Playing with rice the other day, trying to figure out how to cook it. Turns out that two heaped dessert spoons -couldn't be more than eighty grams- provide easily enough food for one person, one meal. That's if you eat it by itself, which does not taste particularly good.

My current plan is units of 5 people, 365 days..although to be generous, I'm going to prepare for 400. (This allows limited wastage, second helpings, pet food. It also allows me to round it up to a neat 2000 man-days.)

2000 man-days of food. Assuming that the lion's share of it is rice, and assuming a reasonably large space in which to grow stuff (potatoes, whatever), and maybe some chickens (can't think of any other animals that would be particularly good in that respect. While chickens can produce a couple of eggs a week, so a handful of them can keep a good egg supply.) Also assuming no refrigeration, so everything has to be canned or otherwise nonperishable.

I assume you'd need some kind of sauce, something to make the rice more interesting. Maybe some kind of canned meat. I don't know much about canned food -aside from canned pineapple (NOT something that goes too well with rice-I tried it!), I don't eat any of it.

Information, please..

--Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), March 09, 1999

Answers

Best thing to go with rice is GRAVY! Try it with packaged gravy mix, which uses one cup of water per pkg, or gravy made up already in jars. A can or two of chunk chicken with chicken gravy over rice - hey - sounds like dinner to me! And a little PS - cook your rice with a bit of salt.

-- just sunshine (fromthe bayou@lurkinghere.com), March 09, 1999.

Oh Leo, did you come to the right place!!!

Greybear, otherwise known as the King of Spam can send you all sort of ideas about one of natures best foods.

Seriously, you need to get some beans to go with the rice. Some protien enzyme thingie or the other (that you need) is created when you eat the two in combination. (One of you nutritionists jump in here any time). Eaten seperately, no deal. This is a must do.

And now to Greybears favorite beverage - Gravy.

The above advice is excellent. The various gravies that can be made from just about any thing that will hold still will make all the difference in the world in variety in diet. A real must unless you just ain't got anything else.

We had a nurse friend (who was fairly nutrition aware) several years ago help teach us about what kinds and varieties of foods to store and what would store well. One of the absolutely most important things to consider is a diet that provides enough nutrition to sustain life. Remember these foods will be eaten a time of high stress. (Except around the Bear Den where we eat the stuff all the time. Come to think of it - it's pretty high stress around here already) It has been too many years since I learned the essentials to be able to relay more details. One more time : Any of you nutritionists out there jump in here any time!!!

Then there is the best sauce known to man to make food taste better. It was GrandPa Bear who said "hunger is the best sauce there is"

--Greybear, who wonders why the nutritionists are all so quiet

- Got Vitamins?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), March 09, 1999.

Gravy. Is that the powder you mix with boiling water and pour over roast meat?

Beans. What kind of beans? Hope you're not talking about baked beans, those things taste like s***.

On the other hand, multivitamin tablets could be a VERY good idea. As could other supplements. They'd save space (a container of multivitamins takes, what, 250 mL) and maybe provide nutrients that other things would not.

--Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), March 09, 1999.

Powdered gravy - dry - that you mix with boiling water is fine.

Beans! Red kidney beans, lima beans, navy beans, white beans, black beans, pinto beans, black eye peas - fix any of those, season with a little onion and garlic (powder, dehydrated or fresh), thyme, salt, pepper - serve over rice... delicious!

-- just sunshine (from the bayou@lurkinghere.com), March 09, 1999.

Leo,

The Greybear is right about the beans. If you plan to subsist primaily on grains then you must eat them with beans or legumes to allow the proteins in both to be readily absorbed and processed by the body. Long time "vegans" (no animal products at all) must carefully manage their diets so that the essential amino acids from a variety of sources are available for digestion. If you plan on eating a reasonable amount of complete proteins such as eggs, dairy or meat then this advise is not as crucial.

As an aside, today I noticed that Knorr makes some kind of rice seasoning packets that looked interesting. If it is typical Knorr quality, it should be pretty good. As I like to cook, I will probably pass on them but they could spice up a bland meal for those that don't know their way around a spice cabinet.

-- Ramp Rat (Aviation_R_us@noname.nocity), March 09, 1999.

Hi Leo, Adventure Foods (adventurefoods.com) has put out a cookbook, around $12, to go with a gadget they sell (the Bakepacker, for baking over open flame) but the recipes can easily be converted to Dutch oven or stove top. The great thing is, all the recipes are for DRIED foods! Very good recipes too. (AF sells dried foods, any quantity.) Even better, there's an appendix in the back which tells you, in understandable language, all about nutrition. It even breaks down the constituents of the individual dried foods. There's info for diabetics too, something that a lot of cookbook writers leave out. I have this book and happen to think it's an essential for anyone's stash. In addition, the folks at Adventure Foods are really good people--their usual business is supplying N. Carolina backpackers. Have a look at their web page--there's nutritional info there too.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), March 09, 1999.

Leo:

Do consider rabbits as "livestock". They convert a higher percentage of the food they eat into meat than any other domestic animal. They are kept in cages, so they are a bit safer from predators. The manure is wonderful for gardens, and they can be maintained with garden scraps, corn, etc., although you may suffer some loss of "efficiency" in meat production. And good quality breeders are only about $25 (US) each.

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), March 09, 1999.

Last weekend I rustled up a pan of sauteed onion, lentils and rice, about equal parts each. Pretty good, actually.

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), March 09, 1999.

Don't forget peanut butter! Peanuts are very nutritious and provide lots of protein. A dietician told me once that the combination of peanut butter and milk would provide a complete protein (amino acids). You can also use it in cooking your rice . . . adds lots of flavor. My favorite beans are pinto. Cooked up with dry onion soup mix and taco seasoning they make wonderful refried beans. I use them in chili instead of red beans. A good variety of beans makes a yummy soup with some dried veggies and a little meat.

-- linda (smitmom@hotmail.com), March 09, 1999.

Eons ago when I was minoring in nutrition in college, eating complimentary proteins at the same meal was all the rage. So I recently went looking for copies of Frances Lappin's Diet For A Small Planet/Recipes For A Small Planet. What the vegetarian cookbook section had instead were books that insisted that complimentary proteins could be spread out over the day far longer than had originally been thought. (I had thought the point was to have an appropriate mix of amino acids circulating in the blood stream at the same time, and that the amino acids would not hang around very long.) A good rule of thumb is variety.

That aside, Leo, I share your disgust with beans, and I can't imagine being hungry enough to survive on them. My alternative is to stockpile lots and lots of cans of peas to go with the rice as a vaguely acceptable alternative. My "gravy" of choice for the rice is mixing in cream of mushroom soup. Sometimes the rice will just be a carbo filler under Dinty Moore stew.

Before I stockpile much of anything, I try it out. One of my tests was several kinds of rice, all lined up (and finally learned how to cook rice). Discovered I really didn't like converted rice after all. For me, thumbs up on canned hams, a big thumbs down on vienna sausages unless hidden in something with flavor.

I'd like to hear from some more bean haters.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 09, 1999.

I am one of those weird women who prefer staying home to finding myself "out there". DH loves the homemade bread, rice and bean dishes, etc...

Preferred "bean" for fast cooking... lentils. You can cook these little guys right along with your rice. We prefer brown, but are storing Uncle Ben's converted for shorter cooking time and a few more vitamins than plain white. No instant, not enough food value to keep a moth going!

Jazz this dish up with whatever... curry powder, tomato product of your choice, peanut butter sauce, whatever. Try cooking your uncle ben's just plain, throw in a few raisins, add a little maple syrup, and you have breakfast.

Another good choice for protein... split peas. Make soup with these, and combine with potatoes, rice, barley, etc. We also use garbanzo beans for chile, spice it up good, and serve it over the rice.

To avoid excessive gas, always presoak the beans and then pour off the presoak water, rinsing completely before cooking. We use a late model pressure cooker (Kuhn-Ricoh) for the beans, soups, etc. Can cook dry garbanzo beans to perfection in about 50 minutes with no fear of "exploding pots" and saves on fuel like you wouldn't believe! If you want me to post the details, start a thread and I will give online recipes that are idiot easy, delicious enough to eat now, and give pressure cooker lessons for all.

Can also give online lessons on making bread, growing sprouts, and other stuff if

-- housemouse (jgj@nevermind.net), March 09, 1999.

Leo, I don't know how to hot link but this site has all kinds of easy receipes for bean and rice dishes. Here is the site, hope it helps. http://soar.berkley.edu/receipes/beans-grains/indexall.html maybe someone can hot link this. Thanks.

-- Bay (Baylee@aol.com), March 09, 1999.

In addition to multi-vitamins, we are stocking amino acid capsules. You can get them at health food stores (rather expensive, but worth it). You can get a "multi-amino" capsule as a supplement.

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), March 09, 1999.

Berkeley seems to have revamped the SOAR site. The archive has been broken down into several sub-categories, each of which shows a list of hot links. The home page is http://soar.berkeley.edu/recipes/

Try Bean & Grain Recipes and Rice Recipes

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 09, 1999.

Forgot to add, don't forget sea salt, rather than ordinary Morton's iodized. Sea salt has the iodine you need plus a number of helpful and/or essential trace minerals.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 09, 1999.

I think that the toughest thing to solve in the nutrition department is good for you oils. Omega threes and omega sixes. Takes some study. Unrefined super fresh flax seed oil is really good for you, but it goes rancid fast. I've decided to store whole flax seed because of its desirable essential fatty acids and stability and grind as needed. You can mix the ground seeds with ground dried fruit & nuts and the result is really tasty. The whole seed is much more stable than the extracted oil. It also provides phyto-estrogens, considered to be protection from cancer.

-- Mostly Lurking (Mostly Lurking @ Podunk.Texas), March 09, 1999.

Flax seed is quite easy to grow too. You get seeds and fiber.

http://www.greatdreams.com/basic.htm - BASIC LIST OF SUGGESTED ITEMS FOR LONG TERM SURVIVAL - comprehensive!

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), March 09, 1999.

Leo, rice is the most versatile and wonderful food and stores for years. For flavor, you can add soya sauce, chicken or beef boullion cubes, wine, onion soup dry mix (Campbell type) and many other things. It's really worth getting a rice cookbook to get ideas of what you can easily and quickly add to it.

If you start eating rice more often, you'll get used to its taste and start to love it, even plain. I used to hate it as a kid and now can't have enough of it. My kids either. Rice pudding is delicious as a dessert too, easily made with milk and sugar.

IMO, the best rice is oriental rice, my favorite is Jasmine rice. It has a wonderful texture and flavor. You can even eat it with chopsticks ;-) It's delicious plain with a bit of salt and butter in the cooking water.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 09, 1999.

Organic brown basmati rice.
Heaped with juicy savory fresh vegetables flash-roast-grilled with curried velvet-buttery sauce.
India cuisine creates with rice to an art.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), March 09, 1999.

Mostly Lurking, yes, we use that oil, keep it refrigerated. Too expensive! Flax seeds are good laxatives. We're laxative central as so many pts on morphine get dry, therefore clogged.

Excellent source of cancer protection is broccoli sprouts. Taste good too in salad. Expensive, but can grow own.

Thanks for the info.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), March 09, 1999.

Adzukis, lentils, peas, mung beans etc. all are excellent for amino acid content, enzymes and vitamins IF YOU SPROUT THEM AND THEN EAT. They are easy to grow and easy to get used to. Most grocery stores stock containers of sprouted beans+peas in the produce section.

http://www.rawfood.com/

By the way, although peanuts in general are good for you, peanuts grown in the USA that are not organic are about as toxic as they come (pesticides become extremely concentrated during growing process). Raisins fall into the same category. Buy these 2 foods organic or plan on eating very small quantities of them. They are bad news.

-- Bumble Bee (bumble@icanect.net), March 09, 1999.

It was mentioned above that you must eat beans and rice together to make a complete protein. I'm no expert on nutrition or vegetarianism, but I have read that the "complete protein" concept is an outdated myth.

"The old ideas about the necessity of carefully combining vegetables at every meal to ensure the supply of essential amino acids has been totally refuted. Modern nutritionists, after observing populations of strict vegetarians who were healthier and lived longer than meat- eaters, now realize that all essential amino acids may be obtained from a variety of vegetables or grains eaten over a one-to-two-day period."

To read the rest of the article go to:

http://www.vegsource.com/attwood/complete_protein.htm

-- justmy (justmy@2cents.worth), March 09, 1999.

There seems to be some controversy afoot about food combining...I hope I didn't start it with my post, but my point above for those that would carefully read it again, is that one can't live by grains alone. The idea of living happily off of a sack of wheat or rice is romantic pioneer myth. Although the idea of the amino acid supplements may make it more feasible, a vegetarian type of diet must have a number of different sources of food (beans, grains, seeds vegetables, fruit) containing different amino acids to be complete. Do you have to eat them all in one meal? No. Do you need to eat them over the course of a week? In my opinion, yes. I was a lacto-ova vegetarian on a lark a few years ago and did some fairly extensive research so that I wouldn't wreck my health and these are the conclusions that I came away with. Do the research. Check it out. Don't take anyone's word for it. It's your health.

Now for the more palatable part. If you are eating meat, canned tuna, chicken, salmon, ham etc. can be added to your meals. Eggs keep for several months under ideal storage conditions. (Cool, dry, dark) Someone posted a URL for storing hard cheeses for the long haul a couple of weeks ago. I live in cold country. I plan on relocating my freezer to my back (upper) enclosed but unheated deck this autumn and filling it with meats and other perishables because I can reliably expect the food to keep frozen for months past January 1, 2000 even if we have no power. I will empty the freezer first if the power situation isn't rectified within a month. This strategy may work well for other northern tier states that stay quite cold through February/March. If things are that bad, think of the barter power of a New York Strip, a pot roast, a chicken, or even a frozen pizza for that matter.

Anyway there are plenty of ways to jazz up a diet. The rabbit idea is a good one if you can kill Thumper. I personally would be better off with chickens as they are harder to turn into pets but that's just me. Fishing season will start soon for those that live near large bodies of water. Someone mentioned basmati and jasmine rice, these are by far the tastiest in my opinion and are what we are storing. Buy a couple of good cook books. You might find that ethnic cuisine from traditionally poorer countries focus on the kinds of foods that you are storing. (Mexican, Indian, Chinese cuisine among others in addition to antique cook books from the turn of the century.) Experiment with food while you can and stock to your tastes. Good luck.

-- Ramp Rat (Aviation_R_us@noname.nocity), March 09, 1999.

Hi, Leo -

I didn't see it mentioned, but you should experiment with building a solar cooking box/oven for cooking the rice. They DO work and are fun to build - took me about two hours - and use no cooking fuel.

Mine cost about US 2.50 in materials... haven't tinkered much with mine yet as I'm less worried about power failure where I am than I was when I built it. Anyway, lots of free plans/info out there....

-- Lisa (lisa@hi.long_time_no_see), March 09, 1999.

If a former science teacher can get into the act .... What Greybear was searching for and a number eluded to was the fact that it takes 9 diierent ammino acids in the human diet to MAKE 27 essential human proteins. Have you thought about the need for B vitamines which are found basicly in meats AND certainly NOT in polished white rice. A good way to get more vitamines AND minerals into your diet is to buy DARK brown sugar ( it has most ALL the vitamines that are removed from making white sugar , and , if you didn't know, is the basis for molassas).Use it in cookie making AND, with a pat of butter plus salt, makes delicious oatmeal ( ROLLED OATS ONLY .. the rest is gagging MUSH.) The other "gem of wisdom" is, as it is winter and maybe there won't be antibiotics OR doctors making house calls, BUY Vitamine D cod liver oil tables & vitamine C .... YOU WILL have stressful times; the more stress you have, the MORE vitamine C you use. AND, as vitamine C helps to keep cell walls strong, and viruses MOST penetrate cell walls to tell the DNA to make more of the virus that is killing it, you need to up the dose per day. Eagle .... feathering the nest. Got mouse traps ? PS. Oats have the highest percentage of protein , 20%; wheat. 16%; barley, about 10%; corn, 8% and rice is DEAD LAST with 6% .

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), March 09, 1999.

Rice cooks easily and does not seem to take a lot of cooking time. I'm under the impression that beans take a much more time to cook. Does anyone have any ideas on how long to cook beans and a energy efficiant way to do this other than using a solar cooker?

-- thinkIcan (thinkIcan@make.it), March 09, 1999.

Harold, good post, I agree with vitamin C.

Just a small correction, brown sugars that we typically buy in stores in the US is made of white refined sugar sprayed with molasses. Molasses is the byproduct of the refining or milling of sugarcane, after all the juices have been crystalized, the result is molasses which can't be crystalized any further. But molasses does have nutritional value; it contains calcium, magnesium, iron and potassium.

There is also the muscodavo brown sugar to which the molasses has not been removed in the refining and has a heavy molasses taste.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 09, 1999.

Energy efficient way to cook beans: soak ahead of time, then use a pressure cooker. (preferably stainless steel because it's healthier than aluminum) Instructions vary with the type of bean, but the cooking time (hence fuel used) will be reduced by about 75%.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 09, 1999.

Thanks Chris ... Never heard of muscodavo sugar. Where canyou buy it ? Have a trade name ?? LOL ... Eagle

-- Harold Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), March 09, 1999.

Great question, Leo.

Leo, spices are the key to making just about anything palatable. Whole spices keep their flavor longer than powders - one to two years on average. For those of you in the U.S. check out the following company for fast service & great prices:

Atlanti c Spice

Don't be afraid to experiment with a variety of spices, folks. Mix & match. Don't be shy. Ever watch Emeril Lagasse? BAM!!

Leska, my tummy rumbles at the mere mention of good Indian cuisine! I get happy mouth just thinking about it! Cumin, cardamom, coriandor, cinnamon, cassia...

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), March 09, 1999.

This was a very informative post, I learned a lot, and I thank you Leo for asking your question.

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), March 09, 1999.

Leo, to make your rice taste better, cook it in chicken broth. You can either buy powdered chicken broth and add it to the water that you cook the rice in, or buy canned chicken broth (tastes wayyyy better) and cook the rice directly in it.

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 10, 1999.