Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Practical and Affordable Food and Medicine Rotation

Jim, In addition to stores of long-term food in #10 cans (Mountain House and cans from the LDS cannery), I keep about a six month supply of “grocery store” canned and boxed food and a multiple-year supply of OTC medicines. A lot of this stuff goes unused because I’m pretty bad at rotating and while they are items we like, we just don’t eat them that often. Every year around the holidays I box up a ton of stuff and donate it to the food bank. The tax deduction I take is the “fair market value” (i.e., current grocery store …


How it Started to Where I Am, by C.C.

Introductory biographical note: The author is 64 years old, father of nine children, BSAE Aeronautical Engineering, Ex-Army Infantry Training Officer (1970-1974), former Gym Trainer (1996-1997), Firefighter and EMT training and certification (2009-2010), Real Estate Broker/Owner Phase I I began realizing my vulnerability in 1998-1999, when Y2K-induced turmoil was a potential real possibility. I began, in all haste to find and prepare for the possible disaster that might come when the clock struck 12:00 midnight and 2000 would ring in. My first step was to find enough land that would be secure enough for my family and to design a place …


Letter Re: Day to Day Survival–From the Perspective of a Homeless Man

It may not be TEOTWAWKI, but the end of “your world” may be closer than you think. Mine came eight years ago with the end of my wife’s battle with cancer. With the down turn of the economy and a mountain of medical bills, we had already leveraged every penny that we could. We took out a second mortgage, maxed our credit cards, sold the boat, the four wheeler, and travel trailer. Since then I’ve sold my pickup, her car, the tools of my trade (I’d been a carpenter), and anything else that could bring in a dollar. I’ve been …


Letter Re: Thoughts on Beginning Preparedness

James, There have recently been some really good posts on SurvivalBlog. I found B.J.H.’s Thoughts on Beginning Preparedness very interesting. Not just because of useful information, but because it highlighted the differences between each of us and our situations. My first survival/TEOTWAWKI book was When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency by Matthew Stein. It made sense to me, so I started with lots of extra house/car keys, hidden appropriately. Next was Bug Out Bags (BOBs) for the whole family, and emergency bags in the cars. Then I started stockpiling food and water for …


Thoughts on Beginning Preparedness, by B.J.H.

Preparing for the end of the world as we know it is an understandably daunting task, especially for a beginning prepper. The path to securing yourself and your family should ultimately end in a self-sufficient rural retreat, but there are many steps down that path. It is easy in the beginning stages of your preparation to feel discouraged by the shear size of the task in front of you. The amount of information to be taken in, the sudden awareness s of your vulnerable present condition, the list of tools you never knew you needed, and the anticipated financial and …


Low Cost Preparedness, by J.E.

We, in the U.S.A., live on a knife edge.  Most of us take our life of ease (compared to the rest of the world) for granted, The ones who don’t are preppers and survivalists.  The television and radio give almost instant notification of the latest earthquake, hurricane, fire, or whatever and that makes many of us casual about disaster.  We get used to hearing about it so we ignore it beyond a “Gee that’s too bad!”  After all, disasters only happen to “the other guy.” Prepping for the individual and the way we go about it is different in almost …


Letter Re: Preserving Food at Home Self-Study Course

Dear Mr. Rawles, I thought that the free food preservation course from the National Center for Home Food Preservation would be useful to your readers. Here are some details, from their web site: Preserving food at home, a self-study course. Announcing a free, self-paced, online course for those wanting to learn more about home canning and preservation. * Introduction to Food Preservation * General Canning * Canning Acid Foods * Canning Low-Acid Foods This course is offered in the University of Georgia eLC system. The univefrsity requires registration for you to receive a login. – David L. Economics and Inve


Some Experience in Storing Items in a Humid Climate, by Michael Z. Williamson

Recently, I had the opportunity to perform a long term test of goods improperly stored. A friend of mine placed his possessions in storage in a hurry in 1999, left the state, and did not arrange for anyone to maintain them. He returned last year, and we recently opened his storage locker and removed the items. Items stored in the Midwest, in an outside, sheet metal storage facility with no heat or AC, placed on minimal dunnage and piled in without neat packing or stacking. The interior was dark. Duration was 11 years—1999-2010. The lows near 0 Fahrenheit, highs near …


Waking Up and Getting Prepared, by Matthew G.

I live a very average suburban life similar to many people across the country. Commute to work, office job, suburban home with wife and kids. It’s easy to forget how fragile this lifestyle is and how little it takes to remove all the things you come to depend on. Recently I had an afternoon that showed me just how easy these conveniences can go away and the difference a little preparedness can make. After picking up my daughter from day care I drove home to find myself locked out of the house. We were having new keys made and I …


Letter Re: The Importance of Garage Sales in Preparedness

Mr. Rawles; I thought I’d share this little bit of excitement from my corner of the world, that can serve as a reminder on the importance of scavenging yard and garage sales. So, I’ve wanted a grain mill for about a year and a half. Because they’re dead useful and I’m growing corn and amaranth in the garden this year. I was really lusting over the Country Living Grain Mill, because it seemed, well, awesome. But $395 plus shipping, plus extra parts was a little out of my reach. I’m a single girl tied by employment to the suburbs, so …


How Long Can You Tread Water? by Tom S.

Noah may have questioned God about why he should build such a big boat.  To quote the comedian Bill Cosby, God might have asked: “How long can you tread water?” In the event of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) burst 250 miles above Kansas or a super solar flare, the loss of the electrical grid would stop almost all food production and importation in the USA.  Some estimate there is, at any given time, more than 1,000 pounds per capita of food in consumable form available in the USA.  Unfortunately, it is very poorly distributed and will not be available to …


The Frontier Diet: The Proven High Speed, Low Drag Travel Foods, by Hambone

As you make your plans to beat feet to a pre-selected retreat site or evacuate your area of operations for a short-term emergency, food has to be part of that planning effort.  As I read through SurvivalBlog site, I see folks posting their ideas.  These ideas fall into some general categories – freeze dried / dehydrated and MRE style meals, with the remainder looking at commercially wet-pack canned or other prepared food.  All have much to offer to a person or family looking ahead and seeing the possibility bad times.  They all have some drawbacks, as does any set of …


Some Hope for the Low Budget Survivalist, by D.L.

You’ve heard it before, “Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”  That principle can be, and should be, applied to every facet of your survival preparations.  It applies to the possession of material items such as food, weapons and first aid.  It applies to your skills such as how you find your food, use your weapons and administer first aid. It applies to your physical abilities such as endurance, speed and agility.  It applies to your state of mind such as courage, honor and ingenuity.  And, of course, it applies to …


Surviving With Pets, by Alex C.

In our day-to-day lives most people seem to take our pets for granted. They are a welcome sight after a long day’s work, and a loyal companion with whom we can share our deepest darkest secrets. Our pets love without condition, and many of us return that love to our pets when our lives seem to be going well. However, far too often our animal friends are either left out of survival plans unintentionally and left to fend for themselves, or removed with cruel forethought and left to suffer alone. It can be understandable that a person would want to …


Letter Re: Check Prices When Buying Storage Foods!

Mr. Rawles: I had a shock when I went to the supermarket the other day. I had gotten into a habit of buying beans and lentils in the little one pound clear plastic bags. I had also bought a lot of white rice in two pound bags, just one [bag] at a time. That was convenient, but I wasn’t paying attention to the price tags. When I went to stock up, I found that the difference in price [per ounce] just between the 1 pound bags and the 10 pounds sack was huge. They charge like three times as much …