Category: Food Storage & Cooking

Letter Re: Preparedness Advice for a Law School Student

Hello, I am a law student in Oklahoma.The recent ice storm really opened my eyes. I lost power for a week in freezing temperatures (as did many thousands across Oklahoma) I had no fuel in my car (a Ford Focus) and no food. It really opened my eyes. I am currently heavily in debt and have little extra funds but would like to start getting prepared. I have a dog (a Welsh Corgi) and a cat. My girlfriend thinks I have gone insane and does not like to talk about things like this. I live in a rented house in …


Two Letters Re: A Warning on Kelly Kettles

Jim: I finally heard from manufacturer. They wrote: “Firstly, my sincerest apologies for the delay in coming back to you – I was traveling a lot over the past week so apologies again. All of our kettles are manufactured by skilled tradesmen. During the spinning process a small amount of grease is applied to one side of the aluminum sheet to make spinning easier – particularly when attaching the spout for pouring. This greasy side should be the outside of the kettle and this is subsequently wiped clean. I have seen two occasions within the past two years where this …


Letter Re: Post-TEOTWAWKI Trash Disposal

Sir; It seems there has been little on the subject of garbage and what to do with it after TEOTWAWKI. I would suggest that anyone who has put any sort of effort into preparing for the end should come up with a plan for their trash, and soon. Whether you plan to bug in, bug out to a prepared location or already live in your location away from the Golden Horde and their anticipated escape routes, a plan should be in place before it is needed. The best example of how many communities will look (and in a very short …


Letter Re: A Warning on Kelly Kettles

Dear Jim, Great Site, Jim! I wanted to warn some folks that may have ordered or intend to order the Kelly Kettle (mentioned in the article “Prepare or Die”, by J. Britely .) After receiving my kettle I rinsed it out with water and soap. I then tested the kettle to make sure it worked, and most importantly, learned how to use it before the situation required its use. I started with paper burning, then put small sticks from the yard in the chimney and that baby really boiled water fast. However, after using it twice and rinsing it out, …


Prepare or Die, by J. Britely

Throughout my life I have been caught unprepared several times and while nothing seriously bad happened, it easily could have.  I have been lost hiking.  My car has broken down in very bad neighborhoods – twice.  I have been close enough to riots that I feared they would spread to my neighborhood, been in earthquakes, been too close to wildfires, been stuck in a blizzard, and have been without power and water for several days after a hurricane.   I managed to get myself out of each situation, I thanked God, and tried to learn from my mistakes.  I could have …


Letter Re: I Told You So

Jim: My pessimistic mentor in preparedness frequently says: “I hate being so d*mn right all the time!” I can’t help but wonder if you share the sentiment. I’m beginning to do so! The more I read the current news about market volatility, Peak Oil, and CCD the more I am reminded of the pieces I wrote and you published on SurvivalBlog months ago! The full texts are still available in your archives and the advice is still valid! For new readers and to refresh the memory of others here are a few quotes pulled out of the late in 2006 …


Four Letters Re: A Honeybee CCD Disaster Soon?–Bee Prepared!

James, Here is a link to a somewhat less pessimistic article on CCD, the current state of affairs with bees, and a likely possible cause. I agree that the consequences of a loss of Apis mellifera would be a severe blow, but I think the reality is not (yet?) quite so dire as a recently linked article predicted. Best Regards, – MP   Jim; Your comments miss the fact that solitary bees, such as the Orchard Mason bee, are roughly 10 times more effective [per capita] as pollinators than honeybees, and are plentiful in most locales. Bumblebees ain’t bad at …


Letter Re: Some Information on LDS Canneries

Jim– The LDS Bishop Storehouse/Cannery list of foods available shows a storage life of 30 years for most properly packaged foods. The Cannery Food Commodities sheet includes this statement: “For longer-term storage, avoid teaching people to ‘store what you eat and eat what you store’.” Think about it: in money terms, you don’t want to dip into the principle. The same is true for emergency food storage. Here’s some sample prices as of December 22, 2007: Hard red wheat $4.75 for a 25# bag (you’ll transfer the wheat to a food-grade bucket; for how-to, check SurvivalBlog archives) Hard white wheat …


Davos Delegates Deeply Denigrate the Dissipated Dollar

The once Almighty US Dollar got its comeuppance this week at the annual Davos, Switzerland conclave. After too many years of maxing out her credit card at Macy’s, the weak sister of the currency world was strongly chided by her siblings. The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented one-day 75 basis point cut in interest rates was seen as exactly what it was: a desperation measure. Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) said that there is little chance of a European interest rate cut, to match the Fed’s rate cut Soon after, Steve Forbes went so far as to …


A Honeybee CCD Disaster Soon?–Bee Prepared!

In the past three days, more than a dozen SurvivalBlog readers e-mailed this article link from The Telegraph: Honeybees may be wiped out in 10 years. I can not overstate that this is very alarming news. If the honeybee hive losses are universal in the “breadbasket” regions in the middle latitudes around the world, it would be cataclysmic for agriculture. The loss of honeybees for pollination because of CCD and/or successive waves of disease could very well cause a global famine that might result in a 20%+ die-off of global population and veritable TEOTWAWKI. Even if there is just an …


Letter Re: Switchgrass for Ethanol Production

Dear Jim, I just discovered SurvivalBlog.com in November 2007. I have bought two of your books so far. We are working on our lists, in the meantime I am building FIFO shelving for the canned part of our provisions. We thank God for you, your great work, and The Memsahib’s support of this. I’m not so sure this article will be a fit, but it is good news nevertheless. From Scientific American: Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn Does. The USDA and farmers took part in a five-year study of switchgrass, native to North America. They found that switchgrass ethanol …


Letter Re: Grandpappy’s Pemmican Recipe – A Native American Indian Survival Food

James, The following information is freely available on the internet at a variety of web sites including the Wikipedia, the USDA, and the FDA web sites. First a simple clarification of the USDA information: Dried meat may pose a health risk if: (1) the meat is improperly dried, and (2) the original meat contained harmful microorganisms or the meat is processed in an environment that contains harmful microorganisms. The original USDA quotation does not mention the addition of sodium nitrite as a solution to this problem. The scientific experiment discussed at this web site evaluated the growth of Salmonella on …


Letter Re: Thanks to Congress, Ethanol and Biofuel Mandates Cause Food Prices to Soar

Jim, You may have noted the article titled Thanks to Congress, Ethanol and Biofuel Mandates Cause Food Prices to Soar, before and I missed it. The article [by Dana Joel Gattuso a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research–a conservative think tank] is very interesting. I can’t vouch for the veracity of the report, or the organization, however, it doesn’t do anything to lessen my fears that any congressional involvement in the energy business only makes things worse. Here are a few scary quotes from the article: ” …ethanol requires enormous quantities of water, a valuable resource …


Letter Re: Grandpappy’s Pemmican Recipe – A Native American Indian Survival Food

Sir, I must say that I do not recommend the gentleman’s pemmican recipe. Unless he adds sodium nitrite and brines the meat, sickness can occur. From the USDA: “Salmonella not only survives drying but also becomes more heat resistant with drying and is more of an issue in non-fermented dried meats, such as jerky, and whole meat cuts, such as dried hams. Starter cultures are generally not used in the production of jerky. Microbial hazards include Salmonella, L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, and, for beef and venison jerky, E. coli O157:H7. If the product receives inadequate lethality treatment and is insufficiently …


Letter Re: Home Canning Your Garden Produce and Meat

Hello, I’ve seen several mentions of sealing home canned food with wax, most recently in the email from Troy H. My grandmother did this for jams and jellies, which she put up with enough sugar to preserve them even without canning. The wax seal was intended to keep the jam from drying out, and to stop mold from forming on the top. It would too often fail, and we would find mold growing under the wax. I suspect that it failed to seal more often than the mold grew, too! I would very strongly advise against using a wax “seal” …