It can be a cheap one. You can buy these in normal supermarkets, although perhaps a Dollar Store will have one cheaper.

2. If you have a gas stove, make sure that you have matches. We have a gas stove; it has electric ignition. But when the power is off, we can light the top burners (only) with a match. We cannot light the oven with a match, because the burners are sealed in and inaccessible. But we can light the top. So far as I know, you can light the top burners of ALL gas stoves with a match. So buy a box of matches if you don't already have them.

4. Do you have a bottle of multi-vitamins on hand? If not, please buy a bottle of multi-vitamins. They don't need to be expensive ones, the cheapest ones available will do. If you can only afford a small bottle, buy a small bottle now and get a larger bottle later. We try to keep one year's supply of multi-vitamins on hand. But please get enough for 30 days, that's important.

3. Store enough water for a month. Water should definitely come before food: people can go without food an awful lot longer than they can without water.

So far as I know, everyone who has running water in the USA and Canada can safely drink the water that comes out of their taps. You cannot afford to buy water. So you will store the water right as it comes from the tap. You are going to store enough water to keep you alive for a month.

This is a minimum of one gallon per day. You're not going to drink a whole gallon of water any day, but you are going to wash your hands at least once per day and you can splash some water on your face (then catch it in a dishpan or pot and use it to wash your hands).

So you'll need 30 gallons for one person, for one month. What can you keep it in?

You may already have this much water: if you have a hot water heater in your home or apartment, see if you can figure out to drain it. You might need to slide a dishpan under the drain place, but you can probably do this.

I don't want you to do it now; I just want you to know that is a possible source of water if you need it. I want you to know how to do it if you need to. If you cannot figure it out, ask someone who knows how if you possibly can.

Large, empty clean soda bottles, with tops, are great for storing water. Ask everyone you know if they can please give you the empty bottles if they drink any soda at all.

Empty clean apple juice bottles are equally good - or any fruit juice bottles. Ask everyone you know to give you fruit juice bottles.

Empty clean whisky or wine bottles are also fine - again, ask everyone you know. (Some cheap wine comes in gallon or half-gallon glass jugs - these are perfect.) If anyone you know buys bottled water, those bottles are fine too.

If you cannot find ANYTHING else, then you can keep water in clean plastic milk jugs. They are not the best container, but they are better than not keeping any water at all. Milk jugs will become brittle and break eventually, but they should be OK for a month. (Meanwhile you can work on getting better containers.) Wash milk jugs very carefully and rinse, rinse, rinse - then fill with water and keep them out of the sun.

If you have any empty 5-gallon buckets, they will be fine too.

If you have a cat, you may have empty cat litter buckets. I do NOT recommend drinking water stored in a cat litter bucket - although they are not dirty - the actual cat has been nowhere near them. They are not food-safe plastic. But if you have no other possible way to store water, it would be better than having no water at all. Maybe you have a friend with a cat who will give you some of these.

You don't need to treat this water in any way if you replace one-third of it every month. Just count how many bottles of water you have stored, and dump out, rinse, and refill one-third of them each month on the first of the month.

Where to put it? Let's just say this: if you really want to do this, you'll find a place to put the water.

I will also make one more suggestion about water: for some natural disasters, people do have warning. Hurricanes do not sneak up on people; ice storms or blizzards generally don't either. We have warning.

I have always seen advice to fill your bathtub with water if you think the power may go off. It seems to me that this is terribly bad advice: I have always tested the bathtub in every one of the many, many places where I have lived and every single one of them has a slow leak through the drain. No bathtub that I ever lived with will store water overnight - in the morning, it's all gone.

But what you can do is to put any kind of large container(s) in your bathtub and then fill the container(s) with water. I'm thinking here specifically of the very common 18-gallon totes used to make SWCs, for example. Many people store things in their homes in these.

That way, if the container should spring a leak, OK, it's in the tub anyhow, no problem. If the container does not spring a leak, you'll have more water.

You can flush the toilet with this water or drink it (in an emergency only) or wash with it, whatever. If you have warning, you can also fill any large pots and pans you have with water, and any 5-gallon or cat-litter buckets you have too. Fill any containers you have with water if you have warning of a hurricane or ice storm.

You should be able to accomplish the initial water storage goal (and the can opener, matches, and multivitamins, if necessary) within one week.

Next you sit down and think about water. You might decide to store more water, or you might decide that this is enough water. So we've taken care of water now.

Now we'll move right along to Part Two.

a delicate subject - adult cloth wipes

Paper towels replaced by bar towels? Check. Disposable menstrual pads replaced by washable cloth pads? Check. The final frontier: replacing toilet paper with washable cloth wipes.

Stay with me here. I know it sounds strange, maybe even gross. But there's a growing movement of folks who are using these wipes. Many folks came to them through the cloth diaper/cloth baby wipe movement. After all, if it's good enough for babies, why not adults?

After cogitating for several months, discussing it with the Spouse, and finally screwing up my nerve, last week I took the plunge and ordered three dozen wipes (and a laminated cotton, post-wipe storage bag) from http://www.wallypop.net. For friends and family reading this, don't worry: you'll still have regular toilet paper in the guest and main-floor bathroom. The cloth wipes will only be used in the master bedroom at this point*.

I'm used to wadding up a few layers of toilet paper for wiping purposes, in hopes that the layers will be enough to keep my hands from getting accidentally soiled. The first few times trying the cloth wipes was a little strange. Soft flannel on one side, and a fine terry-cloth layer on the other. No need for wadding: just one big 8"x8" cloth, use once then toss into the holding bag. The cloths are thin enough to fit nicely in the hand, but thick enough that liquids don't soak through (still, be sure to wash your hands afterwards like always... you do wash your hands, right?) It took a few times to get past the psychological hurdle of "uh-oh, I'm soiling something non-disposable!" Now it's no problem to use them.

[Wallypops also gives you additional handy tips on how to use the wipes on their site.]

Benefits: if you're a proponent of "if it's yellow, let it mellow", then not having to look at wads of toilet paper waiting to be flushed down is really nice. Using cloth will also be easier on the septic system - less solids to break down. Another bonus: no white fuzzies after wiping - ladies, you know what I mean. Wash, dry, re-use; save scads of money. Repeat.

Washing is simple - wash by themselves in hot water, and either line dry or use the dryer, just like you would diapers. Think about it: we wash underwear with skid marks and liquid stains all the time. The cloth wipes aren't any different.

You could probably use regular, inexpensive washcloths instead of the sewn wipes, but I like the finer terry-cloth on the Wallypops wipes, and wonder if the tighter weave of the flannel backing prevents liquid soak-thru. You could also try making the two-layer cloths yourself: see http://myhappycrazylife.com/make-your-own-cloth-wipes/ for instructions. Wallypops is going on maternity leave from October 1 through January 1, so if you don't get your order in on time, do a Google search on "family wipes". That should get you started.

If I can get past the squeamishness and try cloth wipes, you can too. Give them a try, and let me know how it goes!

*Although I may put wipes in the guest and main-floor bathrooms in addition to the regular toilet paper.

Scarves as totes

Yet another way to get away from having to use plastic bags: use the Japanese art of furoshiki (Wrap and Carry Things With Square Cloth). With nothing more than a silk or nylon scarf, and a couple of easy knots, you can create a bag to carry in your hand or over your shoulder!

Check out the how-to, courtesy of WikiHow. Download a PDF of instructions for several different styles of bag/wrapping here.

[photo by torek]

Book Review: Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz

Head on over to the Farm Natters blog, where I review a cookbook - that's right, yours truly, ME, reviews an actual cookbook. The end-times, they are surely near!

Organic meat, affordably

Carolyn Jung at Slow Food Nation has written a compelling article on how to better afford organic meats and seafoods. Instead of narrowing down one's choices, she instead suggests cutting down on the amount of meats we eat.

"After all [she writes], there’s no real reason each of us has to gorge ourselves on 6 ounces of beef at dinner. Try 3 ounces instead."

Many frugal shoppers recommend using meat more as a condiment instead of as a main course. What that means is to use meat in smaller portions and more as a flavoring, such as small bits in stir-fries, soups, or stews. Use less expensive foods as filler, such as whole grain pastas and in-season vegetables.

Bonus item: she also references a list from The Daily Green with the top 12 recommended organic buys. Go check out the article!

[photo: prawns, by framboise]

Make your own anti-static dryer balls

Some of us have seen in various "green" catalogs the advertisements for dryer balls. The advertised dryer balls are knobby, hard plastic balls that you throw into the dryer to take out static cling and add softness, without need for fabric softeners or dryer sheets.

Turns out, you can make your own dryer balls, and without the plastic. Over at How to Make and Do, someone (can't find the name) has posted instructions on making dryer balls from wool yarn. If you have leftover 100% wool yarn, this would be a terrific project to use up those scraps!

[pic from How to Make and Do]