Being self sufficient has many facets, I live in an energy efficient dome house and eat good organic food, I am also on a tight budget as I work towards being self sufficient. Many years ago, while working as a cook in a logging camp, I discovered the cost savings and convenience of buying in bulk. As you know, we pay way too much for our food in supermarkets and we are not assured of the quality of freshness in any way. Although the price of organic products is falling, most organic products are more expensive. When we buy our beans, rice and grains from the supermarket, not only do we pay an extra price for small quantities, we also have no idea how it has been stored, how old it is or the quality of the source.
What if I told you there is a much better way to buy organic food; it is possible to get the freshest, best product for much less. Start by registering a wholesale club of six to eight members and approach a local bulk and organic wholesaler. The next step is to find a reputable wholesaler that deals in bulk organic products and request their catalog, which is often available online. We used Dandy Foods in Richmond, BC. Check to find out their minimum order and be prepared to rent a large truck for pick up. They deliver to a wholesaler near you if they have a warehouse in the area they supply, but even then you must be prepared to pick it up when it arrives. Dried goods come in 10 to 50 kilo bags arranged on skids, they will load them onto your truck at the source, but be prepared to lift them if you pick them up elsewhere.
When ordering, agreeing with others in the group to split quantities, and storing your supplies to ensure freshness and longevity is easy using a method developed by the Hutterites. Huterites have a long tradition of buying and storing bulk goods to share in the community. The process requires several 5-gallon buckets with rubber gasket lids and a supply of waxed paper, birthday candles, and ice. A fifty pound bag of kidney beans fills three buckets, while a fifty pound bag of rice fills two buckets. Depending on what you order, $1500.00 fills 30 to 35 buckets. Wash all buckets and lids in a warm bath with dish soap and 1/2 cup of bleach, rinse and dry. To line the buckets with wax paper, use three long sheets that go edge to edge across the bottom of the bucket. Pour or scoop the dried goods into the bucket, leaving enough room at the top to create a cavity (a cone-shaped dip in the center of the contents). Place a birthday candle in the center of the dip, light it and secure the lid, immediately keep ice on the center of the lid to prevent the candle from melting. The birthday candle consumes the oxygen in the bucket leaving only nitric oxide and goes out surprisingly quickly, your food will now last up to ten years. I like to fill a large pickle jar for immediate use, I fill and label each jar with whatever I keep, giving me a two month supply on hand.
When the pickle jar is empty I just open the bucket, refill it and reseal it, I can often use the same birthday candle two or three times so very little burns. I am impressed with how fresh and vital the food stays with this simple method, I have easily sprouted mung beans that have been stored this way for over five years! With the ever-increasing price of foods such as rice, beans and grains, this strategy allows you to afford good organic produce at a reasonable cost and helps hedge against rising prices. In 2008, I approached my local organic market to buy their organic quinoa in bulk; they sold it by the pound for $2.69, which was a good price according to my research. It was shipped to them in ten kilo bags from Bolivia and I ordered both a bag of red and white quinoa. When I went to pick up my order, the market sold it to me for $1.69 a pound, an excellent deal. The ten kilo bags filled my buckets a little over half as it is a small tight grain, I didn’t want to mix the red and white so I decided to order another bag of each. The second order was perfect as it filled both buckets and a large pickle jar of each. The quinoa in the pickle jars lasted me almost two years and within those two years quinoa had gone from $2.69 to $5.69 per pound. When I refilled my jars last year, the price of quinoa was $7.69 per pound. I will be able to refill my pots three or four more times from these buckets, I find it helpful to always have a supply on hand and the savings are obvious.
Whole foods can be beautifully preserved using this method and can provide your family with a great deal of food security. A five-gallon bucket of rice and beans (which make up a whole protein) can feed a family of five months. The power of group buying saves you money and can also expand your diet with delicious grains such as millet, spelled and wheat, which I germinate, it’s excellent. Get inspired, this method offers a practical, economical way to preserve good organic food at a reasonable price. Get together with your friends, make a weekend of it, sure it works, but you’ll love the quality, the price, and the convenience of having the essentials on hand. Reach beyond market conditioning, save your family’s future while enjoying future savings.
Maybe you don’t have any plans for one dome home but with the rapid rise of GMOs around ready-to-eat seeds and the ongoing environmental crisis, it may be time to secure your food supply.
Sustainable Living – How to Acquire and Store
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