how to feed a village for a year.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11607031&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=75277&hierPath=75277*&lang=en-US



certain groups need to start thinking in terms like this

feed a family for $3000 per year

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11598873&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=75277&hierPath=75277*&lang=en-US

I wonder how much Welfare budgets across the county could be slashed if these were handed out instead of money?

But their rights Deank! Their rights.

It won't work with the Northern Aboriginal Tribes because you need fresh water! lol

Jesus. That Costco must have got a lot of gun-hoardin', bunker havin' militia types really excited. Way to nail a niche market.

You and your brood first Dean. Show 'em how it's done.

actually... very tempting death128, this or something very close to it in nature that would be easy to ship and store.

I was planning on working on doing something very similar already and had a letter written up to the company in question proposing a me and my family eat XX for a year with medical monitoring and such to show how it was possible and what the benefits were and then using that information to showcase to the remote reserves what could be done in place of what they were now. The stuff I was originally looking at was not nearly as good as what this seems to be though.

I still might see if I can get something going in the new year although I would much prefer to try and work this into a family actually living up north already and somehow convince the company to fund it all.

Would have all worked better if it was a proposal coming from an elected official though.

(all started from wondering why the heck we are shipping heavy milk to reserves instead of just milk powder and such)

anyhoo. I wont be looking at it more until the new year though. ( but spending only 3Kish for my families food for a year is damn tempting)

So your suggesting that Northern Manitobans should look at emergency rations as a primary food source purely because they're cost effective then? Why not look at doing something about the extortion like prices that North West Company charges as they have a complete monopoly on the north? How about ensuring that the cost increases of the goods actually reflect the real increases in shipping costs? I find it hard to believe that it costs 4 to 5x more for the final product as a sole result of shipping costs when I could ship most of those goods to the other side of the planet myself for the same price or less. There is some serious profiteering going on when it comes to selling goods to northern communities.

We have to look at WHY there is such "profiteering" going on up north.

Why is the North West Company the only company available to run such stores up north?

What causes such high prices?

Does it really cost THAT much to ship everything in by air?

Wouldn't it make sense to start an aboriginal funded company to run their own northern stores. And air lines. And trucking companies. If such a business existed the costs would then drop wouldn't they?

Nope, time to legislate food prices. We need a new bureacracy "Ministry of Food". That'll drive the prices down.

grumpy old man wrote:We have to look at WHY there is such "profiteering" going on up north.

Why is the North West Company the only company available to run such stores up north?

What causes such high prices?

Does it really cost THAT much to ship everything in by air?

Wouldn't it make sense to start an aboriginal funded company to run their own northern stores. And air lines. And trucking companies. If such a business existed the costs would then drop wouldn't they?

Why is there only 3 major telecom companies in Canada? Why are there only 2 main OS's used by 99% of computer users? etc. etc. Because the cost barrier to entering the market is absolutely huge for any startup wanting to challenge the established players. Thanks to Northwest having a virtual monopoly on the entire north for over 50 years they have all the necessary distribution channels etc. already in place. It would require a collosal investment and huge risk for any startup to challenge them. They could simply drop their prices and eat a loss untill they force their new competitors out of the market by simply having deeper pockets. No different that what Air Canada/West Jet did with the price wars that drove Zip, Canada 3000 etc. out of business. If you can eat the losses long enough you can starve out the new guy and then raise prices again once they're gone.

I wouldn't argue that price increases are not a direct result of the increase in providing the goods to the north. My argument is that the increase should be proportional to the additional costs incurred. I highly doubt that they are when you have jugs of milk going for $20 etc. I'm sure I can fly out a 8lb parcel to Yellowknife for $16 and that's at consumer pricing with Canada Post still making a profit on that parcel. You can't tell me that would be the cost to send parcels up in bulk for a major player like Northwest. Their bulk rate is likely less than half the typical consumer rate. My problem is not with the increased pricing, my problem is with the increase in the profit margin on items when one knows they have a total monopoly.

grumpy old man wrote:We have to look at WHY there is such "profiteering" going on up north.

Why is the North West Company the only company available to run such stores up north?

What causes such high prices?

Does it really cost THAT much to ship everything in by air?

Wouldn't it make sense to start an aboriginal funded company to run their own northern stores. And air lines. And trucking companies. If such a business existed the costs would then drop wouldn't they?

have you recently checked out who owns Mystic Air and Perimeter Air try it you might be shocked to bad you do not do due research. And only if the cost of fuel and mattinece comes down flying north has and is very expensive find out what it cost to get your a$$ up there it is not cheap

CitizenSourpuss wrote:Jesus. That Costco must have got a lot of gun-hoardin', bunker havin' militia types really excited. Way to nail a niche market.

I dunno, there's an awful lot of beans in that package to be consumed if you're living in a bunker.

Pavolo wrote:

grumpy old man wrote:We have to look at WHY there is such "profiteering" going on up north.

Why is the North West Company the only company available to run such stores up north?

What causes such high prices?

Does it really cost THAT much to ship everything in by air?

Wouldn't it make sense to start an aboriginal funded company to run their own northern stores. And air lines. And trucking companies. If such a business existed the costs would then drop wouldn't they?

have you recently checked out who owns Mystic Air and Perimeter Air try it you might be shocked to bad you do not do due research. And only if the cost of fuel and mattinece comes down flying north has and is very expensive find out what it cost to get your a$$ up there it is not cheap

Actually I knew that. Sarcasm can be difficult to interpret at times. My point is the issue. There ARE aboriginal run companies that are fully capable of providing services to northerners at reduced prices, yet they are not and enjoy the "profiteering" OR it is too difficult to provide such services at greatly reduced prices.

So now what are the options available to people that choose to live in remote, difficult to service communities?

While I admire your enthusiasm Dean...those studies have long been completed.

I don't know what the current mandate is...but I grew up as a Mormon.

When I was a kid, it was actually part of the church program for EACH family to have a minimum of 5 years' rations stored. They even had packaging, and food sources to purchase it from.

We (at one point) had about 30 20-gallon steel sealed barrels of food stored under our house (we had a crawlspace). In them were bags of rice, dried fruit, seasonings, some seeds (for planting), and we also had about 10 barrels of treated water (for long-time storage).

This was the early 70s, and we lived in FL at the time...so there was lots of talks of Cuban missiles and other war/catastrophes occurring.

I think the church got away from that over the years, and we started opening up the cans and eating the food...and I think that was rather than throw it away.

Personally...the one thing I have done since moving here though, is make sure we have at LEAST 10 loaves of bread & 5 gallons of water in our freezer. On that much, if we ever got "snowed in" and the lines were frozen...we could survive at least a week.

I find that bread frozenfor more than a few weeks tastes like crap after thawing. How do you avoid that? Or do you simply rotate the loaves?

AGEsAces wrote:When I was a kid, it was actually part of the church program for EACH family to have a minimum of 5 years' rations stored. They even had packaging, and food sources to purchase it from.

Was that Our Lady of the Apocalypse Church?

grumpy old man wrote:I find that bread frozenfor more than a few weeks tastes like crap after thawing. How do you avoid that? Or do you simply rotate the loaves?

I rotate them every month or so...just make sure there's always 10 loaves in there.

And honestly...if I need the loaves for emergency...I'm not too worried about the taste.

That's what salt is for...or butter.

And toasters...

Freeman wrote:

AGEsAces wrote:When I was a kid, it was actually part of the church program for EACH family to have a minimum of 5 years' rations stored. They even had packaging, and food sources to purchase it from.

Was that Our Lady of the Apocalypse Church?

Not bad...

grumpy old man wrote:And toasters...

that's not going to do much good if there's no electricity .

I have a toaster for my Coleman stove. It just makes everything taste like Coleman fuel.

" Why not look at doing something about the extortion like prices that North West Company charges as they have a complete monopoly on the north?"

They dont have a monopoly. ANY store could go in if they want to.

"So your suggesting that Northern Manitobans should look at emergency rations as a primary food source purely because they're cost effective then?"

Cost effective, easy to store, super long shelf life, provide all the necessary nutritional needs, You know.. everything that they would be able to ignore if they did not live so remote.

"There is some serious profiteering going on when it comes to selling goods to northern communities."

So why dont the remote reserves go into business shipping to themselves then?

"It would require a collosal investment and huge risk for any startup to challenge them."

bullshit

Any reserve could quite easily build a building and buy a truck and trailer.

grumpy old man wrote:I find that bread frozenfor more than a few weeks tastes like crap after thawing. How do you avoid that? Or do you simply rotate the loaves?

Never really noticed myself. Growing up on the farm EVERYONE purchased the bread by the case from the local bakery and it would sit in the freezer for a month or more. Right now we go and buy bread from Natural Bakery once a week and it sits in the freezer for at least a week. As long as you are talking real freezer and not that thing on top of the fridge most anything will keep quite well for a long time.