WEBVTT - How to Prep Like A Smart Person 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:11.520 What's avoiding starvation my autonomous neighborhood collectives. Uh, this is 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.360 it could happen here a podcast about things not being 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.599 as good as they are and trying to make them better. 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:23.520 I'm Robert Evans my co host today as many days 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.120 Garrison Davis Garrison say hello to the people, high people, Garrison. 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:28.479 What are we? What are we? What do we? What 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:29.800 do we? What do we? What do we? What do 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:36.360 we do? What do we? What are we doing today? 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:42.440 Thank you of We are going to be having a 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:49.280 discussion on um food and food preservation and finding. Do 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.319 you mean like putting in the freezer? Well, what if 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.240 the freezer is not working? The freezer is always working. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.880 This is America. When the power goes out for two weeks, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.919 aren't you Well that's one of our guests for today. 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.960 My friends be in a lane um who who you've 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:10.600 heard earlier this week and who We're going to talk 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:14.000 about food storage and particularly again our focus this week 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.040 is like we keep getting a lot of people being 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.040 like I have no money or very little money or 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.600 very little space. I'm not gonna be able to grow things. 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.360 How can I possibly you know, gather food store food, 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.040 like build resiliency. I don't have any any kind of farmland. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.600 And the good news is, no matter where you live, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.920 things that are edible grow, and you can get those 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:36.960 things and you can find ways to make them last 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:38.520 longer than they would if you just kept them in 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.120 a sack. And that's a pretty cool thing to do. 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:42.480 So I'm going to hand it over to be in 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.319 a lane. I love for that. Okay, I don't have 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.040 much space. I don't have much money. Was kind of 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.200 how I got into doing canning in the first place. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:57.040 For myself, I used to be very, very poor. I 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.440 was on food stamps, I had no money. I was 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.400 a broke punk. And one of my friends was like, oh, man, 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.960 there's this farmer at the farmer's market and if you 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.120 help them clean up, they'll let you take away whatever 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.720 leftover produce they have that they don't want, So you 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:15.840 can just load up a bag with produce. All you 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:17.919 gotta do is help them load the truck at the 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:22.079 end of the day. So that's what I did every 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:28.119 single Wednesday for the next five years, no matter what come, 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.040 hell or high water. But with that that also came 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.919 there's you started realizing that there's gluts and then lacks 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.360 of things. Um, much like you know, everything that's happening 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.000 in society now, just in general, there was seasons when 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.560 there was nothing but you were It was easy to 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.240 at the end of a farmer's market day walk home 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:53.160 with a fifty pound flat of tomatoes, and you know 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.000 times of the year where it was nothing but cabbage, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.720 and you might have wanted tomatoes a lot. And canning 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.480 was great because it helped to will out when I 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.400 could get things without having to dive into the you know, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.000 sixty books a month, I got in food stamps and 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.679 spend it at the farmer's market. On that instead, I 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.480 could use it to have a variety of vegetables or 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.680 canned goods or other things in order to flavor my raman. Yeah. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.679 I first came at this kind of from working on farms, 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.440 where similarly there are gluts. There are times of year 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:30.160 where you literally cannot eat melons fast enough, and everybody 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.400 who works on farms talked about getting the melon ships 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.920 because you're eating as many melons as you possibly can, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.000 and it turns out that doesn't always agree with you. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.160 Um and uh. And then you know there's the time 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.040 of year where, well, if you want to eat some 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.040 month old potatoes and some two month old squash and 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:55.120 maybe some storage cabbage. Great, and otherwise there's no produce 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.240 to be had. So preserving food is well, there's a 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.560 lot of different ways to do it, and it seems 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:02.560 really intense a lot of the time because people talk 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.040 about like batchuli is um, you're going to die of 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.960 botulism if you have home canned food. And so first off, 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.200 there's just to dispel a lot of myths about things. 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:18.760 There's actually really really really low instances of bautual is 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.520 um um. I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:26.279 but there's actually very few cases of bauchuli is um 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.720 per year, and a lot of them are from industrial 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.360 canned goods. Don't eat a can if it's bowing out 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.320 in the sides of the top, throw the can, well, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:38.880 bury the can, bury it in the woods far away. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.080 But then also beyond canning, there's a lot of different 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.120 ways of food preservation. You know, you were joking about, like, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.120 but don't toss it in the freezer. I don't know. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.640 I toss a lot of things in the freezer. Shouldn't 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.000 not a bad idea? Yeah, I mean, we got all 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.000 sorts of animals from the farm in the freezer. Right now, 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.359 we've got a lot of blueberries because a couple of squirrels. 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.320 Yeah that was a random thing. Um, just just some 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:09.039 squirrels on the side for squirrel for heat is but yeah, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.600 they were. Not having a freezer is a bad idea. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.160 It's just that the freezer depends on you know, having 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.680 our or at least having a backup power source or 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:26.160 generator or a generator or or or um. And in 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.839 the case that you don't have access to those things 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.880 or can't afford to get a whole extra freezer, and 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.800 that fills up a substantial part of your power the 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.120 free or I can't afford the power the freezer. Um. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.080 You know, we we definitely saw this past winter with 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.400 the power outages that were caused by um, you know, 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:51.400 inclement weather, and it suddenly became very hard to acquire 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:56.880 dry ice because dry ice will keep stuff cold for longer. 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.400 But everybody who's gone camping and used dry and they're 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.680 cooler knows that. So as soon as there's an interruption 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.000 in people's ability to refrigerate their food, the entire regional 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.520 stock of dry ice is going to disappear. So what 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.400 we're looking at more in what we're talking about today 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.039 is a little bit more like the things that you 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.640 don't need to keep anywhere, but like a cabinet that 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.240 maybe doesn't get boiling hot, and if it's sort of 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.839 a room temperature cabinet, you can store a lot of stuff. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.080 I've personally found the backs of closets, like think about 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.560 all of the areas that you don't clean. You're like, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.720 I just shove things back here and hope that they 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.760 disappear because I don't actually care about them, or like 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.839 the backs of broom closets. UM that actually, for a 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.839 long time was my place where I would store canned 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.120 goods because you can just stack the palettes of jars, 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.520 the flats of them. Because if you buy jars from 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:55.720 this supermarket, UM buy mar Canning stores anywhere, Safeway has them, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.360 Walmart has them, you can They're not expensive. You can 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.000 just they come in a little square flat. And so 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:03.720 after I would fill them, I just put them all 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.760 back in there and then I could just stack those 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.440 as a little tower and then you know, hand them 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.239 out as gifts for the rest of the year, which 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.160 was also definitely saying that you do when you have 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.400 absolutely no money and people are like, oh, we're having 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.320 a New Year's Eve party and you're like, I brought 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.920 you jam, and they're like, oh, great, blueberry lovely. But 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.360 it's nice as something to be you can give people 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:30.000 beyond canning because sometimes, like right now, it's incredibly hard 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.400 to find the metal lids that go on canning jars 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:38.000 or in some cases the jars. That's actually was recently 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.960 looking for more jar lids and ended up buying flats 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.880 of jars instead because as four different stores told me, 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.560 there's a supply chain disruption in getting jar lids. There's 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:51.440 also a lot of ways that you can preserve stuff 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.760 with drying. You can also do a lot with salt, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.160 vinegar and sugar preserving as well, so that you don't 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.840 necessarily need the resealable jars or like new lids for that. 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.560 So there's a bunch of different methods um lact of 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.040 fermentation as well, like fermenting things. So what would you 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.800 like to talk about first? Let's start with just like 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.400 what is what is the actual process of canning beyond 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.360 like just dumping stuff into a can and sealing it. Um. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:24.239 So there's canning by itself is ceiling jars with heat. 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:30.480 So that was, oh God, really really came into its 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.040 own around like World War two was like industrial canning. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:39.440 And the thing about it is even within canning, there's 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.480 two different types. There's low heat and high heat canning. 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.600 Low heat is actually just boiling water temperature, and high 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.160 heat you actually need to go above the temperature of 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:54.200 boiling water so you can pressure can. Um you need 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.360 a pressure cooker. They terrify me. I don't pressure can 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:02.200 because I haven't quite gotten over the images of when 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.000 they explode and give people steam burns. I know plenty 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.920 of people who do pressure can, and it's great for them. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.880 You can pressure can at high heat anything. You can 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.880 toss raw fish or raw meat in oil and jars 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.000 or in water in jars, and you can pressure can 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.920 it and it will cook and seal the jars and 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.520 it is very safe. Low temperature canning is still relying 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.520 on one of the other methods, like salt, sugar, acid 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.839 for the to keep down bacteria. So all it does, 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:32.640 though is it makes the same so you can do 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.080 this with or without canning. It just makes the jars 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.199 keep a lot longer because it preserves them so it's 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.720 the process of you take a jar and then you 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.040 either use a clean ring. If you're using those latching 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.320 reusable jars with these nice rings on them that you 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.840 can use over and over again, really handy when there 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:52.880 are supply chain disruptions to know that you can re 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.120 use your jar and ring. We're talking about like the 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.280 Mason jars that you you you would get in uh 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:00.880 bars that are too expense of five years ago. They 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.120 would pour your terrible I P A in them. Yeah, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.360 but you can use them for other things too. These 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.640 are the well there's two. There's big jars that have 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.560 a lid that is attached and it laughs the yea 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.880 and so those have a those have a rubbers that 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.120 you can and as long as you keep those oiled 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.360 and clean, you can reuse those for years. They do 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.440 eventually wear out, but they use a long time. Others 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.640 is Mason or ball canning jars, and those actually have 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.400 a two piece top. They have a middle ring that 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.520 you just need to make sure it's not like horrifically 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.440 dented or rusted through. It's reusable for a very long time. 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.960 And then you have a lid and the lid can 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.760 only really they are recommended to only use once I've 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.720 re used them like twice. Can once you can like 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.920 once it's canned and you you can take stuff out 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.840 put it back on. You don't have to like replace 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.160 the lid every time you get some preserves out. Yeah, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.680 but the tiny piece of rubber that is what steals 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.280 it is very thin, and so it's not very reusable 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.640 for more to pull can't batches of food and and 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.120 true to farm. You know, if you go looking around 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:13.680 in you know, rummage sales, vintage stores, whatever, you will 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.680 probably find either very cheap or very overpriced some of 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.880 those old hinged jars and tons of Mason jars and 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.640 tons of Mason jars. You will often need to replace 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.760 either the lids or the rubber gaskets in order to 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.920 make them safe to star food in. But in either case, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.200 whether you're using the little the mason or ball jars 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.280 that you'll find in lots of stores or the big 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.120 latching ones, um, the jars are the more expensive spots. Things. 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.560 The lids and the rubber rings are more inexpensive to replace. 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.520 So if you can find them at Goodwill, if you 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:54.080 can find them at Goodwill bins or all the places 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.520 it's great. You should always grab them. Jars are never 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:13.480 a bad idea. Yeah, so canning there's a million different 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:19.360 ways to can. I do a lot of jams, jellies, pickles, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.040 and tomatoes, which are all things that are canned that 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.800 are preserved either with acid or sugar in either case, Um, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.400 jams and jellies being sugar and pickles and stuff being acid. Yes, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.160 those are my two favorites. They're very simple to learn. 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.400 And then you can always expand recipes and everything else. Um. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.800 But with pickles and tomatoes and other things, having the 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.640 PHB very acidic is what actually does the preservation of 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.959 the food and keeps down fungus is molds, bacterias, and stuff. 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.840 And with jams and jellies, the natural acidity of the 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.200 fruit mixed with a lot of sugar is what keeps 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.320 the fruits from going bad or anything. And the great 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.480 thing about canning fruit is that, like when you're when 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:05.800 you're thinking about what is the greatest number of free 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.560 calories available to most people in a city during the 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.560 seasons where fruit grows, it's often going to be fruit, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.480 And like you you'd be surprised, like where you could 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.680 do like Los Angeles, where I used to live, there 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.640 was much of the year like seven eight months you 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.719 could fill your arms with fruit if you knew where 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:23.560 to go. And there's an app called Falling Fruit that 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.520 you can use to find people mark like where different 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.280 trees are a lot of like you'll be surprised even 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.000 if you think, like, well, there's no fruit in my area, 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.199 go try falling Fruit. You you may find that out. 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.040 Actually there's a shipload of fruit. And I just was 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.920 not looking or as you often find, I didn't realize 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.120 that was an edible plant. I assume those berries were. 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.560 We're not food and and they can be. And and 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.640 that's a lot of like free you know when you 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.959 especially when you're inking pserve that's really calorically dense. And 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.439 and that also ties in with in the sort of 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.360 survival utility aspect of this, because like canning is fun, 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.400 and harvesting fruit is fun, and having stuff you made 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.080 to give pomegranates from rich people's houses do it, sure, absolutely, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.400 I mean, but part of part of the other thing 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.400 to think about here is that like providing yourself with 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:15.520 a reserve of different kinds of nutrition and different like 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.240 there's you get an assortment of stuff. So you know 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.800 you aren't having to constantly buy it because honestly, the 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.880 most expensive in terms of carbon output, the most expensive 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:31.320 in terms of cost per calorie in grocery stores tends 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.560 to come from the stuff that's you know, been shipped 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.280 up from Argentina because it's not in season up here, 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.680 or while you're getting grapes in January, right and blueberries, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.400 you can actually watch them move all the way down 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.400 the northern hemisphere over the course of the growing season 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.840 until they're like growing them down in Chile right before 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.440 they start being able to grow them again. So yeah, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.680 So just thinking about like the things that are available 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.120 when they are available, um. And you'll see this all 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.280 the time, like the good forage spots. When they're available, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:04.400 there will be c of people all they're all collecting stuff, um. 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.440 And getting to know some of the things that you 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.120 like and that grow near you and what time of 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.680 year they come into season, and maybe forming some relationships 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.680 with people and being like, hey, I noticed you have 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.280 a chestnut tree in your backyard. Can I come and 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.960 harvest chestnuts? Hey, you have this kind of oak, Can 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.200 I come and get acorns from you? Because I want 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.240 to do a leeching project. Hey, I was grabbing apples 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.840 and I noticed that you're harvesting all these acorns. I 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:37.760 didn't know that you could do anything with acorns. What 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.640 is what are you doing with all those acorns? And 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.160 one of the greatest things, too, is that a good 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.480 fruit tree makes a lot of fruit. So much so. 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.960 You know, we have a little plum that's near our house. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.800 It's a little plum tree. And since this year we 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.000 managed to get to it before the raccoon did that 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.280 likes to clamber over the roof. We got about two 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.240 fifty pounds of plums off of the small fruit tree. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:06.920 And it is not very big. It has a footprint 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:11.120 of maybe about ten ft in diameter of the widest 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.720 part of the tree. But it drops quite a bit 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.240 of fruit, especially if we get to it before it 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.240 all drops on the ground and our cars and the 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.360 driveway and the walkway and the cat and the cat. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:24.000 But if we get to it, it's a lot. So honestly, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.520 I set aside about a fifty pound tub that was like, Okay, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.840 we're gonna make some jam. We're gonna dry some of these, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.120 we're gonna do things with it, and the rest we're 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.120 able to give to friends. We tossed some of the 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.280 free fridges. We toss some all, you know, we handed 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.280 out because one good fruit tree makes a lot. So 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.800 when you see fruit trees around town, when you walk 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:47.000 under someone's cherry tree, it's okay to ask for fruit too, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.840 because I don't know anyone that uses every single piece 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.280 of fruit off of any of their fruit trees. And 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.440 you know, one of the things that you will see 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.160 is that um a lot of cities try to discourage 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:05.640 people from planting fruit trees along roads precisely because when 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.240 they come into fruit, they produce so much fruit that 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.200 it causes a problem. Also, it's a good way to 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.600 form relationships in your neighborhood. You say like, hey, we 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.400 have a whole bunch of plums, we have a ton 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.360 of whatever is dropping all over your front yard. And 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.120 then your neighbors may be like, oh, those weirdos who 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.320 were collecting fruit that one time. This tree in my 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.840 backyard that's about to drop all this stuff. I'll let 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.760 them know and maybe they'll come so I don't have 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.320 to clean it up afterwards. Yeah, which is again, like people, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.240 we talk a lot about the importance of building like 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.399 community resiliency and community self defense, and folks act like, well, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.560 how do I actually do that? Well, that's maybe that's 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.320 a start for you. Maybe the start is like you 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.159 get to know what do they have? What do I have? 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:48.960 And then you start talking about like, well, I'm gonta 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:50.640 can some stuff. Do you want to learn how to can? 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.359 You're like, oh, well, I was going to dry at ease. 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:53.359 Do you want to learn it? Like? Or do you 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.199 want to borrow a dehydrator? And then you're making connections 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.040 that are very practical and also social in your area. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.400 I'll some one plug. We've talked a little bit about 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:08.240 the process of canning. Dehydrators are great and are pretty affordable, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.359 and they're not expensive. Yeah, like I think you know, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.280 for sixty eight bucks, you can usually get a decent dehydrator. 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:17.800 And if you don't have one, but you have an oven, 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.160 if you put things on a baking rack very low heat, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.560 you can just put it. I would just turn my 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.560 oven onto warm and you can lay out things in 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.119 your oven. I have a nicer oven now that won't 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.040 let me do this. But when I used to live 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.439 in like my first junkie apartment, I would literally just 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.120 stick a metal spoon like a one of my big 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.399 cooking spoons in the door of the ovens so that 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.560 it would open and that would just vent all of 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:45.920 the steam of whatever I was drying in the oven. 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.440 So and meanwhile, if you live in say a really 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.360 dry climate or a climate where you have a really 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.520 dry stretch of time when fruit is in season and 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.600 you have windows, screens and an area where you can 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.879 make or there's a steady breeze flowing across your your fruit, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.920 cut it thin, lay it out in the sun. And 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.520 that's why there's so much sun dried X, Y and Z. 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.120 That's really expensive when you go to drin Joe's or whatever, 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.000 and it's you know, it's not just a matter. We 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:15.600 shouldn't just say that like this is you have to 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.480 forage for all this stuff, like it can be a 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.680 matter of like, well, during these months, beef is is 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.720 much cheaper. It's half as much as it will be later. 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.320 I'm going to buy beef when it's cheap, and I'm 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.800 going to make jerky now and then I will have 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.840 protein when I can't afford to purchase protein or as 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.040 much protein later. In the air. Speaking of jerky, I 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.880 mean like one of the just in the vein of 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.560 you know, building your own dehydrat or something. One other 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.399 thing that that that I've done is you can just 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.400 get a you know, a decent box fan and some 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.640 furnace filters and strap them all together, and that can 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.160 very successfully dry out jerky um so d dehydrators. There's 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.360 a lot of different ways to y It is literally 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:02.160 just kind of warm dry threes or less in some cases, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.480 and air that is moving, and it's it's like everything 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.320 we've been talking about. There's the you can buy very 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.639 expensivety hydrators if you want to. If you want to 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.440 get a primo jerky making together, you can you can 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.879 make that a real expensive thing, or you can do 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.480 it for like trash, like with with discarded crap that 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.359 you find around in people's like take piles. And I 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:25.520 think also the other thing to think about we're talking 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.000 about it's not all foraging, is to think about we've 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.919 been talking about supply chain disruptions, but also one of 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:37.040 the things in our current circumstances is the weird gluts 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.840 and excesses and surpluses that are produced by our supply chains. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.560 And again, one of the big ways that I learned 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.520 about food preservation was food not bombs and food preservation 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.080 and also just food preparation. Was food not bombs way 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:54.800 back in the day, like you need a special sound 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.879 every time on specifically it could happen here someone mentions 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.440 food not bombs. That was That was my entry back 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.720 when I was just kind of a liberally journalist guy 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.240 to like anarchist practice was like every protest I go to, 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.560 there's these like krusty punks handing out sandwiches, um, and 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.440 then they have neat stickers. I wonder what's going on here? 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.040 And well, And one of the important things about food 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:20.840 not bombs is that food not bombs has sort of 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.520 two different ways that you obtain food for food not bombs. 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:33.080 One is you form relationships with sts, farmers, people who 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.359 are going to have a lot of food, a lot 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.280 of supply coming in and there's stuff they're not going 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:42.800 to be able to use, either because it's ugly or 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.160 you know, it's carrots that look like dicks and they 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.440 don't feel comfortable putting the carrots that look like dicks 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.840 on the sidcause it's just it's just too hot or yeah. 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.919 So you have your relationships with like local businesses and 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.960 local suppliers who aren't going to be able to sell 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:00.760 or use some of their stuff, and they're like great bread, right, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.520 day old bread. We are a bakery and we pride 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:05.920 ourselves on fresh bread, so we're gonna give our day 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.439 olds and it makes us feel good as liberals to 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.800