Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Two Letters Re: Lessons From an Ice Storm

Dear Mr. Rawles, I have been a daily visitor to your site for about three years now. I want to drop you a line regarding our experience in the big Pacific Northwest ice storm–wit effects still being felt. I live with my wife in a suburb of Tacoma, part way between the city proper and the farm country. The television and Internet news sites all warned of a “massive” and “record breaking” storm that would move into our area this past Monday. We are on PSE power and have our own water well. We consider ourselves pretty well prepared (we …


You May Not Get a Second Chance to Prepare, by Larry E.

I have been guilty for years of talking about preparing verses actually putting forth the effort and taking the necessary steps to prepare for my family.  I began my prep life back pre-2000 Y-2K bug times.  I began to read about the potential time bomb that was ticking as it pertained to the technology crash back in 1995.  I had subscribed to a homesteaders magazine called Countryside (highly recommended) and began to study what impending danger that our nation and world was faced with.  As did many, I did not want to face the facts that this could actually happen …


Alternative Foods in Famines, by ShepherdFarmerGeek

Several future scenarios include or produce famine on a very large scale. The goal of a famine feeding strategy is to get people from the beginning of the famine to the end alive and not permanently damaged. In extreme circumstances this may call for unusual measures… Preparing for famine. We can be reasonably confident that any future crisis will include food scarcity. From EMP to pandemic, from war to drought, food is a critical resource. (The projected death rate from an EMP, including death from a variety of causes including famine, is 9 out of 10 Americans!) The sooner we …


Five Things Every American Should Do But Won’t by Dennis E.

We’ve all seen him on the news: The guy who is buying sheets of plywood, beer, potato chips and other survival essentials as the approaching hurricane can be seen over his shoulder in the distance. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans aren’t much better when it comes to being prepared for emergencies. However, recent disasters have proven that the sheer magnitude of an event can overwhelm relief efforts, coupled with cutbacks in personnel, budgets and equipment, place the onus squarely on our shoulders. Many citizens don’t see the need for preparedness, and that’s their prerogative, however a relatively small investment now …


Letter Re: Holly as a Substitute Caffeine Source

James, Many people in North America wonder how they would survive in a world without caffeine [since coffee and cocoa are both imported].  An alternative to coffee could be Yaupon holly tea.  The Yaupon holly is used as a tea by various Indian tribes, and it has been studied as a commercial herbal tea drink. According to my local colonial history book, colonists also raised Yaupon tea leaves for trade. It is related to yerba mate, a holly used to make a caffeinated tea in South America.   The Wikipedia article is rather confused on this point, but it is believed …


Getting Prepared For a Disaster on a Tight Budget, by L.G.W.

In a perfect world, if something went wrong, my family and I would get in our off-road vehicle and travel to my fully stocked large retreat cabin, that sits on a thousand acres of farm land, complete with it’s own water source, (a spring fed creek and stocked lake), its own vegetable garden,  surrounded by plentiful game and its own moat. Our six-bedroom cabin, with it’s own array of photovoltaic (PV) panels, charge controller, and battery system, along with our solar hot water system, and fireplace, and it’s stocked pantry with several years worth of food and ammunition- would be …


Letter Re: Budget Prepping in the Suburbs

JWR: Kevin’s article on budget prepping touched me to the core. We all began the journey, at the begriming, with all the problems/challenges of those young or older and the common denominator of the demands of family/job/time/location and the most important limiting factor: fiscal resources.   Please bear with me while I lay the groundwork for this subject, throughout my prepping learning curve of about 55 years which started when I was about five years old,  began with my parents trying to spoon feed me information as a young child, with their own prepping experience, which they never thought of themselves as being …


Budget Prepping in the Suburbs, by Kevin from Tennessee

Even though the idea of prepping “on a budget” or “in urban or suburban areas” may be common themes, it seems (to me, at least) that more often than not, the lovely people that contribute their knowledge, advice, and expertise to the topic of prepping seem to, somehow, have more capability than most when it comes to logistically and financially supporting these ventures. They may have lived on a farm for most of their life, they possibly inherited land from a relative, they may be able to work from home and have time to spare, they may be older and …


Letter Re: BPA in Steel Canned Food Linings

Cpt. Rawles, A recent article was cause for concern and may be of interest to many of your readers: Soaring BPA Levels Found in People Who Eat Canned Foods.  I personally will be minimizing canned goods from the store and focusing on glass and dehydration for my own stockpile.  I have been told a very small list of companies have began to ship in BPA free cans, but I am not aware of who is on that list yet. They claim the same thin plastic lining is used for almost all canned foods and leaches BPA, if true this is …


Letter Re: Adaptation to Cold Environments

James, Thank you for your excellent web site and the forethought that has gone into making it so successful. I wanted to make a brief comment on the “Adaptation to Cold Environments, by D.W.” piece which appeared 11/24/11.  One of the best ways to maintain internal body heat is by increasing specific foods in one’s daily diet.  During extreme cold conditions, there are few foods that improve thermoregulation better than fats — specifically, animal-based fats.  Fat is an easily digested, readily utilized metabolic heater that “stokes the furnace” to help maintain body temperatures during extreme cold conditions.  Although our culture …


Experience Building a Missouri Masonry Stove, by Tiasabaki

Thanks for the blog. I have been been one of those avid readers that does not provide very much input, but I have some useful “how-to” information on heating your house in the temperate climate.  I live in Iowa at the current time.   A lot of this is hard to even put into words, because this style of heating is unique, and even more unique as I built the heaters my self.  I recommend anyone trying to do these, to do additional homework before attempting any of this.  I also studied “The Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way …


Letter Re: Secondhand Store Bargains, by Rucksack Rob

As most of the readers of SurvivalBlog know, preparing for disasters can be a lifelong commitment and can be most costly, even when buying used or on-sale items.  However, after 30 years of prepping, I find that I do 40-50% of my shopping at secondhand stores, such as Salvation Army, Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, and American Cancer Society, to name a few. If you visit regularly and keep your eyes open, not only will you find a treasure trove of preparedness items, but the employees will get to know you and your products and put them aside and hold them for you …


Top Five Medical Priorities for Survival, by Dr. Bob

I’d like to describe the top five survival priorities, from a medical standpoint.  If you order any survival products, you should do it with some conviction after setting up your top five priorities.  If you order a survival package from us here at survivinghealthy without paying attention to priority #1, you are doing it wrong!  There are not a lot of sites that will discourage you from purchasing from them, but this is not one of those!  Please, prioritize your purchases for survival based on need.  Let’s review the top five medical list.   #1:  Water.  You will live 5-7 …


Lessons From a Mini Orchard and Foraged Fruit–Using Free Food to Prep, by Sally M.

My husband and I moved cross-country to The American Redoubt this past spring with our two young sons.  We had never even visited this area, but our research over two years caused us to fall in love with an area we had never seen in person.  My husband flew out on his own about a month before our move and found us a rental house on a couple acres within our budget.  He thought he saw fruit trees at the time and took pictures to show me, but we couldn’t tell for sure. Our transition was very tiring and tedious, …


Letter Re: Staple Foods Storage By The Numbers

JWR- Dr. Ted is incorrect. "Dropping below 15% protein risks Kwashiorkor – it’s the reason why those starving kids in the television commercials have fat bellies – lack of protein actually causes more fat to be deposited!" More fat is not deposited. [A swollen belly in these cases is a symptom of] edema (fluid) that collects in the abdomen or feet. It comes from the capillaries when there is a lack of protein in the diet and the liver cannot produce enough albumin. Thus the blood is hypo-osmotic and fluid is lost into the peritoneum, also called third-spacing. – J.W.M.