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Old 11-20-2009, 12:50 AM   #1
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Now that we're spending most time at anchor and moving around a bit (even though not leaving one metro area) we find ourselves in a rut, but it works. Now you'll know what we eat primarily too!

First "getting the food"====>

We order loose tea from The English Tea Store online...beyond that, our food is local--

We're doing a major food shopping about 1x per 6 weeks for "big stuff" and it is usually coming from Walmart and/or the local military commissary:

Dry goods like rice, couscous, beans, and noodles, spices, beer, crystal lite, peanut butter, crackers and crispbread, poptarts and granola bars, canned chicken, tuna, turkey, canned smoked herring, canned veggies like mushrooms, tomatoes, peas, corn, green beans, a big bag of yellow onions, a few red onions, a bag of apples, some nuts, as well as laundry supplies, cleaning and paper supplies--and cat food/kitty litter! We have discovered that our Tinker Traveller does a great job of hauling lots and lots of stuff.

We do a "fresh meat" trip once a week but sometimes it is every other week. That trip is Monday night since on Mondays from noon til 8pm we are volunteers who keep a woodworking hobby shop open at a nearby Navy base (and of course get lots of our own projects done in the mix!). On the way home, we stop in and see what the local Vons/Safeway has on sale and buy it. It might be a beef roast, pork roast, hamburger, who knows...whatever is on sale, cheap, becomes our meat-of-the-week. This week it was boneless chicken breasts and thighs at $1.97/lb.

During the fresh meat trip, we also get a large quantity of fresh salad greens, eggs, 1 lb of fresh salsa, and at least 1 lb of bacon. Mixed salad greens last well (in the cool bilge) for a few days to 5 days. Hearts of Romaine lettuce seem to last the longest. We also buy a small quantity of whatever fresh veggies seem a good deal and sometimes a loaf of bread. In the winter, I bake so we make bread on board.

Keeping and eating the food ====>

We do not have a frig, but keep things cool in the bilge and sometimes fire up the icemaker to fill our cooler with ice if we've purchased too much meat for cooking the first day and eating in 2 days.

We eat lots of salad and fresh meat for two days. Then, we go to just lots of salad with bacon bits (remember that lb of bacon?) for a day. By then it's Friday and we go to omelet meals: canned chicken, salsa, canned mushrooms, whatever fresh veggies (including all those onions) are still around...they go into the omelet.

By Monday morning we're often onto peanut butter and crispbread because I'm tired of making omelets. If we're too busy to get to the grocer after the hobby shop that day, then we go a second week with out shopping--we make it through on omelets, rice dishes, pasta dishes, and canned meats in the 2nd week until we can shop the following Monday. I prefer meats and salads or omelets to eating starchy carbs so I do make sure we always have plenty of eggs on hand. Eggs that have not been refrigerated will last up to 6 weeks easily but unfortunately, those we buy in the stores will usually only last 2 weeks to 3 weeks max. I make it a habit to break each egg into a cup before using it in the main dish, of course. I won't use an egg that smell good but which the yolk has gone runny. Its old and gets tossed.

David is intolerant of milk products (including whey) so we eat pretty simply and don't use cheese. Every once in a while I get a craving for cheese and buy some swiss cheese, cottage cheese, or a dry cheese (like Romano, Ansiago, or Parmesan) for my use with a salad or something. With the exception of cottage cheese, the cheeses I buy can last several days to a couple weeks without spoiling.

We're on the boat a lot so we seldom eat out. Mondays being the exception since we're at the hobby shop at dinnertime and I'll get some fast food somewhere nearby.

We're missing fish as we're not fishing right now--but that's about all that we're craving. Sweets-- during the warm months we eat apples and whatever fruit happens to be on sale--the other day it was blackberries! David keeps a stash of Oreos for his sweet tooth, I don't like Oreos so that works well for me! During the colder months, our wood burning stove makes it great for slow cooking things including baking cakes, brownies, muffins, and pies. We eat much better when it is cold, I must admit.

That's our boring food life. I imagine once we start "moving" places we'll shop less frequently than we are now.
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Old 11-20-2009, 12:19 PM   #2
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Do you plan not to have a refrigerator at all?

A few things that worked for us. Slab bacon that's never been refrigerated - hang it from the rafters. Same thing with various salamis.

I couldn't live without my huge ration of cheese, so found ways to store without refrigeration. Semi-soft cheeses can be kept submerged in oil for several weeks. Hard cheeses can stay for much, much longer when waxed, which you can do yourself.

Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots can keep for a fair amount of time when wrapped in newspaper and stored in the coolest part of the boat out of sunlight. I stored the potatoes and onions in old tube socks. Kept them dry and protected from bruising as the boat traveled, and if one did go bad you could see immediately because it wept into the sock. I could see to remove it before the rot spread to the others.

I canned a lot of our meat. And Peter loved SPAM (yech-ch-ch).
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Old 11-20-2009, 02:33 PM   #3
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Do you plan not to have a refrigerator at all?

Yes, eventually we'll put in a freezer and a coldbox/icebox. It's not a priority as we have no problem living w/o refrigeration and we have other priorities besides refrigeration right now.



A few things that worked for us. Slab bacon that's never been refrigerated - hang it from the rafters. Same thing with various salamis.


We've found the same worked well on extended wilderness camping trips (1 month or so).

I couldn't live without my huge ration of cheese, so found ways to store without refrigeration. Semi-soft cheeses can be kept submerged in oil for several weeks. Hard cheeses can stay for much, much longer when waxed, which you can do yourself.

David misses cheese, I don't. We used to buy waxed 7 to 10 year aged cheddar in Wisconsin for those extended wilderness canoe trips. It lasts and lasts.

Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots can keep for a fair amount of time when wrapped in newspaper and stored in the coolest part of the boat out of sunlight. I stored the potatoes and onions in old tube socks. Kept them dry and protected from bruising as the boat traveled, and if one did go bad you could see immediately because it wept into the sock. I could see to remove it before the rot spread to the others.

We get a lot of things packed in bubble wrap and I've wondered about using it between onions. We really don't eat potatoes, so that's not a big issue.

I canned a lot of our meat. And Peter loved SPAM (yech-ch-ch).

David loves vienna sausages (yuck!). I grew up on a farm where we grew and canned almost everything we ate. We canned a lot of meat too, since electricity wasn't reliable and my parents didn't like running a generator to keep more than one freezer of meat going when there where outages. Because it is easy to get things here, I haven't canned meat at all but expect that I will do so when we start exploring other places. Canning is a great option for keeping meat.

The only thing that really forces us to the grocery with some frequency is that I absolutely love fresh salad greens and we eat a lot of salad.
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Old 11-20-2009, 02:37 PM   #4
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Growing up on a farm I've always done/been around lots of canning but meat is one thing I've never really thought about canning... I presume the rules are the same for meat as any low acid veg?? i.e use a pressure cooker and all is well?

for us the diet is fairly simple... oatmeal and eggs for brecky most days, cold cut or canned meat salad sandwiches for lunch and rice/pasta/potatoe with the daily purchased meat for dinner... sadly a pretty low veg diet but i take my multi-vitamins so no ill affects... for sweets we tend towards whatever fruit is cheapest.. at the moment we have a couple dozen sweet ruby red grapefruits piled on the counter that we've stolen off various trees that overhang the sidewalk here in st. augustine (yes I am a fruit bandit... if you let your tree go unpicked and overhang the sidewalk I'll snatch what's reachable with no compunction)

since I'm not running a frig at the moment either all the perishables, eggs, butter, cheese, cold cuts, mayo all stay in the bilges where they seem to keep well for the most part. Anything canned or dry I buy in bulk whenever I find a sale and keep where ever it best fits and is dry.
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Old 11-20-2009, 06:02 PM   #5
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I have a special aversion to taking "supplements", believing that there is more to good nutrition than "vitamins" for example. Here's a link to one report of a study that concludes that vitamin supplements are not only not helpful, but possibly harmful. Note that it is an analysis of 68 different studies conducted over the years, not simply one study. Vitamins - more harm than good? There are others, dating back, in my searches, to 1996. Fruit is good, vitamins replacing the vitamins found in fruit for the fruit itself, no evidence of the same benefits, sometimes negative results showing.

However, I was recently required to take a Vitamin D supplement since I had, like many Australians lately, been a bit overaggressive in protecting myself from the sun. At my age, my fervor was probably a bit misguided since osteoporosis is a greater risk than further sun damage to my skin. (exercise and calcium are not enough - Vitamin D is the necessary catalyst here. A recent bone graft in my jaw necessitated doing everything possible to get the bone to regenerate. It's been tough - I don't take pills, so remembering them has been a challenge.

On to more pleasant topics. I am an avid (perhaps "rabid"?) recycler. Any container that can be reused is reused. So vinegar, one of the more important staples in my life, is bought in 5-liter bottles that are then used to store rice, and sugar on the boat, and mixed wild bird seed at the summer house. Smaller gasketed plastic bottles (Dole has some that contain fruit that are excellent quality and just the right size) become containers for the galley-sized containers of cooking ingredients - sugar, rice, flour, dried veggies, and dried fruit (my snack food of choice).

With regard to canning meat, one must process canned meats for significantly longer than vegetables. 75 minutes for pint jars (the recommended size) and 90 minutes for quart jars. The food should be boiling hot when it is processed, not at room temperature. If so, the processing time should be increased.

Finally, if somebody could found a business importing Australian or New Zealand dried vegetables for cruisers, they should be able to make a good living once the word gets out. They are superior to anything I've found in the US, and just wish there were somebody selling them here now.
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Old 11-20-2009, 07:31 PM   #6
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Oh, yes, vinegar! We buy it in 1 gallon plastic bottles but the tops aren't that trust-worthy IMHO. Besides using white vinegar for making salad dressings and mayo, I use it for cleaning all the time. When we had a holding tank, I'd pour a shot of vinegar down the toilet every once in a while. These days, with our Airhead composting toilet, we use a spray bottle of vinegar and spritz the bowl after each use.

We often pick up a large 2L (or so) container of Simply Orange OJ. We love to re-use those bottles for water and other liquids. They're quite indestructible. Under the stateroom cabin sole, I have various 2L soda bottles and Simply Orange bottles stored with water and a drop of chlorine in each. It is my "emergency" water supply. I have about 20 or more bottles stashed away up there.
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Old 11-21-2009, 08:57 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redbopeep View Post
Oh, yes, vinegar! We buy it in 1 gallon plastic bottles but the tops aren't that trust-worthy IMHO. Besides using white vinegar for making salad dressings and mayo, I use it for cleaning all the time. When we had a holding tank, I'd pour a shot of vinegar down the toilet every once in a while. These days, with our Airhead composting toilet, we use a spray bottle of vinegar and spritz the bowl after each use.

We often pick up a large 2L (or so) container of Simply Orange OJ. We love to re-use those bottles for water and other liquids. They're quite indestructible. Under the stateroom cabin sole, I have various 2L soda bottles and Simply Orange bottles stored with water and a drop of chlorine in each. It is my "emergency" water supply. I have about 20 or more bottles stashed away up there.
Vinegar is amazing as a solvent for removing epoxy resin before it sets up. Even when using gloves some gets on your hands etc... try it you will be amazed.
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Old 11-21-2009, 09:19 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by JeanneP View Post
I have a special aversion to taking "supplements", believing that there is more to good nutrition than "vitamins" for example. Here's a link to one report of a study that concludes that vitamin supplements are not only not helpful, but possibly harmful. Note that it is an analysis of 68 different studies conducted over the years, not simply one study. Vitamins - more harm than good? There are others, dating back, in my searches, to 1996. Fruit is good, vitamins replacing the vitamins found in fruit for the fruit itself, no evidence of the same benefits, sometimes negative results showing.

However, I was recently required to take a Vitamin D supplement since I had, like many Australians lately, been a bit overaggressive in protecting myself from the sun. At my age, my fervor was probably a bit misguided since osteoporosis is a greater risk than further sun damage to my skin. (exercise and calcium are not enough - Vitamin D is the necessary catalyst here. A recent bone graft in my jaw necessitated doing everything possible to get the bone to regenerate. It's been tough - I don't take pills, so remembering them has been a challenge.

On to more pleasant topics. I am an avid (perhaps "rabid"?) recycler. Any container that can be reused is reused. So vinegar, one of the more important staples in my life, is bought in 5-liter bottles that are then used to store rice, and sugar on the boat, and mixed wild bird seed at the summer house. Smaller gasketed plastic bottles (Dole has some that contain fruit that are excellent quality and just the right size) become containers for the galley-sized containers of cooking ingredients - sugar, rice, flour, dried veggies, and dried fruit (my snack food of choice).

With regard to canning meat, one must process canned meats for significantly longer than vegetables. 75 minutes for pint jars (the recommended size) and 90 minutes for quart jars. The food should be boiling hot when it is processed, not at room temperature. If so, the processing time should be increased.

Finally, if somebody could found a business importing Australian or New Zealand dried vegetables for cruisers, they should be able to make a good living once the word gets out. They are superior to anything I've found in the US, and just wish there were somebody selling them here now.
Over the years of reprovisioning in New Zealand and Australia I discovered canned sauce cakes. The company is called "Big Sister" selfsaucing cakes. The cans are boiled in water for 5 minutes or so and then opened... Christmas puddings, caramel cakes and chocolate cakes seemed to be the only ones made. Try boiling and opening a chocolate cake on a remote atoll and you will have friends for life!
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Old 11-21-2009, 05:41 PM   #9
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Vinegar is amazing as a solvent for removing epoxy resin before it sets up. Even when using gloves some gets on your hands etc... try it you will be amazed.
Yes, that's another thing we've used it for.
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Old 11-21-2009, 08:36 PM   #10
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BJ,

Oz and NZ are great places to provision. canned meat pies (brother john?), canned sauced puddings, really good dried veggies, there are just so many things that made our provisioning for 7 months in the Solomons a treat. Even in Honiara one could only get the basics, and what I brought from Oz kept us from feeling deprived. Nowhere else did we find so many "luxury" foods that were canned and kept so well. And stowed so well, too!

And for those who like beetroot, Oz has the biggest cans of beet root I've ever seen!
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Old 11-21-2009, 11:10 PM   #11
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beetroot? is that beets? I love pickled beets! A favorite and something that I make sure we have a few cans of for when I am craving beets.
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