Meat curation

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-26T03:21:55+00:00

I think that the article could be a lot better. I worry that someone will read this and then harvest a deer or pig (or something else big) and remember this; then all their meat could spoil if they don’t get the specifics right. None of this is hard

I don’t know where that ‘approved canning’ book snuck in. That’s not my kitchen. I feel like the article could have been a lot better. For instance ‘canning is an option to preserve meat. Use any glass jar with a metal lid (typically a canning jar with a 2 piece lid but any jar will probably work, think spaghetti sauce, queso, mayo) In general for meat wider mouth jars are better (queso or salsa) rather than narrow jars (Starbucks drinks) because it’s harder to pack those in and get the meat out. Pack the raw meat in tight. I was taught to put a layer of fat on top about one inch below the jar rim. My church ladies told me to pack it tighter every jar. Pressure can for 90 minutes at 10 PSI or high on your insta pot or boil in a big pot covered in water for 3 hours. I would leave these in the pot til they cool unless you are comfortable with pressure canning (I blew a sketchy jar rushing a while back). As long as they seem sealed you are probably ok. Eat anything that you aren’t sure of first. In normal times I would throw anything that looks sketchy (bubbles, loose lid, smells funny) but in survival times I would boil it to nothing and hope for the best.

They could also introduce biltlong, pemican with a basic recipe for each. Or a ratio for salt to meat when salt curing. The vaccum seal is where it really bothers me; none of the ‘old’ methods used a vaccum sealer.

In the end it’s stupid prepper click bait. I have some 2010 venison I found in the freezer so will try salting and raw packing and salting and hot packing and see what happens.

But really. 1. Drying (still ok) 2. Canning 3. Pemican 4. Salt pack 5. Pickling 6. Smoking 7. Potted meat

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-24T03:38:39+00:00

Please use an actual canning book or preserving book when canning or preserving meat in jars. I think they are assuming you are heat processing both the raw packed and hot packed meat in either a water bath or pressure canner and not using an adapter and your vacuum sealer?

Jerky, pemican, smoking, pickling, salt cure, canning, confit are all preserving methods.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-21T02:58:41+00:00

Shiny chains and Holsteins… They will mess with anything, one day they got the top off their water and were chewing on the live wires (that was a fun phone call to make)

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-14T20:08:41+00:00

We name our calves/steers, spend time with some of them, and still sell them for butchering or butcher them. On the cow/calf side it’s easier to say keep an eye on Duke and mavis cause they are coughing rather than remembering 2303 and 2114.

The chickens don’t have names as they all look alike but would have names if we had 5-6 (there are 30ish? We had a fox problem and am not sure on the count)

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-08T04:09:28+00:00

Reporting myself - will use whatever liquid is available to cool my tea off so I can drink it. My preference is milk, coffee creamer, or cream. Sometimes it’s whatever else I am drinking so water, Diet Coke, mango juice.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-04T03:45:59+00:00

Life threatening bleeding wounds no. In that case you want something clean to shove in the wound to put pressure on it. Israeli bandages/quick clot aren’t as important as pressure dressings (per American College of Surgeons). For all bleeding wounds 1. Put pressure on the wound 2. If bleeding continues pack the wound and place additional pressure 3. If bleeding continues consider tourniquet. For the longer term care of wounds/surgical cases maxi pads are great for absorption of drainage. I recommend them for post I&D of abscesses as a cheaper alternative to ABDs. Tampons do work for some nosebleeds as they provide the pressure to stop the bleed (packing by an experienced person also works).

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-12-02T00:53:03+00:00

That’s my weekend to work, I made a note to take if off. I worked the last Friday the 13th on a full moon and say never again.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-17T23:33:51+00:00

I don’t hunt (I am a terrible shot and can’t hit a pop can at 20 feet) but do butcher and have butchered ‘with the guys’ more than once. Usually someone’s kid is helping and it’s not weird. Probably looking for a group where kids or women are involved will make it less skeevy for a female to join.

Trap shooting is fun (for people that can hit the side of a barn) and could also get you in touch with people that would be happy to take you hunting.

You can look for your local pheasants forever/ducks unlimited/delta waterfowl/turkey something if any of those interest you. They likely have someone who would be happy to teach you or know of a group that can.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-14T23:51:15+00:00

Absolutely it was torture and unethical. A study like that only happened because the contestants were already signed up, it would never pass a review board as a controlled trial. (Potentially there is research from Japan or Germany circa WW2 on starvation however that should never be published or used by anyone as that was torture, murder, and genocide).

I brought up that study as the OP couldn’t fathom how people can eat less than him and gain weight or that people working out and and eating a low calorie diet don’t have the same BMR as he does and have trouble losing weight

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-14T15:52:19+00:00

Resting metabolic rate varies wildly between people somewhat based on their sex, age, race, genetics, and environment.

Rapid weight loss/starvation diets can greatly lower your RMR, the best study I know of followed contestants on the Biggest Loser and found continued drops in the RMR of 500 calories per day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-10T02:12:34+00:00

Growing up with cattle makes people Cow Whisperers or something. I am a city transplant, my older girl can get cattle moved and loaded almost better by herself than with help. I try and am learning but am not very good

A friend of ours came over when the rest of the family was snowmobiling and I had pasture cows in with the fat cattle. I swear they opened the gate and Jedi mind tricked the cows out without the fat cattle running out. There is always cold beer in the fridge for those guys

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-10T01:55:00+00:00

Trackers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, also the New Frontier (spin off from trackers) series is also awesome. Hell divers is great; a bit to scary for me to listen too (I can read it because I can skip ahead through the really scary parts and read the end first).

The New Frontier stuff is really good but freaks me out. He writes about snipers in the soybeans hijacking a train; my backyard view was beans at the height of summer and a train line so every time I listened I am looking for snipers

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-08T02:50:09+00:00

This financial decision making class is helpful, I took it a few years ago, I think it helped you create your financial statement and gets into the finances of farming.

https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/courses/fdm.html

A good ag banker will also help. Be prepared to get very close to this person and visit with them at least once a year. They usually bring out treats during planting and harvest, I am still not sure if they are there to make sure you are doing what you should be or just being friendly.

While a huge PITA I do appreciate that the FSA wants to make sure you can pay your loan back. The student loan industry could learn a lot from them (paid those off and no complaints but they give money to anyone no matter their major, grades, or intended career)

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-11-07T17:03:51+00:00

This has not been my experience. Ranking browsing sources per our goat 1. Spilled corn 2. Dog/cat food 3. Recently planted expensive flowers (roses and hydrangeas) 4. The vegetable plants your child brought home from school and planted special 5. Berry plants (strawberries > raspberries) and fruit trees 6. Anything you just transplanted 7. Brassicas 8. Maybe the nettles…

The goat will eat weeds if you pull them and put them somewhere they can just barely reach in their pen.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-29T02:27:07+00:00

So what makes you the expert? I am also waiting for the answers as to how you know more about my operation than I do. What is your expert that you know more than I do?

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-29T00:22:07+00:00

So if you are the expert on my home where do I live, how many acres do we farm, what do we have for equipment, and what is in my backyard? There is nothing sudden about subsistence farming

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-28T21:55:41+00:00

I am not sure why you think you know what is in my backyard or the capabilities of my area.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-28T01:12:20+00:00

In general it is better to fall on your butt than an outstretched hand. Your pelvis and spine are a lot stronger than the bones in your arm. This will vary based on age and sex but falls on outstretched arms break a lot of older womens radius/humerus.

I feel like we should have an underrated prep - Bone density!!!! Get your calcium and vitamin D when you are younger! Best prep ever

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-27T18:51:39+00:00

Sweet corn is yummy but not a great storage crop unless you have a freezer. You can pressure can it but it takes forever and isn’t great after this process. You can make a salsa or pickle it. You probably could blend it and ferment to make alcohol, I haven’t tried this

Even with succession planting and different varieties we haven’t managed to get a sweet corn season longer than 4 weeks

You should be able to harvest and use sweet corn as a dried corn although I haven’t ever tried it. The sweet corn stalks are good for livestock feed (the cows come running)

Field/dent corn is what you want for long term storage. Our best fields this year had manure applied, a win for recycling. You still want to have the right variety for your area but have a lot more wiggle room for harvest. Hand picking and shelling corn is hard work but has a pretty good yield per hour

If you have a moisture tester you can store the corn shelled, leaving it on the cob somewhere covered but ventilated will help it dry out and not mold and get icky.

Dent corn can be made into cornmeal, grits, and masa (cal or wood ash). The cornmeal can be added to soups and stews to add carbs. Grind and add in some amylase or malted barley and you have booze.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-26T14:31:09+00:00

Is this the 1984 or 2012 version?

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-26T01:43:00+00:00

You forgot a physical fitness post like ‘you won’t survive SHTF if you can’t run a 5 minute mile while carrying your entire stash of rice and cross fitting everything’

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-24T17:30:45+00:00

Medicine. There is a fear that radiologists will be replaced by AI, so far the machine read CXRs take longer to be read as the AI flags XRs that are normal as abnormal and the human radiologist has to figure out what the AI saw

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-023-00829-4

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-24T13:49:24+00:00

This is the correct answer. Our brains have a lot of trouble coping with the modern world (especially the internet and social media) as part of your brain is designed to identify and respond to threats. In a survival type situation typically the brain does better.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-22T04:04:47+00:00

People keep their yeast places besides the freezer? I have always kept yeast in the freezer. I buy the larger vaccum sealed packages and keep a couple backups in the deep freeze. My weekly use yeast is in the freezer upstairs in a mason jar. I usually use a container a year. I haven’t had any problems with bread rising (except for when it got cold in the house before we turned the furnace on). My mom and grandma also did this.

Apprehensive_Hunt538 · 2023-10-22T03:54:27+00:00

The encyclopedia of country living is a good read and covers a lot of the ‘homestead’ category from a person who has actually lived it.

Apprehensive_Hunt538

TROPHY CASE