Urban Survival Secrets

Beans in your Food Storage

Some of you are thinking that what the heck, why is Chris talking about food an stuff – I wanna know about tools and tricks. Well, an army marches on its stomach. And food make surviving a heck of a lot better, especially if you are trying to think!.

Beans should be a key component in your food storage and emergency/disaster kits. You need to be storing and using Beans on a frequent basis for several reasons. First is that they are an inexpensive form of protein. Second, when teamed with rice (brown) it is a whole protein replacement. You should have a 5 to 1 ratio of rice to beans at a minimum. (if I am wrong about this, please chime in!) Also, beans will last in your food storage for years, while jerkey and other meats are good for a much shorter period (nutritional value drops rapidly.) Another reason is that if you do not use beans in your diet, in emergency situations your bowels and neighbors will not like you for the gas you will produce. This is because of a sugar within the beans that some people do not digest well. If you take time to put beans in your diet, you will be able to digest the beans efficiently and with little gas!

Beans are easy to cook and are great as long as you know the secrets. Yes, I will tell you them now so that they are no longer a secret!

Cleaning your beans – you’d think you would not have to worry about cleaning the beans, but you are wrong. Most every bag I have purchased had a stone or two in them. Just spread a cup within a pot lid or large flat bowl or table top and pick through them. Make sure to get rid of any beans that look bad/discolored as well. Dump the cleaned beans into a pot and continue until done with one pound.

Rinse the beans two or three times with clean cool water.

Cooking your beans: To make it easy on you, you should soak the beans overnight in hot water. To accomplish this, add one pound of beans to a pot, add 2 tablespoons of salt in 6 cups of Very Hot water. Pour over beans, cover and let sit overnight. You are now ready to cook the beans the next day – just drain, quickly rinse. Again, add 6 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of salt and bring to a gentile boil. Cook for two hours. (Now for the secret!) When you add water to keep the beans covered, add it as boiling water. IF you add cold water to the boiling water, your beans will be tough! Also, add a tablespoon of oil to keep the foam down.

Old Hard Beans Sometimes you don’t use your beans quickly enough or you just plain forget about them – I just found a can of beans that are 6 years old, Yikes! To revive your beans, Clean as above and then follow these instructions:

For every cup of dried beans, add 2 1/2 cups of very hot water and 1 tablespoon of baking soda. Allow to soak over night. Drain and rinse two or three times. Cook as above in an open pot.

If you have a pressure cooker – it should take 20 to 25 minutes to cook the beans!

Notes: If you are adding spices/herbs to your beans, add half at the beginning and half with about 30 minutes left. Do not add any additional salt to your beans until they are fully cooked, as they will get tough. Be sure to add a variety of beans to your food storage / emergency/ disaster preparedness kits. They are cost effective and a great source of nutrition.

beans, Survival, emergency kit, disaster kit, food storage, cooking, rice