Category: Food Storage & Cooking

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” …


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

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Pemmican is a Native American Indian survival food that has a very long shelf life and it requires no refrigeration. It is similar to a Granola Bar except it contains no artificial preservatives. It is a compact energy source that contains protein, fiber, fat, carbohydrates, natural fruit sugars, vitamins, and minerals. It also tastes great because it is a simple combination of meat jerky and your favorite dried fruit. To make pemmican you only need three basic ingredients: 1. lean meat, 2. animal fat, and 3. fruit or berries. Pemmican has several very important and desirable characteristics: 1. It uses …


Letter Re: Home Canning Your Garden Produce and Meat

Howdy! I appreciate the SurvivalBlog site and loved your novel “Patriots”. Keep up the good work! Let’s assume TSHTF in a long term way. Let’s further assume you have made reasonable preparations for food, both stored food, and open pollinated seeds for future gardens. How do you store all this future food? Freezing will be iffy since the electricity may become unreliable. It only takes a few days to ruin a freezer full of meat and veggies. Drying can be effective for some, but not all foods. It’s a very time consuming to prepare the food, and it has to …


Letter Re: Preparedness Implications of the Global Food Shortages

Jim, I thought you might find this interesting as I recall a posting about this some time back. Here is a link to an interesting article about a foreseen food shortage that is described as not if but when it happens. I would like to point out the implication of this towards those who are interested in survival in that it would directly impact those trying to establish long term food storage using raw ingredients such as wheat and corn as they are highlighted in this article. The United States has more than enough ability to feed our nation and …


Two Letters Re: Grain Storage and Preparation

Sir; We have what may be stupid question, however, we do not know how to grind wheat. We would like to ask how to prepare wheat for cooking and use.We have searched your great site but I did not find the answer on this. We would like to take advantage of this inexpensive food. Thanks so much . Your work is appreciated. – EG   Mr Rawles, My family and I are doing our best to prepare for the tough times ahead. Something’s brewing, I’m sure we all can feel it. One thing we’d love to keep a store of …


Sources for Free Survival and Preparedness Information on the Internet, by K.L. in Alaska

Recent comments in SurvivalBlog provided excellent advice on using the public library. You can gain lots of knowledge with no expense, then purchase only those books you want to keep on hand for personal reference. Also, many colleges and universities loan to local residents, so you can use them too, even if you aren’t a student. If your local libraries participate, a great resource is Worldcat. It lets you search for books from home, then go check them out, or get them through interlibrary loan. What will happen to the Internet when the SHTF? There’s no guarantee it will survive. …


Letter Re: Sprouting Techniques

Dear James I saw the posts about sprouting and would like to suggest Sprout People: The have loads of information on sprouting and have good prices for many types of sprouting seed and sprouters. I have the Sproutmaster, the Bioset and the Hemp Bag. I find the Bioset to be the easiest (water twice a day) and larger than the Sproutmaster, which also works quite well. I also find that if you want to have sprouts every day, you really need to have two sprouters. Sprouts are nutritious, tasty and easy to grow. They are the perfect survival food. All …


Four Letters Re: Sprouting Techniques

Mr. Rawles, I saw the post about Nick B. looking for help on the subject of sprouts. Maybe I can help. Earlier this year I was checking things out on a couple of preparedness sites. Some of the readers may know about these,but I’ll pass the links along for those who may not have seen them. This one Survival And Self-Sufficiency Links has a lot of useful resources, and I found this one for sprouts: Sprouting: a brief overview. It has a few links above the section on beekeeping. There may be others that I have forgotten, or just may …


Time and Energy Efficient Cooking, by KBF

I wish to share some valuable information on my personal experiences with the use of two cooking devices which I incorporate into daily homemaking practice when I am attempting to conserve on water and on fuel usage. Both of them are extremely time and energy efficient. The two kitchen products which have earned their weight in silver in my home are my pressure cookers, and my newest kitchen toys, which come from an old Asian origin and cooking concept, the thermo cooker pot. I have and use several sizes of pressure cookers. I chose the pot size for use for …


Letter Re: Skills Versus Gear for Survival

Jim, After reading the Profiles you have posted. I have come to the conclusion I cannot hold a dime to these folks. Makes me wonder why should I bother. Hmmm, that thought lasts all of five seconds. A lot of the people for whom you profiled are in a much higher income bracket than the rest of us working folks. Personally, I have two jobs and work 12-14 hours a day. I was unlucky enough to be in a third rear end collision. In my life time this year, although instead of being rear ended by an illegal uninsured illegal …