09:52 – It was 73.5F (23C) when I took Colin out at 0710, sunny and windy. More work on science kits today, with Barbara volunteering at the Historical Society museum this afternoon.
Commercially canned meats versus home-canned meats
As a basis of comparison, a 1.75-pound can of Keystone canned ground beef costs $6.28 at Walmart.com, with free shipping on orders of $35 or more. Canning that same 1.75 pounds of ground beef yourself requires buying not just the fresh ground beef, but a canning jar, a pressure canner and accessories, and the fuel required to process the jar. And, of course, your time.
I checked the prices at Sam’s Club. Ground beef in bulk, depending on exactly how much you buy and whether you go for the 80/20 or 90/10, costs $3/pound give or take $0.25. Call it $3.00. So 1.75 pounds of ground beef costs about $5.25. That leaves you $1.03 to work with if you want to break even. Sam’s doesn’t offer much in the way of canning jars, so I checked Walmart.com. Two cases of wide-mouth quart jars (24 jars) with lids and bands costs $18.98, or $0.79 each. That quart jar will hold anything from 1.5 pounds to two pounds of ground beef, depending on how you process it. Call it 1.75 pounds on average. So, at $5.25 for the meat and $0.79 for the jar, we’re already at $6.04. Even assuming we don’t allocate any of the cost for the canner and other equipment to this batch, we have $0.24 per jar left to pay for our fuel, effort, and time.
Yes, you can re-use the jar once it’s empty, although you’ll need to buy a new lid for it. Those run about $0.20 each in quantity. Or you can buy re-usable Tattler lids, which run roughly a buck apiece, but can be reused repeatedly. Let’s say you get ten uses out of each lid. That takes your cost down from $0.20 per run to $0.10. On that basis, your total materials cost drops to about $5.35 per 1.75-pound jar, or about $0.93 less than buying the can of Keystone ground beef. Given the time, effort, and fuel required, I don’t consider that anything close to break-even, which is why we don’t can ground beef.
Granted, this is worst case. Walmart also sells Keystone 1.75-pound cans of pork, chicken, or turkey for $6.28, and those meats are less expensive than beef. And, of course, you can often find meats on sale. In fact, one of my correspondents buys all of his meat on the expired rack at his local supermarket. This stuff is typically one or two days short of its sell-by date, so the supermarket knows they’ll have to throw it out soon. That, and no one wants to buy meat that close to its sell-by. So he often gets tremendous deals when he offers to buy everything on the expired rack. He often gets 40 or 50 pounds at a time and pays 33% to 50% of the normal price. He then takes it home and sticks it into the freezer until he has time to do a big canning run.
So, yes, if you do what he does, you may end up getting 50 pounds of nearly-expired fresh ground beef for $50 or less instead of $150. On that basis, he’s spending less than half of what the commercial Keystone meat would cost, even counting the cost of the jar and lid. He has the biggest (41.5 quart, $450) All American canner, which can process 19 quart jars per run, so he and his wife get roughly 35 pounds of meat canned per run. They do the same thing with chicken, turkey, pork, and bacon, buying all of them only at a deep discount. They figure their home-canned meat will be safe forever and will taste just as good in five years or more as it did the day they canned it, so they’re accumulating a lot of home-canned meat. At last count, they were up to 300+ pounds of meat in more than 150 quart jars. Per person, for their family of six. That’s almost a ton of meat, and should be enough to last them 18 months to two years, eating as much meat over that time as they eat normally. And they’re always eating really cheap meat.
If you’re willing to do what they do, it does make economic sense to home-can meats, even after the cost of the canner. Otherwise, not so much.
Oh, yeah. One thing I forgot to mention. “Servings” is normally a pretty useless metric because it’s completely arbitrary. However it is useful when comparing canned meats. Keystone Meats have accurate weights on the label. If it says the can contains 28 ounces of ground beef, that’s exactly what went into the can before they processed it. Most other brands are “water added”, and much of the listed weight is that added water. For example, if you buy a “12-ounce” can of water-added chicken at Costco or Sams, you’ll find it lists under servings something like “Serving size: 2 ounces, Number of Servings: 3.5”. In other words, that 12-ounce can actually contains 7 ounces of chicken and 5 ounces of added water. Buyer beware.
Thanks for doing the math.
I will note that the added water isn’t useless in canned goods, esp grid down. Throwing it out would be a shame. Grid up, well, that’s a lot to pay for canned water….
Speaking of canned water, LaCroix canned sparkling water is available in plain water. If for some reason you prefer aluminum cans to plastic bottles, you can still stack water.
nick
And fat. I think most of Barbara’s aversion to canned meats had to do with the visible fat on top of the meat when she opened the can. That and the fact that canned meats pretty much smell like dog food when you open them. She hated the first can of Keystone canned pork. When she tasted the meal, she agreed that it was okay. Now, she actually likes it.
But that fat is also important in an LTS sense. I always remember reading the Time-Life series of books on the Old West, when I was 10 years old or so. There was a comment that illness generally wasn’t a problem among cowboys, “unless a man was fool enough to trim the fat off his meat”.
Fats/oils are the hardest foods to come by. Carbohydrates and proteins (vegetable or animal) are relatively easy. Fats are hard.
Or you can buy re-usable Tattler lids, which run roughly a buck apiece, but can be reused repeatedly. Let’s say you get ten uses out of each lid.
You can buy them in bulk for $58.75/100 or $287.50/500 for regular width. However, getting more than one use if TSHTF is problematic. Who will have a large enough supply of meat to butcher and can it?
The big problem with home canning, is that the end product is in a glass jar which is heavy and fragile.
Something is hammering my web site over the last two days. I ordinarily get about 700 to 750 visitors/day and 3,000 page reads/day. Here are yesterday/today numbers:
Visitor Visit
Today: 366 10,660
Yesterday: 692 12,625
And here’s the culprit:
Rank Hits Flag Country IP Agent Platform Version
1 9698 Unknown Unknown 54.194.244.212 Vegi Unknown Unknown
I contacted Dreamhost tech support to ask if they can do something to block this. It may be coincidence, but this site was running very slowly for me yesterday.
“You can buy them in bulk for $58.75/100 or $287.50/500 for regular width. However, getting more than one use if TSHTF is problematic. Who will have a large enough supply of meat to butcher and can it?”
We use only wide-mouth jars here, and IIRC the Tattler wide-mouth lids are more expensive than narrow mouth lids. ISTR that the cheapest I found them on-line was something like $103/gross, or about $0.71/each.
As to re-use, if TSEDHTF, we’d be canning stuff other than meats, primarily high-calorie vegetables. But meat around here is likely to be less a problem than most places. The human population of the county is about 11,000, and there are about 2.5 cows per person, in addition to other livestock.
“But meat around here is likely to be less a problem than most places. The human population of the county is about 11,000…”
Reverend Henry Armitage, is that you?
49,000 pop in this county, with 65,000 cows. 300,000 cows total in the state.
with 65,000 cows
Are you including your neighbors in that count?
[snip] He often gets 40 or 50 pounds at a time and pays 33% to 50% of the normal price. [snip]
Inventory control at that grocery store is atrocious, the head butcher / department manager needs to get with the program. I regularly check for last day meat at the three stores where I regularly shop, and finding more than one or two packages of any cut of beef is rare.
“Katy cookie store reverses decision to suspend employee after he paid for police officer’s order”
http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/katy/news/article/employee-suspended-buying-cookie-police-officer-11269307.php
I am guessing that the “customers” who demanded the free cookie after the kid bought one for the police officer were Swedish ? Surely they were not members of the FSA and BLM.
Something is really going wrong in certain neighborhoods in the USA and I have no idea how to fix it. And then there is this, “NYPD officer assassinated in police vehicle”:
http://nypost.com/2017/07/05/nypd-officer-shot-on-duty-in-critical-condition/
Re:Fat. The excellent book “Undaunted Courage” talks about the shortage of fat the Lewis&clark expedition encountered. The party lived off the land and rarely had trouble getting lean meat, but often had to purchase fat animals from native tribes. Dogs, mostly.
I seem to recall that Sacajawea also kept adding vegetables and herbs to the food, much to the annoyance of the men (who were perfectly content to live on straight meat and bread for months).
49,000 pop in this county, with 65,000 cows. 300,000 cows total in the state.
30 million people in The Great State of Texas. 12 million cows. 4 to 6 million feral hogs. 4 million deer. And a billion chickens, ducks, bunnies, rats, and squirrels (that is a SWAG (scientific wild assed guess)).
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/advice-and-tips/cowcalf-producer/cattle-inventory-ranking-all-50-states
We’ll make it for a while. Just don’t be in the inner rings of Dallas and Houston.
If you eliminate (either mathematically or the messy way) the people in the metropolitan areas, the cows outnumber the people.
Free range is all well and good, but when it comes to, say, Houston, walls really are better.
We’ve got 8 little bitty whistling duck babies in the north pond at the office today. And a single dad. No mom in sight. Dad chased off 3 other whistling ducks while we were watching them. Don’t know if they wanted to adopt or kill the babies.
If you eliminate (either mathematically or the messy way) the people in the metropolitan areas, the cows outnumber the people.
Hey wait, I live and work in the outer metropolitan area of Houston.
We’ll make it for a while. Just don’t be in the inner rings of Dallas and Houston.
Add Travis County to the list. Sadly, that covers most of Austin, the state capital.
My sympathies to the drake. I’ve done the single dad bit. And I didn’t have to worry about alligators getting my kid.
And your sacrifice for the betterment of Homo sapiens non-metripolitanus shall be appreciated.
“Hey wait, I live and work in the outer metropolitan area of Houston.”
It’s not like we’re going to hunt you down and kill you. It’s just that if TSEDHTF your life expectancy is lower than if you were living in a more remote location.
Speak for yourself. Those cows aren’t going to last forever, and I get hungry.
We tried a can of Keystone turkey last night. Very tasty. Mostly big chunks of white meat… about the size of a small egg or a K-cup.
I dumped a can of Cream o’ Chicken soup in the skillet. Drained the turkey juice into the pan. Stirred it together, added about 3/4 of a soup can of water. Tossed in the turkey and a couple of large handfuls of egg noodles. Added a drained and rinsed can of sliced mushroom and a heaping tablespoon of sliced black olives. Then I thought to turn the burner on. Doh! It’s an electric Whirlpool range… I set the heat a one mark above LO and put the lid on the pan. Half an hour later the noodles were done.
The olives were for color. I would have added some jarred pimientos for more color but I’m out. Rather, I thought I was out.
Add more noodles for more people…. Three people ate their fill, the four dogs each had a heaping tablespoon stirred into their dry feed. There is enough in the fridge for two people to split for another meal.
We’ll make it for a while. Just don’t be in the inner rings of Dallas and Houston.
I would add Fort Worth, San Antonio and the Rio Grand Valley. El Paso is too far away to matter. Ditto Midland and Odessa.
Speak for yourself. Those cows aren’t going to last forever, and I get hungry.
Eat them slow and give ’em time to make baby cows.
“A pig like that you don’t eat all at once!”
El Paso? You mean Ciudad Juarez? Wall comes down and the streets will run with blood, and the holes will fill with heads. NO FUCKING WAY would I be near Cuidad El Paso in a collapse. If there’s even a RUMOR of collapse, arm up and GTFO.
n
Mrs. OFD has trained members of the CJ PD, and recently, too. They are good people basically keeping a vibrating lid on a giant garbage can and it ain’t gonna hold forever. They did manage to train fifty more instructors who went over to the other side to train even more, though, so maybe some good done there.
That said, I wouldn’t be near ANY mid- to large-sized city in the event of a big collapse. Like Mr. Nick says, tool up and GTFO ricky-tick.
Two solid hours with the vets today and it was a large group and beaucoups intense and argumentative and emotional. Hardcore shit today.
Not in the mood to sit around the tee-vee with a dozen peeps yukking it up and drinking tonight (wife is on Jeopardy at 1900 hours. (7 PM for you candy-ass snowflakes).
I’ll hunker down and watch it here and hold the fort, while I pack my chit for the wake tomorrow night and funeral Saturday morning, both events a good 3.5-hour drive away. Then back up here Saturday afternoon so wife can pack for the NH gig; I won’t be going; there is just too much chit to do up here and no break in sight for the beat-up tired old point man.
Finally after 8 years, I got a diagnosis today from cardiologist #4 about my heart condition. A dominant left coronary artery and an small occluded right coronary artery.
Feels good to finally have one of them speak of my condition. For some reason, they do not like to speak about problems. I got that out of cardiologist #4 by telling him that I am totally surprised to still be alive. That got the conversation going.
wife is on Jeopardy at 1900 hours. (7 PM for you candy-ass snowflakes)
19:30 my time (thus I am not a candy-ass snowflake) (or 00:30 GMT +1 for gypsy’s among us) on the local feed. Will be watching.
It may be hard to pick her out.
You should have told her to wear a big red clown nose.
Unless her nose normally is big, round, and red. In which case you should have told her to wear a nice necklace or earrings.
“El Paso is too far away to matter. ”
Marty Robbins: “Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl….”
Not in the mood to sit around the tee-vee with a dozen peeps yukking it up and drinking tonight (wife is on Jeopardy at 1900 hours. (7 PM for you candy-ass snowflakes).
Is she on season 33 episode 214 or episode 215 ? If episode 214 then they showed it today at 3pm (1500) on KTRK.
It came on at 1900 here and apparently 1930 down in MA.
“… you should have told her to wear a nice necklace or earrings.”
She was wearing one of her own necklaces. Earrings, too, I think.
I don’t buy the “winner takes all” thing for Final Jeopardy. If you get the correct answer, you oughta get what you’ve won thus far and plus or minus your final bet, not this lousy condolence fee. She woulda had close to $17k.
There’s never a bad time to put in some Grateful Dead lyrics.
Just finished watching Mrs OFD on Jeopardy. Dave, you’re married to a formidable (in the best sense of the word) woman–but I suspect you already knew that! 😉
“EXCLUSIVE: Study Finds Temperature Adjustments Account For ‘Nearly All Of The Warming’ In Climate Data”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/05/exclusive-study-finds-temperature-adjustments-account-for-nearly-all-of-the-warming-in-climate-data/
“A new study found adjustments made to global surface temperature readings by scientists in recent years “are totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.””
““Thus, it is impossible to conclude from the three published [global average surface temperature (GAST)] data sets that recent years have been the warmest ever – despite current claims of record setting warming,” according to a study published June 27 by two scientists and a veteran statistician.”
I am not surprised. All climate science appears to be fraudulent.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
“….Dave, you’re married to a formidable (in the best sense of the word) woman–but I suspect you already knew that! “
Thanks. Yeah, she’s put up with me for almost twenty years.
She nailed the arts categories; I woulda got the Murkan history and Brit Lit, I guess. But very little else.
She was sitting down, but standing she’s a couple of inches taller than Alex.
It may be hard to pick her out.
I had no problem. Found out she apparently travels with a stuffed koala. Alex said she travels all over the world, my impression was just the U.S.
Just finished watching Mrs OFD on Jeopardy
As did I (duh from the comment above). Smart person. Although the Final Jeopardy question was quite lame. Even I did not have to think about the answer.
I don’t buy the “winner takes all” thing for Final Jeopardy
Yeh, I think you aught to get what your final amount in winnings. The winner obviously getting more and getting to continue playing.
But, that might penalize those that win with low scores, as in I have seen winners with about $2K who lose in the next round. Then you would have non-winners winning more than winners.
Jeopardy does this for the tournaments with the final three players getting a guaranteed minimum, as does the winner. If the winner exceeds the minimum they get their winning amount. The non-winners just get the minimum.
Your spousal unit did well, you should be proud as should she. She answered some tough questions, missed a couple I thought she should know as I knew the answer. But I cannot even comprehend the nerves and the pressure. In her situation I would be brain-farting constantly. I was actually excited to watch the show with someone appearing that I sort of knew who they were.
“Alex said she travels all over the world, my impression was just the U.S.”
That is correct, just CONUS. No gigs in AK or Hawaii yet. Not for her, anyway. Stuffed koalas are the organization’s mascot and they give ’em away to trainees, instructors, first responders, etc. His name is ALGEE but I forget what all the letters stand for.
She did well just to get on the show; she ended up being the one out of the 400 that auditioned in Boston last year and made it to the show, or was it the year before, I forgot that, too. CRS Syndrome again. And they were all smart peeps at those auditions, too. Brain like velcro, whereas mine is more like a rusty old sieve you find in a drainage ditch with all those rainbow colors in the muddy water.
“I am not surprised. All climate science appears to be fraudulent.”
I hate to be characterized as a global warming denier.
OTOH, in addition to fraudulent temperature data, I now see the fraudulent tree ring data:
1. Many years ago we were told that rainfall in the past could be determined from the tree ring data: large seperations, much rainfall; small, drought years.
2. Now it is: large, hot – global warming; small, last century – prior to global warming.
What will be the next lie?
Here, currently: 72F, 29.90inHg, Tide 2.57 ft AMSL
Hey, Dave is formidable, too. Why, when he was only eight he beat a bear off a mountain path. (NB: Word order is important. I’m not saying he beat off a bear on a mountain path. I firmly make no affirmation either way about that allegation, and insist that any youthful indiscretions remain buried in Dave’s past.) Anyway, in the tale at hand, the bear reared up and 8-y-o Dave responded with a boot in the nads. The bear flinched and fell off the ledge and forever after Dave was known as Bear Dave. (NB: Spelling is important. “Bare Dave” sounds like an exotic model, and I firmly make no statements about how Dave paid his way through college.)
Looks like the DA is making another run at The Cos.
No one over 40 is going to vote to put Bill Cosby in prison without better evidence, especially in Philadelphia, his hometown.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-cosby-retrial-20170706-story.html
The way the Cosby case was originally reported, it sounded as if he were spiking the young “ladies'” drinks. The recent trial revealed that the plaintiff was amply rewarded for her willing acceptance of Cosby’s advances, the nature of which she was fully cognizant beforehand. The suspicion that the Coz was being punished for his non-PC comments in re young men of color is not without foundation.
Apologies for the circumlocutions; jus’ tryin’ to keep it clean! 🙂
[snip] Marty Robbins: “Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl….” [snip]
When I was a little tyke, our next door neighbor, Mr. H, had indeed fallen in love with a Mexican girl while he was in El Paso. He’d even gone so far as to marry her, and have two lovely daughters. For this crime he was shunned by his family forever. 🙁
And the TNLU of the day: http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20170705/police-arrest-teens-after-report-of-sex-at-dennis-beach
I hate to be characterized as a global warming denier.
That is a carefully crafted slur that is intended to remind people of Holocaust deniers.
The way the Cosby case was originally reported, it sounded as if he were spiking the young “ladies’” drinks. The recent trial revealed that the plaintiff was amply rewarded for her willing acceptance of Cosby’s advances, the nature of which she was fully cognizant beforehand. The suspicion that the Coz was being punished for his non-PC comments in re young men of color is not without foundation.
Just remember when they say it is not about money, it is usually about money. And the money in this case is Cosby’s reputed net worth of $300 million.
“…a carefully crafted slur that is intended to remind people of Holocaust deniers.”
And what do we do with Holocaust deniers? We ridicule them, file lawsuits against them, arrest them, and imprison them. Ergo, we should do the same with climate change deniers. I wonder if they realize that such a crude conflation could backfire on them, though…if the climate change stuff is bullshit, then ergo….???
WRT me and bears; I have yet to see one in the wild. And do not care to see one in the wild closer than about 300 yards. Ditto for moose.
Well, off to the wake tomorrow afternoon and the funeral at 09:00 Saturday. Then 3.5 hours back up here and wife will be packing for her NH gig and I’ll be stocking up for the week.
Pax vobiscum, fratres et sorores; tempus fugit.
And by tempus fugit I mean that the only male older than me now in all the related families up here and in MA and CT, is my Uncle Jimmy. After he’s gone, I’m ostensibly the next in line.
WRT home canning and pressure canning.
Home canning (normal):
We are doing it regularly in late summer – autumn seasons when the vegetables and fruits are in abundance and cheapest. Main canned products we made are:
– zacusca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacusc%C4%83
– tomato juice (salty) to be used in zacusca and soups.
– red peppers paste
– green beans in boiled water
– pickles: cucumber, green tomatos, cabbage.
– jams.
We’ll put them in glass jars with reusable lids (during my childhood, there were no such lids available and we used cellophane sheet).
As preservatives: salt, sugar, vinegar, or some aspirin (this one mainly used for zacusca, red pepper paste, green beans). And some jars are boiled in water after the jars have been sealed.
Pressure canning:
I haven’t met any person here in RO who’d do pressure canning, and never seen a pressure canner (pressure cooker – yes but rare) not even for sale in a store.
But here is what I think it would be advantageous for me in using a pressure canner: to save time preparing meals. I figure that it would allow me to cook more rarely but in higher quantities creating so, batches of MREs (including meat based). That also would mean shopping more rarely and probably cheaper.
What do you think? Does it make sense? After the summer, I plan to study more the subject, and if I’m convinced, I’ll try to implement this.
Eugen, the zacusca sounds delicious. I must check that one out with my Romanian friends.
Our cherry plum (prunus cerasifera) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_plum tree is looking like it will provide a bumper harvest this year; there was a spectacular bloom in Spring, and we’ve had the right combination of heat and moisture since.
The boughs are laden down with fruit, and I think it’ll be ripe in a week or ten days from now. The trick is to harvest the fruit before the wildlife gets it all. I am seriously wondering whether I should rent a cherry picker so I can reach the upper limbs, or just pick what I can reach from a ladder and leave the rest for the birds and squirrels.
I ordered plenty of 1.5 litre screw-top glass jars (Bormioli brand). The fruit will be packed into those with caster sugar and topped off with gin or vodka, plus a vanilla pod in each jar. The liqueur will be ready to enjoy around Christmas, for which it also makes nice presents. The “drunken” fruit is nice on vanilla ice-cream too.
Last time we had a bumper crop, I ran out of alcohol and jars before I ran out of fruit. This year, I plan to make tkemali relish with the excess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tkemali
Just remember when they say it is not about money, it is usually about money. And the money in this case is Cosby’s reputed net worth of $300 million.
I think Phylicia Rashad nailed it when she said that somebody didn’t want Cosby back on TV. A civil suit wouldn’t involve the public humiliation of an arrest and mugshots for TMZ.
Ironically, the Cosby show was recently added to Amazon Prime streaming. I was surprised to see it there.