Category: Food Storage & Cooking

A Folding Kayak as a Survival Vehicle, by Jann B.

The vehicle I am about to describe does not often come immediately to mind when one thinks of a survival vehicle to be of use during troubled times but bear with me.  The vehicle I have in mind requires no fuel, and no mechanical upkeep. Additionally it offers significant stealth mode and is totally silent. If one is in or near an urban setting such as the San Francisco Bay area or Manhattan or Seattle then this survival vehicle will grant one the power to disappear from the crazed urban crowd scene almost immediately.  No, I’m not talking about some …


A Frightening Experience Leads to a Plan, by V.A.S.

Part One:  Why I Started to Prepare Speaking from the perspective of someone who has spent the last several years researching, reading about and trying to sort through multitudes of information on the subject, I can say that learning the art of preparedness is not a simple task. Given the huge amount of resources, information and even misinformation available on the internet and within the many books written on the subject, determining the right path towards being more prepared can be a difficult one to say the least. Here is my story, and my tips for finding your own path …


The Will to Act: Your Ultimate Bug-out Kit by R.B.

Section One The Bug-Out Bag is an icon of the preparedness movement. The principle is well known and agreed upon: we may indeed have to pack-up and take flight to a more orderly, less hostile environment, intelligently. This would be either in anticipation of a great upheaval of social order or in its aftermath. How we will face the situation and deal with it is our part to play. Bug-out is an emergency measure, supplying us with a three-day margin for action: decisive action, evasive action, survivalist action or other salutary maneuvering. You must make an informed plan for your …


The Prepping Imperative, by A.L.T.

Three years ago, my husband and I had never heard the terms “prepper”, “survivalist” or “bug out”.  We were blissfully unaware of our country’s and world’s dire circumstances and didn’t know how to do much of anything truly useful.  This is a chronicle of the journey that brought us to where we are today, and I have included some of the specific books, resources and equipment that are the fruit of much research and thought.  We didn’t have much to spend on equipment or commercially packed stores of food, but through providence and thrift, we are much better able to …


Letter Re: Simple Prepping for the Suburban Home

Dear Editor: Keep-it-Simple Suburbanite made a common error in thinking that home canning butter is a good idea. Canning butter at home is not a good idea. Botulism toxin cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted and it can be present in canned butter. I’m guessing that Keep-it-Simple heated the butter and either water-bathed it or simply sealed the hot jars without processing. Heat shocks botulism spores (which are normally harmless) into producing the toxin. To prevent that, botulism needs the much higher temperature of pressure canning to be killed. Even then, fat molecules in foods such as butter and cheese …


Simple Prepping for the Suburban Home, by Keep-it-Simple Suburbanite

Our family lives in an average house on an average lot near the edge of an average midwestern city.  While we have two evacuation invitations and are looking into purchasing “camping land”, our primary plan is to shelter in place.  From the very beginning, JWR’s “blinding flash of the obvious” has been the watchword in my quest for simplicity.  Limited time, space and resources have led to some streamlining that might give others a few helpful ideas. Garden Have you ever felt overwhelmed and intimidated by all the great gardening advice you read here on the blog?  If so, why …


Letter Re: How to Live Longer Now and After TEOTWAWKI

James: I love the blog and a lot of the articles. I am a dermatologist and wanted to comment on the Vitamin D article posted on July 21, 2011. Despite what you might read on the Internet, you cannot get a significant amount of Vitamin D from sunlight. This is a huge misconception. Even if you tanned for 8 hours, you would only get about 3% of your daily Vitamin D. You would also cause a lot of sun damage which increases your risk of skin cancer. I realize a lot of information says otherwise, but if you check with …


Food Security: A Pantry and a Garden by Marianna

Believing as I do that a tragedy of some form is coming, I expressed to my husband that food security is a great place to start.  As he is somewhat skeptical of what may come, he did agree that a food investment is not frivolous.  We have four children and already know what feeding six people a day is like and are used to buying in bulk and shopping smart.  Our food security began by starting a pantry.  Since our house was built in the 1920s, it has a peculiar little room (about 10’ x 10’) off the kitchen with …


The Early Stages of Preparation, by St. Croix

The Early Stages of Preparation, by St. Croix Over the past couple of years I have had a few people, two in particular, hint to me that it would not be a bad idea to begin picking up a few extra non-perishable items on my weekly visits to Wal-Mart or the local grocery store.  I began realizing, like most of the population, when me or my wife go to the store, we normally only pick up a “few things”, or just enough to get us through the week.  However, thanks to their continuous subtle remarks, and the assistance of the …


Letter Re: Winter Wheat Harvest Season

July is the time of year that Winter Wheat is harvested, priced, and sold. You can call an area “Ag service” farm and seed center, and ask for a price to buy Winter Wheat by the bushel.  Look them up in the phone book, or ask a farmer. The Ag service may buy it locally from a farmer for you, and clean it and bag it.  Or they will buy it cleaned and bagged from their seed wholesaler.  You will receive it ready to store or grind. If they ask why you want 25-50 bushels of wheat, you can tell …


Letter Re: Some Useful Figures for Grain Grinding Yields

To plan for your recipes, be advised that each of the following whole grains when ground up will yield about 1 cup of grain flour. • 3/4 C. Wheat • 1/2 C. Pearled Barley • 1-1/3 C. Rolled Oats (Grind these up in your blender) • 2/3 C. Buckwheat • 2/3 C. Quinoa • 1/2 C. Navy Beans • 2/3 C. Lentils • 1/2 C. Chickpeas/ Garbanzo Beans • 5/8 C. Popcorn • 2/3 C. Kamut • 2/3 C. Millet Regards, – K.A.F.


Product Review: Mainstay Emergency Rations and Water by Michael Z. Williamson

It’s a good idea to have an emergency food supply in one’s bug out bag, but it needs to be something that doesn’t decay, leak or spoil, and has a good shelf life in possibly extreme conditions.  Enter the Mainstay rations.  They’re made by Survivor Industries and packed in what feels like a heavy mylar-lined foil, rated for five years, and can withstands temperatures of -40° F to 300°F (-40°C to 149°C).  They meet USCG and DoD standards for packaging.  They’re in convenient 400 calorie bars, each constituting a meal, which make management easy, and eliminate trying to break them …


Letter Re: Prepping With Limited Funds

Mr. Rawles, I feel for L. Burton, as I know what she is going through. I’m not a beginning prepper, but I am one who doesn’t have a lot of dollars to throw around. I’ve been out of a full-time job since late 2007 (thanks, Socialists) and have spent the intervening years in combinations of contract work, part-time second jobs and freelance work — just to get by. There are no luxuries in my household, save for the occasional slice of pizza on a Friday night. I can speak to one area of her concern, and that’s food prepping. I’ve …


Letter Re: Raising a Healthy, Happy Infant in a Survival Situation

Mr. Rawles,   Just a note to clarify the use of homemade baby cereals:  I made much of my own children’s baby foods and one thing that was stressed often was that there is a fundamental difference between homemade grain cereals and store bought.  The powdered cereals you buy at the store are made from cooked and dehydrated cereal grains and can be reconstituted with just a bit of warm water or milk.  When you grind your own grains at home (which I did and recommend from a nutrition and budget standpoint) you must then cook the ground cereal by …


Three Letters Re: Hunter-Gatherer Mobile Survival

JWR: I just read Blue Sun’s comments and feel I too must comment. I believe that he has the beginnings of what I envision as a End of the World scenario, inasmuch as the ‘friend’ from yesterday is the enemy of today. But we part company when he is suggesting that deep woods is the location for survival. I see no room for the weak or infirm nor women and children. I see only a Jeremiah Johnson-style survival thing for a lone male that is young and in good health and very good shape. How long one expects to be …