Category: Health and Fitness

Dear Mr. Latimer, S.T.’s article on salve making was very interesting. I’ve been making them for several years now. Because I gift and sell them to other people, I buy different size amber and cobalt blue jars to pour the final product in. A great muscle balm salve (which I sent to soldiers’ in Afghanistan who liked it a lot!) is to use oils infused with arnica, meadowsweet, comfrey with a little added coconut oil to the melting beeswax. My favorite lip balm is “baby balm”, made with calendula, chamomile, and roses. It’s also great for diaper rash. A friend …

Salve making is an important skill now, and it will become an even more important skill after SHTF. So, master the skill now, collect your recipes, and obtain the various ingredients and equipment needed, because after SHTF there will be no more manufactured goods, and you may not have access to the essential oils and extracts that are needed. My salve making came about when I went looking for a way to replace store purchased hand lotion with a better product that I could make post-SHTF and has evolved from there. From rosemary salve for dry hands to salve for …

Perhaps in the nature vs. nurture debate, it is going to turn out that people worried about emergency preparedness are just born that way. Certainly, I have tried for years to persuade many of my skeptical friends that having, say, some extra food on hand or some means of personal protection, or even a backup source of energy greater than an extra D battery, is just plain common sense. What I have experienced in response to my well-intentioned suggestions are rolled eyes, turned backs, and closed minds. I’ve pretty much despaired of ever making even the smallest dent in their …

Hugh, I appreciate the concern pharmacist MDS, Pharm.D. has for keeping all of us safe. His comment regarding the danger of expired tetracycline is worth addressing in more detail. According to the respected newsletter, The Medical Letter, Vol. 44, Issue 1142, October 28, 2002, “The only report of human toxicity that may have been caused by chemical or physical degradation of a pharmaceutical product is renal tubular damage that was associated with use of degraded tetracycline…Current tetracycline preparations have been reformulated with different fillers to minimize degradation and are unlikely to have this effect.” This refers to a 1963 incident, …

Hugh, As a relatively recent addition to the prepper society, I am a HUGE fan of everything and anything on SurvivalBlog.com and all things James Wesley, Rawles. Kudos on all that you, JWR, and the team do on a daily basis. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. I glean and digest all of the information that I can from the website and JWR’s novels. I am currently reading Expatriates and have already read and passed around to friends and family Patriots, Survivors, Founders, and How to Survive the End of the World As We Know It. I take the information in …

Someone once commented that my book held no “secrets” to medical prepping, that everything in the book could be found elsewhere. I’d have to agree, but it would take you hundreds of hours to compile the information. My experience has taught me to be cautious of secrets. Don’t they usually just cause trouble? Nothing in medicine should be secret, anyway. In fact, the subtitle to my Survival Medicine courses is “Taking the Mystery Out of Medicine.” Still, “secrets” can be fun, and what follows are seven “secrets” you should know, if you don’t already: Out-dated drugs aren’t actually expired. Drug …

Hugh, I wanted to add something to the great blog about the benefits of breastfeeding. It has to do with my experience having breastfed four babies that are now all teenagers. I had many difficulties with breastfeeding. My mom was encouraging, having breastfed all four of hers, too, but I had one problem after another. I could write a book on my stories, but I’ll simplify to make my point. I struggled through with determination, having to bite down on leather at some points because of the pain. I came down with multiple cases of mastitis with each child. There …

Hugh, That was an outstanding article that was supported by facts and dispelled many myths. When I was in PA school, we had an entire lecture dedicated to learning the facts as this article has described. When I nursed my infant (for nine months), I had to fight against two guilt-driven grandmothers who believed I was harming my baby by not giving him formula, despite my medical background. Indeed, this article takes a sledgehammer to the consumer driven culture of formula feeding. I’d like to add that learning about the “techniques” involved in breastfeeding is best done pre-collapse. It’s not …

As stated earlier, in Part I of this article, milk is the primary source of nourishment and hydration for infants during the first two years of life. We have become so accustomed to the ready availability of cow’s milk, or sometimes other sources, such as goat or soy, that we have neglected the best source– the human breast. What is not often appreciated is that human milk, according to one expert on the subject, “exerts effects far beyond its nutritional value.” The full impact of that concept in a TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It) situation …

Milk is the primary source of nourishment and hydration for infants during the first two years of life. We have become so accustomed to the ready availability of cow’s milk, or sometimes other sources, such as goat or soy, that we have neglected the best source– the human breast. What is not often appreciated is that human milk, according to one expert on the subject, “exerts effects far beyond its nutritional value.” The full impact of that concept in a TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It) situation is the subject of this article. An adult can …

Hugh, In response to the low calorie diet, I would like to put my wife’s experience as an example. She is allergic to wheat and as such has converted to a paleo diet. Google “paleo” if you have wheat issues. In her case when going off the high sugar, starch, and carb diets she experienced the weak and low energy days too. However, as her body adapted to it in about 3 or four days she felt normal. Your body will adjust and “retool” to the new foods as well as the lower calorie intake. You may not have stayed …