Re: Do not tell people if you are stockpiling

I've always kept enough food on hand for a few months, now I live in Florida, I used to live on the west coast in earthquake territory. Unfortunately, down here in Florida, I've also had to throw out a lot of packaged dried food, crackers, and processed cereal, because something inside the package hatched, and turned into a small bug of some sort, and drilled holes out of the packaging. I realize that the bugs might just have been extra protein, but I still threw them out. They just love quaker oats power bars!
What works here is canned food, although I also have dried beans and rice in fairly large quanitities. ( a couple of big bags of pinto beans can keep you going a long time, same with rice)
Anything organic that isn't canned just won't survive the climate and the critters. At one point, we were considering mre's, which used to be cheap, but they've gotten so expensive I haven't gotten any. I have heard that there is a commercial version of an mre that you can find as supermarkets, but I haven't tracked it down yet.
I have a pretty large pantry, and it's stuff like canned fruit, canned meants, stews, beans, tomatoes, veggies. I've always done it. When I lived out west, I had a freezer, and got local beef and lamb, here with the frequent power outages, the freezer doesn't seem to be a great idea. Pasta keeps pretty well, without a lot of bug problems, but here anything with soft wheat turns into bug nests quickly.
You just never know. A couple of times when we've been just plain broke, we ate out of the pantry, and we were glad to have it. If that's hoarding, I've always done it, it's much cheaper to buy some items in season, and store them for later in the year. Canned applesauce is a very good item to have, if you can find some better quality applesauce. It's easy to digest if you are ill, and your stomach isn't tolerating much. I'll never forget mexico sending trucks with canned applesauce and medicine and doctors to the hurricane Katrina survivors, they had more compassion than our own government. It's also easy to forget canned fruits, but they can be really helpful if the supply chain gets broken.
If you can cook pinto beans, they are cheap, keep forever, and they are good for you. The trick to cooking beans is to soak them for at least 12 hours, and to change the soak water several times, after it starts getting foamy. If you don't do that, they tend to cause a lot of gas. Then cook them slowly, until they are tender, with whatever you want to add.
I didn't know the government thought that having extra food was hoarding, it's just cheaper to get it in season, and common sense. Oh, and although I don't have any ramen, I'm married to someone who REALLY likes spam, so we usually have that.
Julie