Category: Food Storage & Cooking

A Voice in the Bean Aisle – Faith and Prepping, by Connie H.

I couldn’t help but notice the white plastic bags that covered the handles of the gas pumps at the corner gas station.  “Out of Gas”, said the sign. No gas on account of a hurricane a long, long way from Springfield, Tennessee.  Fortunately, I had filled my tank earlier in the week and was only there to get ice. But it all seemed fishy to me how a storm so far away would affect us like this. And honestly, a vague sense of worry lingered in the back of my mind until the following day.  The trucks arrived and filled …


New Prize for Writing Contest Round 49

Mayflower Trading Company has kindly donated several prizes to add to the Third Prize package, for Round 49 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest, et sequitur. These are: A Nesco / American Harvest Gardenmaster Dehydrator with an extra set of trays, and the book The Dehydrator Bible. These prizes have a combined value of $210. This brings the combined value of the top three prizes to more than $6,000! Round 49 begins today and will end on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical …


A Year of Starvation: My Experience, by K.S.

Though food shortages and malnutrition are popular discussion topics for preppers, I doubt that many of us have experienced a real, prolonged lack of food. Certainly we’ve all had a day or two – maybe even more, for the gutsy– with minimal or no food, but often those days happen by choice and are for practice, with a set end in sight. How many of us have gone weeks, months, or more on limited rations? How many of us know what to expect and how we’d feel? How many of us are ready for the surprises and challenges that prolonged …


Letter Re: Natural Gas Powered Generators in a Disaster–Their Compressors, and Yours

James, Thanks for the information you deliver every day. I have recently gone on Social Security Disability and have some money to further our preps. My wife and I will hunker down in place, that being said, we have done what we can to make this as easy as possible. We can heat our home without electricity, but still need a solution for limited electric needs in the event of power outage. We are looking at the Honda EU2000i portable generator with the multi-fuel upgrade. In our years here we have never lost our natural gas supply, but have often …


Two Letters Re: Prioritized Prepping

Jim: I couldn’t agree more with the article written by T.Z. regarding prioritized prepping. Many of us lack the needed organization and discipline to distribute our prepping budget evenly between the different survival categories and instead succumb to impulse buys – more ammo, more guns, more dried food, more camping gear. While stocking up on non-perishable supplies that will always have some use may seem like a good idea, what good are 50,000 rounds of ammo if your only water filter just broke, or you ran out of oil for your two-stroke chain saw? My way of managing these impulse …


Letter Re: All-American Sun Ovens

James, I have a short comment on today’s article for “Pat’s Product Review: All American Sun Oven”.   My wife and I bought the $399 model at a Dallas Prepper show a couple years ago and used it in order to make sure we knew how to operate it. After several weeks of use, my job took me to a long overseas visit and the oven went onto a shelf in the garage. It sat for six months without anyone using it. Yes I cleaned and dried it out. Upon returning from my trip I got it back out to …


Pat’s Product Review: All American Sun Oven

It goes something like this, “one is none, two is one, and three is two!” No, that’s not new math – although these days, it could be with all the insane things they are now teaching in public schools. What I’m talking about relates to survival. If you have one of “something” and it breaks, you lose it, or whatever happens to it, you have none. If you have two of “something” and one goes south, then you still have one. If you have three of “something” then if one stops working, you still have two to fall back on. …


Letter Re: The Importance of Food Procurement

  Captain Rawles, I just saw a very shocking statistic from the USDA: 50% of the US population resides within two miles of three different grocery stores. There are 150,000,000 people in this country who have never been more than two miles away from three different sources of food. I have made a career out of the food industry, most recently in the grocery sector. I know first hand how oblivious people are to where food actually comes from, what unsightly things go into the food supply to produce a sufficient volume to keep the shelves of Wal-Mart stocked (think …


Two Sisters Like Peas in in a Pod, by Peggy W.

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My sister and I both retired due to disabilities are working as we can trying to prepare for the family. Often, we say did we really do that, like talking to a stranger in our local Wal-Mart and saying we would like some green beans and he happened to have about a bushel in his truck he had not sold so, we got them and yielded 14 quarts of beans we needed. Ask and ye shall receive hit us in the face so hard, Thanks be to God! We are on an extremely small budget but we continue to buy …


Pantry Paratus Announces Photo Contest

I just received this announcement: Pantry Paratus is excited to celebrate our second year on as an e-store.  We are looking to expand our digital marketing appeal with real pictures; so in order to do that we are hosting our first annual 2013 photo contest to celebrate all the harvest of this season’s bounty.  All the official rules are here, but the basics are these: -all photos must be original work and submitted to photocontest@pantryparatus.com between Friday, September 6th and Friday, September 20th. -there are two categories: “Canning” and “Food Preservation.”  The first one is easy to define, but the …


Letter Re: Question on Preparedness Course

Jim: I’m planning to get the “Rawles Gets You Ready Preparedness Course.” Does it have any details on the shelf lives of foods like beans, rice, canned goods, and vitamins? Thanks So Much, – K.S. JWR Replies: Yes, and in fact the shelf life appendix (in tabular format) is quite extensive, spanning 15 pages. You can of course print out a hard copy, for your reference binder.


Stuff Hitting the Fan: A Position Paper – Part 4, by R.L.

(This is the conclusion to the article series that began on Friday.) Appendix A The following is essentially a “wish” list; however the items that are in bold are relatively important.  The tools and medical areas would be for a complement for 1-10 people.  The sundries area covers a family of six.  The food area is for one person for one year, multiply (or divide) as you see fit.  There is extra food included for charitable impulses.  Coordinate purchases among the group if you plan to congregate.  I live in Georgia, so the clothing and supplies are tailored for that …


National Preparedness Month — Three Concurrent Mountain House Sales!

During National Preparedness Month, Mountain House has removed their Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) restrictions on their authorized dealers for long term storage foods packed in #10 cans. This is the first time the company has ever done so, and it has created the opportunity for low prices that haven’t been seen in decades. Three SurvivalBlog advertisers are Mountain House dealers, and I strongly recommend that you stock up to take advantage of these sales prices in September. Here is a summary of the three September sales: A month-long sale on Mountain House long term storage foods began today at Safecastle. …


Understanding The Process of Freeze Drying Food, by Thomas Baldrick

To understand freeze drying there is less to digest than you might think. If you’re into survival, freeze dried food is your friend. It’s a good friend because you’ll enjoy it and feel good having it around. Like a weapon, a partner or a loyal dog, it serves as your trusted companion… always there for you when you need it most. Now let’s explain the process of freeze drying food and understand how this friendship begins. What is Freeze Drying? While today’s freeze drying industry is powered by some really smart people and super high tech equipment, the concept remains …


Finding Comfort When TSHTF, by P.R.

You could say that Y2K started us on a serious survival path. But long before that, preferring the peace and quiet of country life, we had already begun our search for a small acreage some distance from any cities. The idea of simple living and self-sufficiency appealed to both my husband and me. Finally, in 1998, we were blessed to find a few acres in Central Texas. With a partially built house on a dead-end road, trees and some pasture, it mostly fit all our requirements and was within our rather meager price range. So 15 years later, we are …