Keystone Meats is really good, has 5 year Best By dates and comes in 28 oz and 14.5 oz cans. Beef, Pork, chicken, turkey and ground beef all fully cooked.
I'm on a fixed income and buy a couple of cans each week, got a pretty good stash built up.
Canning your own is much cheaper, but the initial investment of the canner and supplies is expensive. If you want to put up a lot of meat (and other foods), I would suggest learning to can.
I canned 15 pints of chicken breasts yesterday to add to my supplies. I have canned chicken breasts, beef chunks (from a cut you would roast), hamburger, meatloaf, brisket chunks (my absolute favorite!!), pork shoulder, pork breakfast sausage, deer. I have hundreds of jars of shelf stable meat, that I have done myself, I know what's in them (meat and sometimes salt for most).
It is great when you can find a sale on meat and can what you get. I usually just go to Sam's and buy meat by the case and spend a day canning, cases are usually around 60-80 lbs. A pint jar holds roughly 1 lb of meat and a quart jar holds 2 lbs.
There are some great channels on YouTube for canning if anyone is interested.
I am interested! I’m getting into canning, but stalled because of a remodel. My biggest hindrance after that is that most of the recipes call for sugar. We don’t eat sugar... so that takes out at least 80% of recipes unless I go rogue.
Don’t add sugar. I can everything and have never added sugar except my spaghetti sauce and use some molasses but it could be left out or use natural one like maple syrup.
All meat is amazing but hamburger. It tastes like what canned dog food smells like. If you want to do hamburger I’d first make a burger. Fry slightly both sides. Just so it holds its shape. Layer in a jar with sliced onions and can. It makes it tolerable and of starving would be fine.
Chicken on the bone is probably the best. Looks like a science experiment in a jar and is a tad nasty removing but literally the best chicken you will ever eat. Just stuff a jar. Add a bit of salt. Don’t add any liquid and can. The chicken creates its own broth. So yummy.
And go rogue. Use the longest times for your ingredients so if you make a stew use meat times. And so on. Play around with recipes. Herbs can change dramatically in long canning times.
Ask around for canning equipment and jars. So many older ladies love giving away their items when they know it will be used. Also reuse jars and lids from the stores. The new ball lids are so flimsy and literally buckle it’s best to reuse anyway. Join a canning group and check out a couple books from the library. And enjoy!
Thank you!!! I love hearing from an experienced canner!!
There is a farmer’s market in my town, but only on Tuesdays. I think I’m going to start taking the time to go so I can get the produce I want to can.
I am keeping my eye on ads for supplies :) will be stocking up when remodel is done.
My MIL canned... but I didn’t know this until after she died. She was an amazing woman I called friend more than MIL. So much knowledge I could have gotten from her.
No sugar in the meat or vegetable recipes. Pressure canning will let you do them, not water bath. That's the largest expense, a good pressure canner. The All American canner is best IMHO. Also the most expensive...
I bought an All American... just need to use it. No gasket FTW! Most of the recipes (except basic meat) even in the pressure section of the book had some sugar added.
Chickens…? Eggs.? Simplest way to store unlimited supply of protein. Not against canned goods and have many for short term but a longer term plan is quite easy with chickens.
Our hens have slowed down on the egg production, so we are looking into getting chicks. Our buddy gave us the hens we have, almost 2 years ago, so we have never raised them from chicks before.
If we are successful with the chicks, I want to start raising some meat birds as well. I just can't name them or I won't be able to eat them 😂
Chickens are so vital to have! I have layers for egg production, and we raise two batches (25 each) of cornish cross rock for meat birds. 7 weeks start to finish for each batch. I receive my day old chicks, over-night at the post office. i keep them in a brooder box for 3 weeks. 4'x8' Brooder box that I condense down to 4'x4' with heat lamp, pine shavings, food and water for the first week and a half, then open up so they have more room for the next week and a half. Jumbo Cornish cross rock grow very quickly, by three weeks I move them outside in a chicken tractor that has wheels and is 6'x10'. The chicken tractor is moved out on pasture 3 times a day so my chickens are happy with fresh air, fresh salad bar, clean water and NONGMO Organic feed from an amish distributor. The birds are full size by 7 weeks and week process them ourselves with a complete chicken processing equipment from feathermanequipment.com. Freezers are full, the best chicken you will ever taste. i serve them their every need for 7 weeks and they are happy every day of their life. They in turn provide for us, some of our food for at least a year. 50 chickens 1/week. i would be happy to share with you answers to any questions you might have. Hope this helps. God Bless
Keystone is really good, but last I looked a month or two ago are either impossible to find or price gouged like a mofo.
I haven't looked recently but I bet worse now. If you live close to them it'd be awesome to just go pickup a couple cases. I don't have any local retailers for their products unfortunately.
A huge plus on keystone is it's the absolute lowest sodium canned meat you'll find anywhere.
over the past six months they seem to be out of stock on some items. I just checked the website and everything is currently available. First time that happened.
Forget Amazon or Ebay, the price gouging is off the charts.
When I first came across them a while back I searched through all the local joints listed on their site. None were local to me, or even semi local. Amazon pricing wasn't bad then, especially on sold by Amazon, other sellers were gouging horribly. Walmart was also good pricing and I see they now have the 28oz chicken back in stock at $8.48 per can.
Just looked up history on WalMart, last time I bought was 10/20 and 28oz chicken was $6.28.
I actually found Keystone by searching "how is canned chicken made" and came across their production video. Watching I was like what, no way, they add way more sodium, but nope, and that's when I got their brand name and hunted down their products.
Wish I could find them locally, but actually I'd looked into getting a pressure cooker and doing my own chicken in mason jars.
FYI, pretty sure I've tried all Keystone's offerings, all are good and would highly recommend. Prepping using a lot of canned goods will shoot your sodium intake through the roof, Keystone helps counter that.
Protein is most important. Buy canned meat.
Keystone Meats is really good, has 5 year Best By dates and comes in 28 oz and 14.5 oz cans. Beef, Pork, chicken, turkey and ground beef all fully cooked.
I'm on a fixed income and buy a couple of cans each week, got a pretty good stash built up.
Canning your own is much cheaper, but the initial investment of the canner and supplies is expensive. If you want to put up a lot of meat (and other foods), I would suggest learning to can.
I canned 15 pints of chicken breasts yesterday to add to my supplies. I have canned chicken breasts, beef chunks (from a cut you would roast), hamburger, meatloaf, brisket chunks (my absolute favorite!!), pork shoulder, pork breakfast sausage, deer. I have hundreds of jars of shelf stable meat, that I have done myself, I know what's in them (meat and sometimes salt for most).
It is great when you can find a sale on meat and can what you get. I usually just go to Sam's and buy meat by the case and spend a day canning, cases are usually around 60-80 lbs. A pint jar holds roughly 1 lb of meat and a quart jar holds 2 lbs.
There are some great channels on YouTube for canning if anyone is interested.
I am interested! I’m getting into canning, but stalled because of a remodel. My biggest hindrance after that is that most of the recipes call for sugar. We don’t eat sugar... so that takes out at least 80% of recipes unless I go rogue.
Don’t add sugar. I can everything and have never added sugar except my spaghetti sauce and use some molasses but it could be left out or use natural one like maple syrup.
All meat is amazing but hamburger. It tastes like what canned dog food smells like. If you want to do hamburger I’d first make a burger. Fry slightly both sides. Just so it holds its shape. Layer in a jar with sliced onions and can. It makes it tolerable and of starving would be fine.
Chicken on the bone is probably the best. Looks like a science experiment in a jar and is a tad nasty removing but literally the best chicken you will ever eat. Just stuff a jar. Add a bit of salt. Don’t add any liquid and can. The chicken creates its own broth. So yummy.
And go rogue. Use the longest times for your ingredients so if you make a stew use meat times. And so on. Play around with recipes. Herbs can change dramatically in long canning times.
Ask around for canning equipment and jars. So many older ladies love giving away their items when they know it will be used. Also reuse jars and lids from the stores. The new ball lids are so flimsy and literally buckle it’s best to reuse anyway. Join a canning group and check out a couple books from the library. And enjoy!
Thank you!!! I love hearing from an experienced canner!!
There is a farmer’s market in my town, but only on Tuesdays. I think I’m going to start taking the time to go so I can get the produce I want to can.
I am keeping my eye on ads for supplies :) will be stocking up when remodel is done. My MIL canned... but I didn’t know this until after she died. She was an amazing woman I called friend more than MIL. So much knowledge I could have gotten from her.
No sugar in the meat or vegetable recipes. Pressure canning will let you do them, not water bath. That's the largest expense, a good pressure canner. The All American canner is best IMHO. Also the most expensive...
I bought an All American... just need to use it. No gasket FTW! Most of the recipes (except basic meat) even in the pressure section of the book had some sugar added.
60-80 lbs! That's a looong day. Multiple canners?
Oh yeah! I have 3, but 2 going at once is about a I can handle. :)
Chickens…? Eggs.? Simplest way to store unlimited supply of protein. Not against canned goods and have many for short term but a longer term plan is quite easy with chickens.
Our hens have slowed down on the egg production, so we are looking into getting chicks. Our buddy gave us the hens we have, almost 2 years ago, so we have never raised them from chicks before.
If we are successful with the chicks, I want to start raising some meat birds as well. I just can't name them or I won't be able to eat them 😂
Chickens are so vital to have! I have layers for egg production, and we raise two batches (25 each) of cornish cross rock for meat birds. 7 weeks start to finish for each batch. I receive my day old chicks, over-night at the post office. i keep them in a brooder box for 3 weeks. 4'x8' Brooder box that I condense down to 4'x4' with heat lamp, pine shavings, food and water for the first week and a half, then open up so they have more room for the next week and a half. Jumbo Cornish cross rock grow very quickly, by three weeks I move them outside in a chicken tractor that has wheels and is 6'x10'. The chicken tractor is moved out on pasture 3 times a day so my chickens are happy with fresh air, fresh salad bar, clean water and NONGMO Organic feed from an amish distributor. The birds are full size by 7 weeks and week process them ourselves with a complete chicken processing equipment from feathermanequipment.com. Freezers are full, the best chicken you will ever taste. i serve them their every need for 7 weeks and they are happy every day of their life. They in turn provide for us, some of our food for at least a year. 50 chickens 1/week. i would be happy to share with you answers to any questions you might have. Hope this helps. God Bless
Do you have a Rural King nearby? If you don't want to mailorder, they have chicks pretty much all the time.
If food is scarce and people are panicking, those chickens will need a fortress to protect them.
Where do you get Keystone Meats?
I'm in Michigan, Kroger and Meijer both carry it.
KeystoneMeats.com for direct purchase of case lots.
Born in the 'Thumb'. I had family in MI and visited twice every year. Wonderful times.
TY good idea.
Keystone is really good, but last I looked a month or two ago are either impossible to find or price gouged like a mofo.
I haven't looked recently but I bet worse now. If you live close to them it'd be awesome to just go pickup a couple cases. I don't have any local retailers for their products unfortunately.
A huge plus on keystone is it's the absolute lowest sodium canned meat you'll find anywhere.
over the past six months they seem to be out of stock on some items. I just checked the website and everything is currently available. First time that happened.
Forget Amazon or Ebay, the price gouging is off the charts.
My grocery has consistently had them in stock.
When I first came across them a while back I searched through all the local joints listed on their site. None were local to me, or even semi local. Amazon pricing wasn't bad then, especially on sold by Amazon, other sellers were gouging horribly. Walmart was also good pricing and I see they now have the 28oz chicken back in stock at $8.48 per can.
Just looked up history on WalMart, last time I bought was 10/20 and 28oz chicken was $6.28.
I actually found Keystone by searching "how is canned chicken made" and came across their production video. Watching I was like what, no way, they add way more sodium, but nope, and that's when I got their brand name and hunted down their products.
Wish I could find them locally, but actually I'd looked into getting a pressure cooker and doing my own chicken in mason jars.
FYI, pretty sure I've tried all Keystone's offerings, all are good and would highly recommend. Prepping using a lot of canned goods will shoot your sodium intake through the roof, Keystone helps counter that.
Low sodium was the first thing I noticed about Keystone. Excellent!