Our General Store…Think Fruit
This morning I went through the Sunday paper and checked out all the ads and also all the coupons and came to a conclusion. It’s a bad week. The coupons were awful and the stores had the same old same old loss leaders on sale. Because fruit is so important in a well balanced diet we are going to concentrate on fruit this week.
Yesterday there was a great article in our local paper about canned fruits and vegetables. The focus was to answer the question of the nutritional value of canned foods. The short version is this, fruit begins to change its nutritional value as soon as it is picked so depending on the time lapse between when it is picked, when it reaches the grocery store, and when you actually buy it and eat it much of the nutritional value can be gone. Fruit picked for the grocery store is also picked before it is fully ripe, decreasing it’s nutritional value. When food is canned or frozen it is done very quickly after being picked, which can preserve nutritional value. However, fresh fruit does offer more fiber than that of canned because it has the skin intact. The biggest problem with canned fruit is the “added” sugar. In short, canned fruits do offer good nutrition. Your best bet still remains getting a combination of the two!
Canned fruit is packed with either a fruit syrup (no sugar added), a light syrup, or a heavy syrup. Simply read the label to decide which one you want to purchase. During an emergency the syrup can be used to cook oatmeal or other cereals and the sweetness in the syrup can replace the sugar or honey you would normally add. Of course, your best option of all is to can your own. By doing this you control the amount of time from picking to jar and also the amount of sugar added. Just another reason to consider planting a fruit tree or two this year.
Since we need so much fruit in our General Store to truly have a three month supply we are going to add fruit this week. Purchase five cans of fruit (14 oz.) per family member to add to your inventory. If you have a large family and purchase the large cans just adjust the number of cans needed by calculating ht e weight. Again if this is not within the budget purchase as much as you can afford. If fruit is not on sale near you today wait to purchase until the grocery ads come out this week. You may find some deals then. Do not purchase frozen fruits this week. March is frozen foods month and the prices will be better then.
Since we will now be adding stock to our store each week we should take a minute to discuss an inventory system. If you have not already done so please design a system which will work for you, and do it now. There is an interactive inventory system with over 250 items in your Mother Hubbard ebook. If you don’t have that your inventory should include a column for the item, how much you need for a 3 three month supply, how much you have on hand, how much you still need to purchase, and where you have it stored. You may also want to add a column for where you purchased the item and how much you paid. These columns can easily be added to the Mother Hubbard inventory spread sheet. When you bring home items be sure to date them so you are always using the oldest first.
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Delmonte fruit coupons:
http://www.thecouponclippers.com/coupons/home.php?cat=312
If you do purchase fruit in glass canning jars be sure to wash them well and fill them with water for your water storage. When canning season arrives empty the water and…a free canning jar!
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We love fruit at our house! I do a lot of canning, so I already have this covered for 3 months, but I’m working on having 6 months as it helps cover the budget when fresh is too expensive or just not around. I am also going to buy some more soup this week. I just noticed that a local store is having Campbell’s family sized cans on sale 3 for $5, plus I have a few coupons, too. YAY! I’ll just have to remember to store some extra water.
I listened on NPR this week to a report stating that due to the extended drought in California, the BLM doesn’t have enough water to supply a large region of farmers in California for the coming growing season. Yet another reason we all had better work diligently on our gardens this summer.
Another benefit of filling the glass jar with water is that you will know if a canning ring actually works on the jar. When mayonnaise jars used to be glass, sometimes the canning rings would be too big and the jar could never be used for canning. These jars I would throw out so that they would not take up room.
I have what may seem like a silly question. When buying the canned fruit, do we include in that 5 cans per person, canned apple sauce? Or would that come under a separate heading for stockpiling easy-on-the-tummy foods for anyone who maybe be recovering from sickness?
Oh and I should have mentioned this last week, but for anyone looking for coupons for the various foods you’ll be stockpiling… check out http://www.hotcouponworld.com. They have a searchable database for which coupons are currently available; either printable internet coupons or through recent newspaper inserts, complete with dates when those inserts were put out.
These ideas are great!
The canned fruit can be a budget help when prices are too high or money is too tight as another poster mentioned. Also, canned fruit can help when the produce at the store is crummy.
I just joined in on this “General Store” idea, so am kind of playing catch-up. Luckily I don’t have too much to do! I can’t seem to find the post where it first started. I think I caught that the general idea is to get 3months worth of all supplies, but if we are doing aour one thing a week, how long does this take? I don’t have the ebook yet, so maybe I just need to turn to that . . .