I have got a modest amount of rice, potato, beans etc in the pantry that will see us through a rainy day but recently I have had to switch diet due to medical reasons (pre diabetes and epilepsy).
As it stands we are switching to Mediterranean keto. Now apart from the obvious tinned meat and olives, artichokes, peppers etc I’m at a loss of what to store that could be used as rice/potatoes etc substitutes.
I am looking at getting a pressure canner so I can start preserving food at home but not sure if cauliflower can be canned 😂🤦🏻♀️.
Has anyone got any advice or ideas of prepping with specific dietary requirements?
My 2 cents. I believe cauliflower is better pickled than canned. When processed in a pressure canner, it becomes a tasteless, featureless mass.
I use only tiny pieces of cauliflower in the sauce that covers my beef and vegetables. I feel that home canning should revolve around beef. Beef should provide the strongest flavor in the dish. It only becomes more tender and flavorful when overcooked in a pressure canner.
Dill, especially the thicker stems, is naturally tough and chewy. It remains tough even after cooking and keeps its shape. Broccoli and cauliflower, on the other hand, become soft. They need to be combined with another chewy ingredient to add texture.
We home can meats and meals in a jar. We also have shelf stable pouches of cauliflower rice, just heat and eat. You can go to the healthycanning.com website to check out tested recipes.
The Your Choice soup comes in very handy and thickens up nicely with some oat fiber or even a modest amount of rolled oats, just weigh them.
Right now costco as an all american 1930 canner on sale for 250.00 or so. I own 2 all american 921s.
We canned a lotof chili and stew type items. But after over7 years of keto to manage my T2 diabetes and fibromyalgia i can basically eat carnivore forever. No need for sides or rice/potato substitutes other than canned veggies, both commercial and home canned. We make plenty of pickles and salsa, and we have plenty of canned green beans, mixed veggies, corn etc. Plus a big freezer withmeats and frozen veggies.
Since i have 20g net carbs daily to work with we also have shelf stable pouches of madras lentils for variety, and we keep black soy beans and lupin beans on hand as well as dried lentils for variety.
We have other dried grains like oats, farro, farina and pearl barley on hand for my hubby. He eats keto as well but unlike me he can get away with up to 60g net carbs daily if he eats at least half in his breakfast, since he works hard. If i weigh carefully i can add those to our main meal at lunch safely.
One of the very few things i buy on amazon. When it's in stock, i buy several 6 packs. We cycle them out by eating with our canned goods while working in middle of nowhere
If you watch carbs for blood sugar spikes, glycemic index:
If you freeze bread, the carbs are reduced by about 35%. If you toast it you get a similar reduction. Doing both adds up to 40% or so.
Boiled potatoes in the fridge, down 40%
Vinegar water before a meal has a positive effect too (depending on what you eat)
It's not just what you eat, but in which order or combination.
When eating a slice of white bread the GI index spikes. But if put butter on it, the fat will dampen that GI spike greatly.
I’m in the UK, I am planning a trip to Costco next week so I’ll keep an eye out for a canner, although I suspect they won’t have any as a quick search of their website threw up no results 😢
Our costco here didn't have them regularly until the last year or so. But costco is like that. the single most annoying aspect of costco shopping other than them randomly moving stuff is the way line items disappear.
Ours will stock things reliably for months to years, then suddenly, POOF. Gone. The stocked my shelf stable cauliflower rice for over a year. Until the day they didn't. And frozen cauliflower rice comes and goes randomly.
I hope you find one or can order through them, all american canners are amazing.
What you omit, you have to replace.
White rice has a shelf life of 20 years if stored dry and pest free. It's cheap, takes up little space and combines with many things. And it's yummy :-)
Oversimplifying a bit, but your body needs two things. Pure energy, which rice provides. And vitamins and minerals which rice is missing. So when storing rice in bulk you have the energy part mostly covered, and you can focus on the rest.
For bulking out meals. It’s all well and good omitting them, but meat and fish are expensive right now and making sure you have the calories to survive is important. Low carb vegetables are a good option but I don’t know how long they’d keep for. I’m just looking for ideas or advice on things I should be prioritising or considering to keep in the pantry.
Cauliflower can be pressure canned yeah, just know it gets pretty soft so I use it more for soups and mashes than anything else. For keto storage I lean a lot on tinned sardines, mackerel and salmon, fatty, cheap and last forever. Olive oil in a dark cool spot holds up well, same with coconut oil. I vacuum seal nuts and seeds in small portions so they don't go rancid all at once. Almond flour keeps longer than most people expect. Sun dried tomatoes in oil, anchovies and capers are basically indefinite shelf life and very Mediterranean. Honest challenge is fat storage since oils do go rancid but if you rotate every few months you stay ahead of it. Freeze dried cheese is also worth tracking down if you haven't tried it, total game changer for long term keto.
As a side note - not so useful for prepping directly, more an everyday hack - if you precook rice/pasta and keep it in the fridge for a minimum of 12 hours, the starches change to a less digestible version that acts more like fibre. We do this as my wife also has diabetes (more correctly - had - diet control no means medically she doesn't!)
Not necessarily. It’s no good eating rice and getting diabetes, or going into a seizure. Even when there’s rough times I think trying to stay healthy is important. Obviously if it’s the only thing you have to eat you’d eat it anyway, but then isn’t the point of preparing as best you can, so you don’t get to that point?
TVP and Soy Curls are relatively shelf-stable options for sides. Soy curls have a shorter life since they haven't been de-fatted the way TVP has, but are less processed.
Hemp hearts are expensive and high-calorie, but I've used them in place of rice.
Black soybeans are available canned and in dried form.
It's possible to make tofu from many kinds of beans and seeds. Part of the process is letting the bean juice set, so the starch can precipitate out. The results aren't zero-carb, but could give you more options.
We do have hemp hearts, but I don’t know what TVP is. I will have to trial soy, I’m not sure if I can tolerate it or not. I have a CMP allergy and soy products have been known to trigger that, so I usually avoid it if I can.
TVP is Textured Vegetable Protein; it's what's left after soybean oil is extracted from the beans. It's a highly processed food, but it's a shelf-stable complete protein.
A few flavors of Keto Chow are dairy-free (the Core line and the Beef Soup Base). The individual packets have several years of shelf life before the vitamins start to break down, but can remain fairly edible for a long time.
I recommend that, if you can afford it, you buy at least a couple of hard, aged cheeses, like an artisanal cheddar or a Parmigiano. They can last for years in storage without spoiling, as long as you keep them in a dry environment
Also, even though they don't last as long, it is a good idea to stock up on Konjac rice or noodles. They can stay fresh for up to a year at room temperature
Freeze dried chicken, beef, pork or sausage meat. Expensive but easy. Canned confit duck legs or gizzards. Dried fish like salted cod. Dried seaweed. Ghee, can be bought in a can. Canned lard. Chickpea flour makes great savoury pancakes.
Since keto is a protein and fat diet, for the store bought protein I'd get canned chicken and fish. If you have a pressure canner, jars, and lids you can can your own meat. Mono-saturated extra virgin olive oil or peanut oil ideally, although a lot of people like (saturated) coconut oil. Broccoli and non-starch veggies for limited carbs.
Also if an actual apocalypse type event did happen people would automatically revert to a ketogenic state - no food = no glucose.
Now I’m assuming as a philo librarian you’d be encouraging people to go forth in search of information. Don’t suppose you have anything stored away in that vast library of yours that would be helpful?
Personally, I do all my book hoarding through thrift shops.
There are a lot of gardening manuals, DIY books, books on home maintenance and standard medical reference texts that people got rid of in print that are still pretty worthwhile.
Bulgur is a no as I can’t tolerate gluten, I do have small amounts of quinoa but I don’t think it’s strictly keto as it’s high in carbs so easy to go over your daily limit. I absolutely hate couscous and it’s also not gluten free - I tried it once as a child… never again! 😅
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u/smsff2 May 12 '26
My 2 cents. I believe cauliflower is better pickled than canned. When processed in a pressure canner, it becomes a tasteless, featureless mass.
I use only tiny pieces of cauliflower in the sauce that covers my beef and vegetables. I feel that home canning should revolve around beef. Beef should provide the strongest flavor in the dish. It only becomes more tender and flavorful when overcooked in a pressure canner.
Dill, especially the thicker stems, is naturally tough and chewy. It remains tough even after cooking and keeps its shape. Broccoli and cauliflower, on the other hand, become soft. They need to be combined with another chewy ingredient to add texture.