I’ve been a “Prepper” most of my life. When I was a small child, and would hear the air raid sirens going off, every Tuesday morning, across the street from where I lived. I worried about a nuclear attack, and no child should have to worry about that sort of thing – even though it was a very real threat. Even today, we are closer than ever to a nuclear war, believe it or not. I used to “steal” some canned goods from my grandmother’s pantry and hide them in my bedroom, so I’d be prepared to eat if things went south. Of course, if Chicago, Illinios had been nuked, we didn’t live that far from the downtown area, and we would have been dead before we knew it. Still, I prepared.
As I grew older, I became a “Survivalist” – and I was hardcore about it. I was preparing to surviving in the boonies – for as long as necessary. I wrote for American Survival Guide, for a number of years. I did so until they got Politically Correct and that pretty much put a wooden stake in the heart of that once great survival magazine. Today, most of the hardcore Survivalists have disappeared. Now we have Preppers – and there’s not a lot of difference between the two terms. Some people make the distinction that Preppers, are preparing ahead of time, for “whatever” may come their way. Yes, I count myself as a Prepper these days. We operate on a very limited income, and we’ve yet to see the “extra” dollar – but we manage to put away stuff for “that” day that is rapidly approaching us all.
For a lot of years, I could look down the road – maybe a year or more in advance – and prep for whatever situations might come along. These days, I can’t see much beyond tomorrow. Call me paranoid, but the way the world is going, and all the daily threats we face, I can’t see far down that road any longer – so we “prepare” for today – and maybe even tomorrow – if possible. My wife is always talking about “when we have an ‘extra’ dollar – we don’t – we never have – we only have whatever money is in our pockets, and we have to make decisions on how best to spend some of that money, for our preps.
Obviously, if you read SurvivalBlog.com – you are a Prepper or Survivalist – if you’re not, then stop whatever it is you are doing, and get started. You don’t need a lot of money to get going. Needless to say, when the flag goes up, we won’t be living like we’re doing today. And we will be eating whatever we have stored up. A good way to start is with bags of rice and beans…and lots of Ramen noodle soup. Yeah, I hear ya, it’s not the best eating, but it beats eating grass and tree bark – like so many do in North Korea, to survive. For a very little money, you can easily put away a year’s worth of food with rice, beans and soup, and add in some spaghetti and sauce, and you will be surviving. Just add in a good supply of every day multiple vitamins. This is important to have this on-hand. No matter how well prepared you think you are, you won’t be getting your daily vitamins and supplements – and generic multivitamins are very inexpensive, you can purchase a year’s supply for one person for under ten bucks.
Mountain House has been around for a very long time. Matter of fact, they have their plant just 25-miles down the road from where we live. I’ve never gotten over there to see their operation – but maybe someday. They have a retail store – and by that, I mean what they sell there is at retail, no discounts. I suspect there are a couple reasons for this. The big and small box stores all carry Mountain House freeze-dried foods, and they usually sell it at or slightly below retail. So it would miff the owners of these stores if the manufacturer sold the products below the price that they sell them for.Continue reading“Mountain House Foods, by Pat Cascio”
