Picture Credit- Pinterest

Canning

According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, found online at http://nchfp.uga.edu, canning is a safe way to preserve foods when safety measures are followed. Canning is a process that includes cooking food and storing it in airtight glass jars for later use. Home canned food is an excellent option because it preserves the flavor of fresh fruits and vegetables and is also an inexpensive way to store foods from your garden for use during the colder months of the year. You will need some supplies for canning, including tongs, a large pan to boil jars and lids in, and a large pan or pressure cooker to seal your jars in once they have been filled.

Freeze Dried Foods

Dehydrated and freeze dried foods are both simple alternatives for those with limited time and space for storing their own emergency food supplies. These types of foods have been a staple for soldiers, hikers, and other outdoors enthusiasts looking for a lightweight food that can be carried easily. Gallon sized, or larger, containers of dehydrated or freeze dried foods can be purchased for an instant supply fruits, vegetables, soups, and more.

There are some disadvantages to opting for freeze dried or dehydrated food over other options, as well as some advantages. Freeze dried foods are usually already packaged for long term storage when you buy them so there is no need for containers. Freeze dried foods are a little more expensive than dried bulk foods or canning your own homegrown vegetables and fruits, but are definitely a good option when you want an easy alternative to other methods.

Dry Storage

Dry storage usually includes storing items such as grains and beans. Waterproof, airtight containers are the only thing you need to preserve these types of dried foods for emergency situations. One added benefit of opting for long term dry storage is that most of these items are very inexpensive and can be stored for an extended time without the quality of the food being affected. Typically, when you think of dry foods you will think of things like beans and other legumes or grains like oats and rice.

These types of foods can be purchased in bulk quantities and stores in large food safe buckets. You will want to look for containers that close tightly and that are waterproof for long term storage. Buying dried foods in bulk does require a cool, dry storage space that can be easily accessed from inside the home.

Freezing

Freezing is also a good option for long term food storage. One thing to consider is whether or not you have a deep freezer, or space for one, in your home. Foods needs to be stored at a very cold temperature and wrapped well to prevent freezer burn over longer periods of time. This solution is nice when you want to opt for bulk meat, however. Rotating your frozen food stores is also a good idea. Write the date of purchase on the outside of meats and frozen foods using waterproof marker. You will want to use the oldest items first to keep a fresh supply of frozen foods with little waste. One disadvantage is that you may not have electricity in an emergency situation.

Drying Your Own

Owing a small home dehydrator is an excellent way to make jerky, fruit leather, and other items that can be stored for long periods of time. A dehydrator is usually less than $150, but can be more costly if you want a specific brand or model. Dehydrated foods will also need to be stored in airtight containers for long term storage and kept in a cool, dry area in the home.

Author bio:

Nick Lamar is avid gardener and blogger who writes for 3 LB Soul.

PhotoCredit- Pinterest

1. Herb Gardens Are Some Of The Easiest Gardens To Plant And Maintain

Most herbs literally grow like weeds. I planted Thai Basil from seeds I harvested from a plant on the side of the road, and even now, 5 years later, I see little Thai basil plants popping up where I least expect them. Herbs are very easy to grow and are tolerant of many different soil and sunlight conditions. If you check with your local plant nursery, they may give you some advice on the ideal conditions for growing the herbs you choose, but these conditions are pretty basic I.e. enough water, sunlight, soil etc.

Tobago herb garden From Wikipedia

2. Growing Your Own Herbs Can Save You A Lot Of Money

If you have ever bought fresh herbs at the super market, you probably know that fresh herbs are not cheap. When you grow your own herbs, the only things you will pay for is the initial cost of buying seeds (which are generally quite cheap) and even if you buy special plant food and potting soil, if you use herbs regularly, you will be saving money in the long run. Also, when you buy herbs at the supermarket, usually a lot of it goes to waste. It’s very rare that you can use a whole bag of parsley in one go, but if you grow your own, you can snip off just as much parsley as you need for your dish.

3. Growing Your Own Herbs Lets You Experience More Variety

When you grow your own herbs, you have the ability to sample the less common varieties of herbs that don’t get sold in supermarkets very often. Usually you can buy spearmint at your local grocery, but you probably won’t be able to find apple mint, orange mint, horsemint or, my favorite, chocolate mint. By growing your own herbs you are able to choose varieties that aren’t as common that will give your dishes a distinctive and unique taste.

4. Growing Your Own Herbs Brings Many Health Benefits

Most herbs have healing and curative properties and having access to fresh herbs regularly can help you to benefit from these properties. Learning about different herbal remedies can give you inspiration for what herbs you want to grow in your garden, as well as give you more appreciation for any herbs you already do grow for culinary purposes. Also, growing herbs can be a very soothing hobby. Herbs don’t take much work to care for and it can be very rewarding to see your herb garden flourishing and growing before your eyes.

Stacey Cavalari is a Kiosks technology writer for Phoenix kiosk, a kiosk manufacturer firm in Tempe, AZ. Phoenix Kiosk offers automated retail kiosks and healthcare kiosks for small to large size organizations.

Picture Credit- Pinterest

I wish to take a look at our food supply, which, according to the above-mentioned -propped-up minister, and according to the F.D.A., is able to furnish provision of all of our needs for nutrients.  I wish to give a quick review of the “Green Revolution,” which has had much to do with our food supply for the past 70 years.

As I was typing “Green Revolution” in the paragraph above, I accidentally typed “Greed,” before I corrected it.  As I put this together, I am wondering whether “Greed” was a “typo,” or whether it may have been the fruit of subconscious intuition...hmmm...Greed Revolution.

Below is some information which I first noticed in 1984.  I got this from page 38 of the revised third edition of Charles Walter's book, Eco-farm: an Acres U.S.A. Primer.  Afterward, I'll explain some of the ramifications of this information from Eco-farm.  I'll also give brief explanations of some terms used below.

OPEN POLLINATION

Some of the successes that have attended corn production may have been the result of distorted accounting procedures.  In terms of nutrients, open pollinated (OP) still has an enviable record.  Adolph Steinbronn of Fairbanks, Iowa put the matter in perspective by having two samples of corn tested for ingredients usually added to commercial feeds.  One was a sample of hybrids he had grown.  The other was OP corn.  The OP corn contained 19% more crude protein, 35% more digestible protein, 60% more copper, 27% more iron, and 25% more manganese.

Compared to some 4,000 samples of corn tested in ten Midwest states in a single year, Steinbronn's OP corn contained 75% more crude protein, 875% more copper, 345% more iron, and 205% more manganese.  The same trend has also been seen in the content of calcium, sodium, magnesium, and zinc.  It can therefore be said that OP corn contains an average of over 400% more of these nutrients.

Ernest M. Halbleib of McNabb, Illinois confirmed the failure of hybrid corn to uptake certain mineral nutrients.  In comparing Krug OP corn and a hybrid in the laboratory of Armor's Institute of Research, Chicago, spectrographic testing revealed the hybrid short of nine minerals.  The hybrid failed to pick up cobalt and any other trace minerals.  Both varieties had the same chance to pick up a balanced ration.

"The reason I mentioned cobalt," wrote Halbleib, "is that we found (on the 16 farms in test) that no hybrid picked up cobalt, and in all the tests the hybrid was short seven to nine minerals, always exhibiting a failure to pick up cobalt."

The core of Vitamin B-12 is cobalt.  Ira Allison, M.D., and others have found that a lack of cobalt is implicated as a cause of brucellosis and undulant fever, and that cobalt is part of the cure.

In the opinions of many eco-farmers, hybrid corn merely masks poor farming by producing bins and bushels without the nutrient goodies that are really corn's reason for being.

Below, I want to give a brief review of definitions of, and of open pollination.  However, let's now reflect on the information about content of nutrients in “Green Revolution” corn, vs. nutrient content of pre-Green Revolution corn.

Remember that what we call corn (Zea mays) is a New-World plant.  Our Creator did not plant corn, or maize, in the Eastern Hemisphere.  European settlers in the New World knew nothing of corn, until residents of the Western Hemisphere introduced it to them.  [Note:  the term, corn, was formerly a “generic” term for the grain most commonly in use in a given area.  Biblical (“King James”) references to “corn” are, in fact, references to what was, at that time, and in that area, the most widely used grain—wheat.]

According to the information above, a group of “Indians” sharing their ears of corn with European settlers of the 17^th Century gave those settlers an average of 400% more nutrients (especially micronutrients) than, ounce for ounce, you provide for your child, when you serve corn born of the Green Revolution to your child.  Your child needs to eat much more corn to get the same amount of nutrient content (with the possible exception of carbohydrates) as did the Native Americans, with their corn.  Do you call that progress?  (Your kids get the carbohydrates, but don't get the mineral nutrients needed to help to metabolize those carbohydrates.  Are you still wondering why so many of our children are overweight?  Do you persist in blaming obesity solely on lack of exercise, as the “media” lead you to do?)  Again, according to the statistic about copper content of OP corn, vs. the copper content of “Green Revolution” hybrid corn, your child has to eat almost 9 ears of corn to get the same amount of copper as the natives used to get from their corn, before it was “improved” by the Green Revolution.  (Copper is an important component in blood vessels.  According to Dr. Joel Wallach, copper deficiencies can result in deadly aneurysms.)

Try to find a commercially-grown crop which is not hybridized—broccoli, beans, turnips?  Try to find a commercially-grown variety which is an heirloom (OP—not hybridized) variety.  Most, if not all, of them are hybridized, because of their increased yields, due to what is called “hybrid vigor.”  But what do these hybrids yield?  They yield bulk—starch, or pulp—but not substance, if the above information from Acres U.S.A. is correct, and holds true for species other than corn.  Isn't this worth examining further?

“Why do you give your money for what is not bread” (Isaiah 55:2, Bible in Basic English)?  If hybrid corn fails to take up quantities of nutrients which “Indian” corn takes from soil, is it, indeed, corn?  Or does it merely appear to be corn?  Why do we consumers create and maintain demand for pseudo-phoods?  Why don't we insist on heirloom varieties, or other OP varieties?  Why don't we get our kids involved in a family garden, and raise our own food?

I'm amazed at the village of Sebewaing, Michigan, which is a 15-minute bicycle ride from where I now live.  During the coming growing season, they are proposing having a community garden.  I plan to see that they find out about what I've written here.

Here's a quick review of what plant hybridization is.  Though it involves isolation of chosen genetic traits, plant hybridization is not, strictly speaking, genetic engineering.  (I'm not a botanist.  Do your own research about plant hybridization and genetic modification.  I'm sure that I'm omitting much, partly in order to keep this short.)  Plant hybridization includes removal of the staminate (male) sex organ of one plant, and breeding that plant with another plant, or with pollen from another plant, in order to force cross-pollination on a plant which may normally self-pollinate.  Though plant hybridization goes beyond merely choosing seeds from the largest, most juicy apples, or the longest ears of corn, it doesn't go nearly as far as gene-splicing, or taking genes from chromosomes of one form of life, and placing those genes in chromosomes of other forms of life.  Plant hybridization, as mentioned, has been part of the Green Revolution, begun 70 years ago.

Open pollination is pollination without man's interference (no removal of a plant's sex organs).  It is the Creator's way of breeding plants (wind pollination, pollination via insect activity).  Open pollination results in what we now call heirloom varieties of plants.  If you harvest seeds from heirloom plants, and plant those seeds, most of what comes up from those seeds will have the same appearance as the plants of the previous generation, as happens when beagles are bred with beagles.  If you plant seeds harvested from hybrid plants, you don't know what all may come up.

I make the differentiation between plant hybridization and genetic engineering because, when I recently mentioned the nutrient deficiency of hybridized plants to a college graduate, he assumed that I was making a reference to nutritional effects of genetic modification, genetic engineering, or gene-splicing.  As a result, he assumed that problems with our food supply have been a much more recent occurrence (gene-splicing being a much more recent development than hybridization).  Further, he missed the implication that hybrid plants lack nutrients (as the above information from Acres suggests, concerning corn).  He still felt safe with the hybrid plants which he raises in his garden.  He assumed that I was warning him to avoid genetically-modified crops (which should also be avoided).  Others reading this may share my college graduate acquaintance's lack of familiarity with the difference between hybridization and genetic engineering, so I feel that I had to include some explanation.  I hope that this information soaks in.

Organic gardening does not help a hybrid to pick up micronutrients.  According to the above information, hybrid plants have had the ability to pick up adequate quantities of micronutrients “bred out of” them (so that they can grow in soils deficient of available nutrients).  Again according to the information above, in experiments, heirloom (OP) varieties were raised in the same environments along with hybrids.  Both had the same shots at getting soil minerals.  In addition to having a soil with all necessary nutrients available in sufficient quantities (fertile soil), I have to have a plant which is capable of “picking up” those nutrients.  Let's look at it another way.  Fill a room full of the best equipment for doing drawings, paintings, and that type of art work.  Fill the room with easels, good paint, air brushes, &c.  Now put me in the room.  You won't get any good drawings, paintings, or artwork, because my Creator did not give me the gift of the ability to produce drawings.  I can't draw water from a faucet.  In addition to having good equipment, you have to have a person capable of using that equipment.  Similarly, in addition to having good, fertile, pesticide-free soil, you have to have a plant capable of picking up the right nutrients.  You can grow jimson weed organically.  It would still be toxic.  You can grow poison ivy organically.  Organic poison ivy may deliver more of an allergic reaction than  does poison ivy “in the wild.”  To get a desirable result in your garden, you need to choose, not only a good species of plant, but also a good variety—a good cultivar—of that plant.  If the above information about corn is correct, and if it holds true for other “Green Revolution” plants, hybrid plants ain't makin' it.  Eating enough hybrid corn can fill you up; can make you feel full.  So can eating enough sawdust.  A person can fill up three times a day, and still be malnourished.  Do you think that there could be a correlation between the incidence of cancer and a nutrient-deficient, or malnourishing, food supply?

If what Acres U.S.A. says about hybrid crops is true, why do the large food producers continue to produce nutrient-deficient “foods” for sale to us?  Should we call it the Green Revolution which increased per-acre yields, or was it the Greed Revolution, which decreased nutrient content of our foods, and thus sidestepped the need to maintain our soils, and kept us satisfied with soils which are in much poorer condition than they were, when our Creator initially provided them for us?  (In another article, I have more to write about the many benefits of optimum maintenance of soil.)  Did a Greed Revolution mask inferior nutrient content in crops with higher yields (increased bulk) in order to create markets for pesticides and man-made fertilizers?  Think a little more about that.  If you aren't properly nourished, you become ill.  Low iron content has to do with anemia.  Low iodine intake leads to problems with the thyroid gland.  As mentioned in the above information from Acres, a low cobalt content means low production of Vitamin B-12.  If plants are nutrient-deficient, they “get sick.”  A low nitrogen content shows up as yellowed leaves.  So-called “harmful” insects (which are, in fact, merely clean-up crews, which go after sickly plants) go to work on nutrient-deficient plants.  Don't you think that insects will be naturally attracted to plants bred not to take up nutrients, just as insects go after plants which lack nutrients, because the nutrients are missing (in available forms) from the soil in which they are growing?  I can't help suspecting that plants bred not to take up nutrients (in addition to failing to nourish us) are also “wed” to pesticides, because they are attractive to “harmful” insects.

I understand at least some of the problems with trying to go back to heirloom varieties.  Here’s one of those problems.  Heirloom varieties “seek” to pick up more nutrients than do hybrid varieties.  With our soils in such poor condition, we will have to work to get them back in shape, so that those nutrients will be there for those heirloom varieties.  Such work (soil rehabilitation) is infinitely more important than infrastructure projects proposed to provide employment.  Our soils are our most important aspect of our infrastructure.  Our Creator told us to replenish the earth (Genesis 1:28).  Rather than having a “Greed Revolution” which bred malnourished and malnourishing plants for our consumption, that same amount of effort should have been put into rehabilitation of soils worldwide.

As long as we have the food supply which we have, I say that, not only is nutrient supplementation not to be scorned; but it is also to be considered imperative.  And don't be surprised that a minister told his flock not to “waste” money on nutrient supplements.  There is also a famine of the Word (Amos 8:11), because of our hybrid, double-minded churches, which care little about supplementation of spiritual nutrients.  That same minister is liable to tell his flock not to waste time with trying to understand the Bible in its entirety.

The above-mentioned minister went on to state that eating a balanced diet affords provision of all necessary nutrients.  He didn't consider the possibility that taking the supplement may have contributed to the change of color in the urine by giving the body something which it needs to kick out toxins, which, when kicked out in the urine, would change the color of the urine.  (I admit to not having done any research about my theory that taking nutrient supplements may help the body to kick out toxins, and thus change the color of urine.)  He also failed to mention that other nutrients (notably potassium and nitrogen) extracted from regular food goes out in the urine.  If the assumption that ingredients in food supplements goes straight to the kidneys, and then out in urine, tells us that food supplements are wasteful, should the fact that much of the potassium which we take in as we eat “regular” food goes out in urine tell us that eating regular food is wasteful?  (The nitrogen in urine does not come directly from food we have recently eaten, with the possible exception of the toxic, man-placed nitrates—a source of “free radicals”—in those foods.)  If we sweat losing nutrients  in urine, maybe we should eat less, in order to decrease the quantity of potassium excreted in urine.  Further, that minister didn't think about the plenteous provision of the Creator in His creation.  Is the Creator stingy?  How many grains of pollen, per each ova in a plant, are produced?  In “natural” human egg fertilization, how many sperm cells are provided to fertilize the one egg to fertilize?  How many stars adorn our night sky?  We see but a tiny fraction of the currently-known ones.  Our Creator is generous.  Is there something terribly wrong with having some nutrients taken in supplements go out with the urine, if other needed nutrients in supplements are taken by the body?  Rather than deeming nutrients carried out in urine “lost,” what would be wrong with viewing those nutrients in urine as a way for us to share, so that other forms of life derive benefits from our nutrient-enriched urine, just as we feed birds?  (Note:  we don’t properly treat products eliminated from our bodies.  With treatment with chlorine, we render most of our “waste”-borne nutrients unavailable.  This is yet another subject to be addressed.)  Similarly, is there something wrong with having more than enough rain for plants, so that low land areas can be filled with water (rivers, ponds, lakes)?  (See some of Dr. Joel Wallach's comments about “expensive urine.”)  Again, our Creator is bountiful.  With a Creator giving far more than enough water for plant life, so that the runoff water fills ponds, rivers, and lakes, should we consider it “wasteful” to take supplements, out of fear that some of the nutrients in those supplements may be “lost” in urine?Educate yourself about the “food” provided to us.  Stop finding a stingy way of life as acceptable.  Our Creator is not stingy with beauty, or with watering the earth, or with nutrients.  Don’t be stingy with nutrients, whether for you, for your children, or for your other loved ones.

***The preceding article was written for Emergency Food by author Jimmie Parr.  I hope that you enjoyed reading Jimmie's thoughts on these issues as much as I did.***

Picture Credit - Pinterest

During emergencies, citizens turn to looting, raiding, stealing, and even violence just to make resources available. With an emergency food source, you will not be forced to be exposed to the dangers of the streets. However, it is also a good idea to refrain from advertising your emergency supplies. If people know that you are housing food and water, your house may be the first stop for many people who do not have the needed resources on hand. Be smart when building up an emergency fund.

So what kinds of foods should e compiled into an emergency food stash? After a disaster or emergency, you can fully expect to be mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted as stress levels run high and lack of sleep begin to catch up with your body. With so much energy being depleted, it is essential that the majority of the emergency food in storage is high-energy, non-perishable, and at least somewhat nutritious. What kinds of foods fall into these categories? Believe it or not, there is a pretty expansive variety of foods that are suggested to have on hand in case of emergency.

In terms of foods with high caloric values, minimal preparation, and long shelf life, food bars are one of the best routes to take when gathering an emergency food supply. They taste great and will keep you sustained for a fairly long period of time. Another great food source, somewhat similar to the food bar but requiring a little more preparation would be in the form of a Meal Ready to Eat, or simply, MRE. MREs provide a full, pre-cooked meal that provides the body with a wide array of vitamins and nutrient, and most importantly, energy. MREs are definitely a nice change of pace when stuck with food bars or other meal replacements. They are also affordable; a three day supply will keep a family of four fully sustained for about $150. These are some of the more effective foods in terms of staying energized and safe to eat; however, it may a good idea to stock up some traditional comfort foods, just to take the mind off of the situation at hand. Hot chocolate, instant puddings, fruit and granola bars, and candy will not only provide energy, but can bring the family closer together. A simply cup of hot chocolate with the family can go a long way when dealing with the stresses of an emergency.

Lastly, none of this food will matter much if you do not have a fair supply of water on hand. Water is absolutely essential, and, if you are gradually collecting items for an emergency stash, water should be the absolute first thing on the list. Your body can survive weeks, maybe even a month or two, without food. However, you will not make it longer than a week without a clean, fresh water supply. Stock up on gallons on sealed drinking water or individually packaged water bottles. Gatorade or other sports drinks are great too, as they provide the body with electrolytes and other nutrients. Avoid sugary drinks and sodas that provide little sustenance.

Author bio:

Stacy Gianakura is an avid blogger and writes for News Updates Weekly.

Water & Light

Even the most inexperienced gardeners know that plants of all varieties require two basic resources to grow and flourish: water and light.  Many preppers already grow their own food, but their capacity to garden would be greatly diminished if they were forced to go underground during a disaster — and given that most bunkers or other survival shelters are underground (or at least without windows), gardening seems mostly out of the question.

Though providing plants with water would be easy enough, feeding them with the right kind of light would be next to impossible, as they have to have certain specific frequencies of ultraviolet light: the same frequencies you'd find in sunlight, to be precise.

LED Sunrise

Dutch agricultural startup PlantLab is using complex red and blue LED light grids to grow fruit-producing plants underground with no direct sunlight, which opens the door for other independent gardeners (preppers included) to follow suit.

The red and blue LEDs provide the light composition plants require, and PlantLab has the plants underneath a sprinkler system, fully reproducing the natural elements plants need to grow, and providing the optimal environment for getting produce.  They grow everything from tomatoes to cucumbers, both some of the most sensitive plants to grow, and have full, natural harvests regularly.

Green Bunkers

Any thorough survivalist will have shelter plans — if you haven't built it yet, include room for a garden that will allow you to continue to feed yourself and your family natural foods and round out your nutrition.

What you'll need:

• blue and red LED lights
• scaffolding to hang lights
• platform for plants

Of course, you'll need electricity to power the lights as well as water, but hopefully you already have those planned! (Of course, you could also construct a well to catch rainwater and bring it to your shelter for the plants, as well.)  A disaster doesn't mean you have to sacrifice nutrition or natural foods.  It just takes a little more planning, but that shouldn't be a problem, right?

By-line:

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

Here are some interesting facts:

90%  of people will steal, pillage and kill after 10 days without food.

After 15 days severe hunger turns people into savage human flesh eaters.

These facts are from a government study performed back in the 1950's.

Think about it:

How would you survive a terrorist attack that caused widespread panic and shutdown all shops and stores in your area? Would you be forced to beg neighbors for food or be shipped to FEMA camps?

Could you and your family survive hurricanes or snowstorms that whipped your neighbors into a “panic-buying” frenzy- grabbing any food they could get their hands on? What if the stores weren't restocked for weeks?  See how to get prepared HERE.

How would you live during weeks of “rolling blackout's” making it impossible to store food or for stores to get more food in stock?

During hurricane Katrina in 2004 stores closed, looters ran wild and everyday, hardworking people were forced into begging and ended up at FEMA camps.

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami wiped out the shops, stores and food transportation channels for many people.

In the 2010 Haitian Earthquake, followed by the massive Chilean Earthquake as many as 316,000 people were killed and are still struggling to reestablish consist access to food.

YOU CAN PUT ALL YOUR HOPES FOR SURVIVAL IN THE GOVERNMENT & FEMA....

OR

YOU CAN TAKE SURVIVAL INTO YOUR OWN HANDS...

Can you really fight through a crowd to get your kids food? If you know what food items to buy in advance you'll never have to find out.

That's why you must get these crucial items before the panic.  And why we're going to be the people on top of the game when crisis hits.

See with these 37 items you'll be in place to:

Attract like-minded Americans to rebuild our nation based on the Constitution...

Be a community leader ready to protect and provide for your fellow patriots...

Set the example for your close friends and family (these 37 items are so important you'll become the “go-to” guy)...

Food is only part of the equation...

WATER- What are you going to do without water? Humans can survive no more than 10 days without water...

ENERGY- Are you going back to the stone age? So much of our lives depend on power- but off-grid power seems soooo expensive...

FOOD SOURCE -  Food with a long shelf is great, but wouldn't a garden be a better option.

If you like what I've shared with you so far click the link below to find out more:

http://greensurviving.com/37fooditems3

Survival Enthusiast,
Mark Romeo
Founder
GreenSurviving.com

Fight Back!

If we are to cope with skimpier packaging and price increases, it’s better if we have within our arsenal every price-reducing trick available. Here is one of my recent favorites: a home made a recipe to make laundry soap for around .02¢ a load, compliments of the Duggar Family. It takes around thirty minutes of your time, the ingredients are incredibly simple, and by making your own laundry soap, you stand to save hundreds each year.

Another huge price saver is contacting local growers for bulk items such as beans, corn, wheat, lentils and more. These bulk goods store well in food grade five-gallon buckets. Shelf life can be extended by storing the buckets in a dark, cool, moisture free location. If storing them in a basement, consider keeping them up off the floor to avoid moisture build up. Wood pallets can sometimes be found for free at hardware stores, building sites and online.

The cost of fruits and vegetables can be cut in half or more simply by going to a pick-your-own farm. Consider home canning to stretch your reserves through the winter season.

Just after Thanksgiving, grocers here in North Idaho launched incredible sales on staples such as flour, sugar, soups, and spices. In fact, the prices were rolled back to pre-2008. If you have the cash flow, in circumstances where staples drop to one-half of their current price, buy all that you can afford. Not only will you save on the price of food, you will also reduce trips to the grocery store which saves on the cost of gas.

Spices have increased alarmingly over the past several years. But there’s a trick that grocers aren’t likely to share. If you are willing to forgo the fancy packaging, you can reduce the cost by 80% by buying in bulk. Bulk spices are typically offered at the larger chain stores. The only extra step you will need to do for bulk spices is to find inexpensive containers and labels to take the guesswork out of meal preparations.

Pasta’s, likewise, can be purchased for much less. Typically you can save at least 50% when buying pasta’s in bulk. The same goes for beans, cornmeal, oatmeal and nuts.

Super-savers, coupon clippers, and desperate households have begun to notice that the larger big-box stores like Costco and Wal-Mart are not always the go-to place for extreme savings. Many times, outlet stores and your local grocer’s will beat the “Every Day” low price of their larger competitors.  The best way to comparison shop is to look online at weekly grocery circulars such as ppgazette before mapping out your grocery savings strategy.

To save on non-food items such as paper plates, napkins, tin foil, plastic wrap, cleaning products, and hygiene products, have a peek at your local Dollar Store. You might be amazed at the savings you’ll find…but a word to the wise. Before purchasing an item in quantity, always try unfamiliar brands of shampoo, laundry soap, and dish soap first. That saying “you get what you pay for” can sometimes be true, but you wouldn’t want to take it to the bank.

Barbara Fix, the author of this article, has written a new book entitled "Survival: Prepare Before Disaster Strikes!" (ID: UFKKCVLD2AFV6) Edited December 12, 2011

The cost of the book is $11.66 plus $3.95 shipping. If you are interested in learning how to prepare for the hard times that are ahead, I would encourage you to get this book.

1. Grocery Store Survival

Some survivalists turn their noses up at ordinary grocery store fare, but dry foods such as grains and pasta, canned meat, vegetables, milk and fruit, milk packed in aseptic cartons and bottled water are all excellent, relatively inexpensive additions to your survival food pantry.

Picture Credit The Pantry Panel

If you choose to take advantage of what your grocery store has to offer, your store will require regular maintenance. You will have to regularly rotate the grocery store food you keep. The easiest way to do this is to keep track of expiration dates and fill your regular kitchen pantry with items that are nearing the end of their shelf life. In order to keep your stock complete, you will have to replace the items you take with newer items.

2. Military Style Survival

Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), are convenient, balanced meals that last from five to seven years when properly stored and are readily available online for home delivery. Many of them contain their own heaters and don't require an alternative cooking device. They also do not require cleanup.

MREs, a staple of the military, are not as tasty as prepared grocery store foods, but they will still be safe to eat long after your grocery store stock is depleted or expired. They are also expensive, and due to the nature of their packaging, however, they will take up a relatively large area for storage.

3. Astronaut Survival

Freeze-dried food is compact and easy to store. A lot of it fits in a relatively small space, and it keeps for up to 30 years under most conditions. Preparation is as simple as adding water. Freeze-drying is a very quick process that requires minimal handling, so most of the nutrition of the food is retained. Most people like the taste of rehydrated freeze-dried foods. They are readily available online and the cost per meal is comparable to grocery store supplies. Many survival experts consider freeze-dried food the ideal choice for emergency preparedness.

4. Grow Your Own Survival 

Gardening can be a survivalist's best friend. Growing your own food and canning or drying it yourself is by far the tastiest, most nutritious and least expensive way to build your emergency food store. Even a small garden plot can help to augment your survival stock. Some urban survivalists actually manage to reap a bounty from carefully tended container gardens. If you decide to grow some of your own emergency stores, take the time to learn how to properly can and dry foods for optimal shelf life. Improper processing can render all your hard work useless.

A carefully planned emergency pantry can provide you and your family with all the nutrients you need to thrive during a disaster, and if you budget wisely and are willing to do some of the work yourself, your store can provide tasty treats, as well. In addition to storing a wide variety of shelf-stable foods, don't forget to include an alternative cooking method that is safe to use indoors. In an emergency, power may be out, and using outdoor cooking devices such as BBQ smokers and grills can cause a potentially deadly build-up of carbon monoxide.

1. Create brick walls

Because concrete is expensive, you should create the bunker's walls out of bricks. Moreover, unlike concrete, bricks don't mold or leak easily.

2. Seal the walls

The end of the world is supposed to be caused by the polar ice caps melting, causing major flooding in many countries. Therefore, plastic sheets or polyethylene to prevent leaking and moisture should reinforce your bunker’s walls.

3. Seal the roof

Use the same materials to seal the roof. However, unlike the walls, you should include a space in between the polyethylene sheets to provide material for insulation, such as straw.

4. Purchase plenty of canned goods

Obviously, you won't be able to provide yourself an unlimited supply of food, but you will need enough to wait for the water to recede. This may take close to a few months, so purchase plenty of canned goods, enough to last a few months. After the floods recede, it will be possible for you and other survivors to salvage any other food that survived the destruction. You should also be able to plant seeds for new crops.

5. Build the bunker on isolated land

In other words, don't build your bunker close to your house. You should find a large, open field on which to build. People who build bunkers close to their house send open invitations for other people to raid their bunker and steal their food. Moreover, you may be the victim of military attacks; therefore, you should build a bunker where there is no civilization.

Just make sure you plan an emergency escape route. You need to know the fastest, safest way to your bunker.

If you follow these tips, you will be prepared for the end of the world. Don't take these catastrophes lightly.

To give you an example of how enzymes work and why they are so important for your health, consider this: Have you ever dropped an apple and noticed a bruise form? What happens to that bruise over time? Underneath the skin, enzymes are busy at work breaking down that apple until there is nothing left. The exact same thing happens with the enzymes in your digestive tract: These mighty, enzymatic “powerhouses” perform their magic – breaking down the food to its constituent parts - vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and protein - so the body can ultimately use it for life and vitality. Without them, we are borrowing from our body what it was never designed to do. To use the old adage, we are "robbing Peter to pay Paul".

Yes, the body is thankfully equipped with the means to also digest these essential nutrients with a flood of digestive enzymes, from amylase in your saliva, to gastric lipase, pepsin and rennin in your stomach mixed with hydrochloric acid. The partially digested food (chyme) then empties into your small intestine where liver bile and pancreatic enzymes continue to breakdown the food so the nutrients can be absorbed. There is a kink in this unreliable system though. Over time and with abuse, the body is forced to pump out all the enzymes needed for digestion, and eventually the body breaks down. Hence, we see the rise of such horrific, degenerative disease like diabetes, heart disease and cancer – to name a few. Instead of the food enzymes breaking down our vital nutrients, our bodies are breaking down and we wonder why.

Shouldn’t we be concerned about the nutritional aspects of the daily staples of life, including our food storage? Wouldn’t we want to be of optimum health especially if catastrophe strikes? After all, once food ceases to be available in the marketplace and everyone is forced to fend for themselves, there won’t be fresh vegetables or fruit to replace our vital enzymes. Setting aside something now that will provide fresh greens year round just makes perfect sense.

That was a concern we faced as individuals, and as a self reliant, emergency preparedness business:  We sell good, wholesome dehydrated and freeze-dried food products from some of the most reputable companies, yet the food was deplete of essential enzymes. Sadly to say, our eating habits too resembled the typical American diet. In our quest for answers, we made a drastic shift in our own eating habits by choosing healthy, unprocessed food, incorporating a variety of wholesome grains, fresh fruits and crisp vegetables into our diets, including sprouts.

Could the answer to our food storage dilemma really be that simple? That we could live off our food storage, enjoy the crisp taste of nutrient-packed veges while experiencing good health all with the simple usage of sprouts? You got it! Sprouts are living foods packed with living enzymes ready to take food to its next level. In fact, alfalfa sprouts are one of the healthiest foods available to man with such vital nutrients as calcium, copper, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium silicon, zinc, Vitamins B, C, D, E and K. Not only do sprouts possess all these nutrients, they’re alive and full of enzymes! By the simple application of sprouts in your long-term food storage, you too can enjoy the fresh crisp flavor of vegetables, employing every nutrient for the health of your body from otherwise, “dead” food.

Sprouting is so easy, anyone can do it! It requires no special knowledge or complicated equipment, just sprouting seeds, a sprouter kit, moderate moisture, warmth, and maybe five minutes of your time daily. The seeds not only store well, but a little goes a long way. In fact, just one pound of alfalfa seeds can produce about ten to fourteen pounds of tasty, fresh sprouts! Just simply sprinkle some seeds in your sprouter kit, cover with water, soak overnight, drain and lightly water for a few days. Then, voilà, watch them grow! Soon you will have a bountiful crop of healthy sprouts to incorporate into your long-term food storage plan!

Roxanne L. Griswold, ND Candidate
Ready Made Resources, LLC
Ready-Woman Blog

© Copyright 2010

But things are about to get worse. Much worse.

Picture Credit Pinterest

The Coming Food Shortage

Russia, whose grain and crops make up a portion of US imports, has suffered huge losses in grain production through wildfires last year and locust infestation this year. Expect the situation to impact commodity prices and hit our pocketbooks at the checkout stand: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1400834.stm

China has fared no better with a 60-year record-breaking drought, leading to UN warnings http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/business/global/09food.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all as the nation faces one-billion in costs to help solve their drought problem http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20110213/china-readies-1-billion-fight-worst-wheat-drought-60-years. The final outcome is yet to be determined, but expect US imports of grain to be minimal, at best, which will drive up grain prices.

Both France and Germany have experienced devastating drought, leading to crop failure of wheat http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/business/global/20iht-wheat20.html?_r=1

In the US, the Midwest has experienced flooding of biblical proportions, which devastated millions of acres of croplands. The devastation has been overwhelming enough that the full impact on crop prices are still being tallied http://deltafarmpress.com/harvest-will-reveal-impacts-midwest-floods

Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and parts of Arkansas, have experienced drought that has led to crop failures of up to 60% for wheat and cotton and the gulf coast is reporting crop failure of corn http://agrilife.org/today/2011/05/10/texas-crop-weather-for-may-10-2011/

The Good News

To parlay news of such devastation both in the US and globally may seem like a stretch, but knowledge is power. The solution is clear: It’s time to start stocking those empty shelves before the shortages catch up with us, full-force, at the checkout counter. It’s possible to begin filling pantries affordably by going online for grocery circulars for your area’s grocers and by coupon clipping. By doing these two simple things, it is possible to see a 50% savings, or more. If you are interested in long-term food storage, check with local growers for their bulk pricing. By going straight to the grower, you will be cutting out the middleman (the grocers) and should expect to save at least 50%.

Don’t Procrastinate

In this case, procrastination will cost you. Prices will soon be climbing—steeply in some cases. It is not beyond the realm of possibility for limits to be set on quantities for food items as well. It happened before when Costco set limits of purchases for 20 lb# bags of long-grain rice to 2 per customer a few years ago. Their reasoning was never revealed to the public, but for those interested in self-sufficiency, it sent ripples of concerns for possible rationing that thankfully never transpired. This go-round, we may not be as lucky…

Visit Survival Diva Blog http://www.survivaldiva.com/ for more information on rural living, gardening, home canning, food storage, and tips on combating skyrocketing food prices.

Survival Diva, Barbara’s preparedness book is available August 1, 2011 http://www.survivaldiva.com/ Download for just $3.95

50 gal. Rain Barrel With Brass Spigot, Brown

Water Collection Ideas

Water Collection Ideas - Pinterest

Water is Life

The average person can survive without water for 2 days in temperatures of 120 degrees and 10 days in temperatures of 50 degrees. When you are active and exposed to hot weather, the body requires close to one gallon of water a day. If you are interested in basic preparedness, water should go to the very top of your priority list, preferably stored in food grade water containment barrels.

Commerce and Pocketbooks Negatively Impacted

Industrious homeowners likewise benefit from rainwater collection as a means to reduce their monthly water bill and enable them to practice water conservation. For many homesteaders, off-girders and small farmers, this regulation amounts to attacks on their freedom and their livelihoods. Water collection has even caught the interest of mainstream business owners interested in keeping their overhead down. Imagine Mark Millers surprise when he invested in a water collection system only to be told he had broken the law. Apparently Salt Lake City, Utah officials found him guilty of diverting rainwater by routing it into holding tanks. His intention, he sated, was to practice conservation for car washes done routinely at his Toyota dealership in one of the nations driest states. The final outcome was equitable, however, for even though the city had deemed these water rights belonged to the governing body, they made allowances for Mr. Miller to “borrow” their water.

A High Price Paid May Be Paid For Complacency

Many of us depend solely upon our local water district. However, water districts are dependant upon the electrical grid—with the exception of diesel generators and battery back up for grid-down emergencies. Even then, emergency back up can only be depended upon for a short while. We take bathing, doing laundry, washing dishes, and flushing a  toilet for granted. Yet, as indelicate as the subject matter is, at a time of grid-down, water delivery and sewer drainage may cease. For those of you with a septic system, there is good news; drainage for septic systems are not tied in to a sewer system. But first, you’ll need water to test this theory.

The electrical grid has already proven to be vulnerable to cyber attack with a documented  case of foreigners hacking into a programmable logic controller after onset of smart-grid planning went into effect which is heavily reliant on computer interface. Other concerns are the possibility of a coronal mass ejection from our recently temperamental sun and electromagnetic weaponry—both possibilities are capable of taking down the electrical grid with little to no warning.

Conservation and The Pocket Book Aren’t the Only Considerations

Many have turned to rainwater collection due to their concern over the safety of drinking water. Official testing has revealed the high levels of fluoride used for water treatment has a negative effect on health, including hyperactivity in children, brain damage, Alzheimer’s, bone cancer, impaired immune system, birth defects and a laundry list of other health related issues. The risk of consuming fluoride is doubly circumspect considering that fluoride is not proven to have significant cavity-protecting abilities. Additionally, water testing preformed in various locations across the country has uncovered trace amounts of antidepressants, heart medication, caffeine and birth control.

If you are interested in rainwater storage, look online for do-it-yourself instructions to make an affordable rainwater collection system. Should you want to begin purifying drinking water, look to either the Berkey or Katadyn. They’re not cheap, but neither are trips to the doctor.

If there was an unexpected emergency, do you have a 72-hour emergency kit in your car that will get you home safely? And when you arrive is there enough food, water and medical supplies to see you and your loved ones past a short-term or long-term crisis? If the answer is no, Survival Diva offers common sense, drama-free advice on bullets, bandages and food storage that won't break the bank!

http://www.survivaldiva.com/index.html

Survival Diva Available for E-Book Download $3.95

Join the fun at Survival Diva blog for more heads-up on current events and budget-saving advice on food storage and all things preparedness related http://www.survivaldiva.com/

(Picture From Sweet Sassafras Blog)

For some homes, building a emergency food supply can be rather difficult especially when there is limited room.  In one of our posts, we discribe how you can line like sized bookshelves along a wall, which you can then cover using a floor to ceiling curtain which doubles as a wall.  Many people are using this technique in apartment buildings as a substitute for a closet.  The best thing about this technique, is you can hang wall mirrors or pictures in front of a curtain, still making your home looking beautiful. 

Beautiful Storage Solutions For Your Emergency Food Supply From Real Simple Magazine

The A Typical Typea posted some wonderful printable container labels which can simply be photocopied and then printed off on your computer, or mass printed at your local copy shop which are a beautiful way of organizing your emergency storage supply.  Your items can be given a vintage appeal with a beautiful hand written description and expiry date that are decorative and practical at the same time.  Best of all, it is free! 

Red Freebie Storage Labels For Your Emergency Food Supply Storage

One customer leaves a comment:

Oxygen absorbers are self-defined. They absorb oxygen. That's all they do, and that's all they need to do. During the season for many fresh fruits and vegetables, I buy organics at the farmers' markets in quantity and dehydrate them at home for use throughout the off-season. Occasionally, in the past, I have had some of my dehydrated foods spoil due to moisture finding its way into the (supposedly airtight) jars. Since water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, moisture cannot form if either component is missing. Hence oxygen absorbers. I have not had a single failure since I began using them. They're not terribly exciting, but they are effective and I recommend them for anyone who dehydrates foods.

Another mistake I have learned is that even though food is dehydrated, and kept in air tight jars, doesn't mean the food is free from mold.  With the air that is existent in the containers, mold will develop.  I learned first hand with some fruit that I dehydrated.  We all learn.  You can save quite a bit of money if you can take the summer fruit that is inexpensive and dehydrate them, and store them away in containers using Oxygen Absorbers.

US Auctions Australian Auctions Austrian Auctions Belgian Auctions Canadian Auctions French Auctions German Auctions Hong Kong Auctions Indian Auctions Irish Auctions Italian Auctions Dutch Auctions Polish Auctions Singapore Auctions Spanish Auctions Swiss Auctions UK Auctions

Best Match Time: ending soonest Time: newly listed Price: lowest first Price: highest first Price + Shipping: lowest first Price + Shipping: highest first

30 1 Gallon 10x16 Mylar Pro Foil Bags + 50 300cc Oxygen Absorbers Food Storage    US $24.89

10 5 Gallon 20x30 Mylar Pro Foil Bags + 10 2000cc Oxygen Absorbers Food Storage    US $24.95

50 1 gallon Mylar Bags+Oxygen Absorbers Food Storage    US $24.98

20 1 Gallon Mylar Pro Bags 10x16 + 20 300cc Oxygen Absorbers Food Storage O2 CC    US $18.89

NEW Excalibur 3900 food dehydrator + 2 Books + 2 Sheets + 200cc Oxygen Absorbers    US $279.95

10 5gal Mylar Bags + Oxygen Absorbers for Food Storage    US $17.99

25 - 1 Gallon Prepper Mylar Pro Food Storage Bags 10x16 + 500cc Oxygen Absorbers    US $22.49

25 Mylar Pro Bags 8x8 1 Quart + 25 Oxygen Absorbers 100cc Long Term Food Storage    US $9.98

10 5gal Mylar Bags + Oxygen Absorbers for Food Storage    US $24.95

60 - 1 GALLON MYLAR BAGS & 60 - 300cc OXYGEN ABSORBERS    US $21.99

20 Mylar Bags 5 Gallon 5 Mil & 20 - 2,000cc Oxygen Absorbers OxyFree w/OxyEye    US $45.97

100 OXYGEN ABSORBER PACKETS- 100 CC- OXY O2 ABSORBERS Dehydrated Dried Food Real    US $12.79

20 - LDS 300cc OXYGEN ABSORBERS    US $5.00

200 - 100cc Oxygen Absorbers for Long Term Food Storage (2-packs of 100 each)    US $20.45

50 - 1 Quart 8x8 Mylar Pro Bags + 100cc Oxygen Absorbers Long Term Food Storage    US $24.89

100 - Real 100cc Oxygen Absorbers Long Term Emergency Survival Food Storage O2    US $12.79

5 6 Gallon Mylar Pro Bags 20x30 + 2000CC Oxygen Absorbers Long Term Food Storage    US $17.89

12 Pack Gamma Lids and 6 Gallon Buckets with 40 Count 500cc Oxygen Absorbers    US $267.77

10 Mylar Bags Ziplock 5 Gallon (18"x28") 5 Mil & Oxygen Absorbers    US $23.99

50 - Mylar Bags 20x30 5gallon + Oxygen Absorbers 2000cc    US $109.99

100 - 300cc Oxygen Absorbers for Long Term Food Storage    US $19.95

The kit includes:

- The Handy Pantry Family Sprout Garden

- An easy to use variable volume, stackable tray sprouting system.

- 3 Sprouting Jar Strainer Lids. These strainer lids fit any Mason, Ball or Kerr canning jars.

(Convert your canning jars into sprouters to increase sprout growing volume if needed.)

- Sprouting For Health In the New Millennium Booklet

- Complete detailed instructions on growing sprouts using the sprouting tray or sprouting jar methods.

-16 Total Pounds of Certified Organic, Oxygen Free Dry Packed Seed ---Alfalfa - 5 lbs - dry packed can ---Mung Bean - 2.5 lbs - re-sealable bag ---Protein Powerhouse Mix - 2.5 lbs - re-sealable bag (Garbanzo, Green Pea, Adzuki Bean & Mung Bean) ---Red Clover - 1 lb - re-sealable bag ---Green Pea - 1 lb - re-sealable bag ---Radish - 1 lb - re-sealable bag ---Bean Salad Mix - 1 lb - re-sealable bag (Adzuki Bean, Mung Bean, Green Lentil & Radish) ---Crunch Lentil Fest Mix - 1 lb - re-sealable bag (Green Lentil, Red Lentil & French Lentil) ---5 Part Salad Mix - 1 lb - re-sealable bag (Alfalfa, Broccoli, Radish, Mung Bean & Green Lentil) ------Retail Value Over $160

Shelf Reliance supplies food storage and emergency preparedness planning for the up and coming economic collapse and any emergeny that calls for food and water.

This great 1 year supply will be there for you when disaster hits.  Prepare for your family today for a little over $1500.

One man leaves a comment......

"Make sure that when you plant a garden you don't use and GM or GE seeds. If it says Hybrid... run. 2 years ago our corn was planted beside a neighbors. We used Open Pollinated corn (Heirloom), he used Hybrid corn. The deer and other animals went at ours like crazy and never touched his. That says something right off bat. He had to use pesticides because the ears were more loosely wrapped and being eaten by bugs. Ours were more tightly wrapped with fewer bugs, actually pretty much untouched. He spayed. We didn't have to spray. His couldn't save seeds. We could."

Some things to note:

- When you store your water, be sure to keep the water in water-safe opaque containers which is stored out of the light. Most often, if you take these measures, water will typically remain safe for 6 months to a year.

- Temperature and water impurity levels will affect the shelf life.

-If you decide to store jerry cans of water, simply pour them out and refill every six months. 

- If you decide to use bleach, many recommend that you store the water in a  cool and dark place, and use a half cup of bleach in 55 gals of water. 

Emergency Disaster Preparedness, Survival Kits, Emergency Water Storage, Earthquake, Hurricane, Safety

Disaster Prep On A Budget by Dennis Evers

Picture Credit: From The Bitten Word on Flicker

Most of us living within our means have a limited amount of discretionary income for prepping. With that in mind, preparing on a budget is important and purchasing inexpensive yet functional as well as multi-use items that can be used on a regular basis as well will help stretch every penny you spend.

Let There be Light

One of the most important accessory in every disaster kit is some sort of light. Light is necessary to work and navigate by, but psychologically, it is essential to help mitigate some of the fear associated with disasters and power outages.

While a good LED light can easily run thirty or more dollars, and needs to be recharged either by crank, solar or wall power, the thought of putting one in each room is cost prohibitive. It would be nice to have an easily charged LED with long run times, and the ability to recharge several hundred times without losing their punch.

It sounds impossible, but there are several lights from one to three dollars that fit the bill in the form of solar garden path lights. While they don’t put out tons of light, they provide enough light to navigate around a dark house and work as a flashlight or reading light in a pinch. They can be recharged in the window sill in the daytime and will run 8-10 hours every night. I recently purchased several at a local superstore for $1.00 each! Ten bucks worth allows you to put one in every room and several in the main gathering area. Now granted, they aren’t nearly as bright (or as expensive) as a battery operated lantern, but they are safer than a candle, and have the ability to recharge themselves. In short, they are not designed for emergency use, but work incredibly well for it.

The same thing holds true with certain types of food. Dehydrated food like instant potatoes, macaroni and cheese, ramen, and hundreds of other products can be integrated into your supply and rotated out while being replaced with fresh ones. Drinks like Tang and powdered lemonade will store indefinitely and would be a welcome addition to any meal during times of trouble. Another advantage is, if you use the foods you store you will have less of a shock if trouble hits. A little thing called “food fatigue” can easily cause you to lose your edge if you end up eating peanut butter for every meal because that’s all you have in the pantry. Canned foods are terrific for affordable disaster prep. The following excerpt from the Food and Drug administration is a remarkable example of foods storage ability.

“The steamboat Bertrand was heavily laden with provisions when it set out on the Missouri River in 1865. The boat snagged and swamped under the weight, sinking to the bottom of the river. It was found a century later, under 30 feet of silt a little north of Omaha, Neb.

Among the canned food items retrieved from the Bertrand in 1968 were brandied peaches, oysters, plum tomatoes, honey, and mixed vegetables. In 1974, chemists at the National Food Processors Association (NFPA) analyzed the products for bacterial contamination and nutrient value. Although the food had lost its fresh smell and appearance, the NFPA chemists detected no microbial growth and determined that the foods were as safe to eat as they had been when canned more than 100 years earlier”.

We regularly ate ten year old canned goods at grandma’s house with out side effects. (It did finally catch up to her at 103, God rest her soul.)

Water can be purchased in cases, used and rotated regularly, or you can put in gallon jugs and forget about them. Mayday industries has a clever water filter that fits over your water heater allowing you to access and drink the 40 or more gallons stored inside.

Hygiene can be a real challenge, but a roll of heavy duty trash can liners can have numerous uses. If your sewer is down as is common after an earthquake, flooding or power outage, you can line the toilet with a bag and when it is full, change it out. A couple of large trash cans can hold the waste until service is restored. Several boxes of wet ones will allow you maintain basic hygiene as well. A bottle of regular unscented bleach is another dirt cheap, yet invaluable item.

When you go the store, take time and think about alternative uses for some of the items you need. If you can get twice as much for a little more, do it. The vast majority of products charge an absolute premium for small or individual quantities. Worse case scenario is you end up more than you can use, but you can donate it to a food bank before it expires or give it to your brother-in-law.

While no one knows what the future may bring, preparing now might go a long way in the near future. There are hundreds of aspects to preparing and this is only a tiny fraction, but hopefully it allows you to think outside the box when it comes to affordable disaster prep.

Dennis Evers is a former police chief and best selling author. His newest book, “How to Handle a Crisis” will be available soon at howtohandleacrisis.com.

Stroganoff

After bringing the water for the Stroganoff to a boil, I stirred in the contents from the package.

I didn’t turn off the heat until I had mixed in the contents with the water.

I then turned off the heat, placed the lid on the pan, and set my timer for 15 minutes-my previous experience with outdoor meals has taught me to let the food sit a little longer to allow for optimum re-constitution of the freeze-dried/dehydrated food.

I occasionally stirred the Stroganoff. Once it was evenly textured, I poured it into a bowl and had the Mrs. taste it…and she liked!

Multi-Grain Cereal

After bringing the water to a boil for the Multi-Grain Cereal, I stirred in the contents of the package. I reduced the heat and stirred occasionally for 5 minutes, and this was the result:

I served the Mrs. some of the cereal and we both agreed to add our favorite 100% Maple Syrup just because that’s our preferred flavoring. I didn’t add any salt to the cereal as we cooked it because I wanted to taste the flavor before we added the syrup. It tasted great alone and had the perfect flavor once we added a little milk and 100% maple syrup. I could have eaten it without the syrup and milk, but it’s definitely a treat to eat it when all the comforts are available!

Pros

Wise Food Storage does a great job with the flavor and texture of the food. If they really do deliver on the 25-year shelf-life then it ranks right up there with other freeze-dried & dehydrated meals I’ve eaten over the years. The instructions were easy to follow and the flavor was really good, which indicates to me that I would definitely recommend their product as part of your short & long-term food storage supplies. Often-times, the flavors don’t turn out so well without having to “doctor-it-up” a bit. This was not the case. The meals stood alone without having to improve the flavor.

Another thing I like about this kind of food storage in general, is that it requires you to address two areas: emergency water & emergency food. It’s a latent benefit of getting your food storage in order. You cannot enjoy food storage with such a lengthy lifespan without it being dehydrated and/or freeze-dried. My food storage makes me take really good care of my water storage & purification solutions: primarily my Berkey Water Filters (www.goberkey.com).

The pricing was great as well: less than $1.97 per serving with a shelf-life of 25 years!

Another strong point with the Wise Food Storage is that the meals were in fact filling! I didn’t expect to be satisfied without having to eat the whole 4-meal content of each package, but I was satisfied and had a good “snack” amount left over.

Cons

This product-like every other “emergency food storage” solution out there is designed to be used in a scenario when energy and resources are to be conserved as much as possible. I don’t have a problem with using water to reconstitute food because that quantity of water which I add to cooking it will compose a percentage of my daily hydration maintenance level. I just don’t like having to use pots and pans which will need to be washed after preparing the food. I will have to use extra energy & water: two precious resources. As a remedy to my personal preference, I will invest in their outdoor meal packets because hot water can be easily added to the mylar packet and then the contents can be eaten directly in the pouch.

One other observation is that Wise Food Storage has chosen to not use real meat in the meals, but uses textured vegetable protein (TVP) instead. Now, I understand that meat is ideally eaten when it is fresh and lean, so this is not a big deal to me. I just wanted to point that out because to some people it makes all the difference in the world. Personally, I would just add some rabbit, deer, beef or chicken meat from a fresh hunt if I wanted to enjoy real meat during such a situation.

All-in-all, I recommend Wise Food Storage as part of your short and long-term food storage solutions.



Picture Credit - RamyRaoof on Flicker

1. There will be a general break down in law and order. Law enforcement will not be policing your neighborhood. This will likely lead to a community response and vigilante groups setting up neighborhood security details. The law and justice will be determined by those walking your streets with sticks and guns, so be sure to mind your P’s and Q’s. (LINK)
2. Food and water will become scarce. The average American has about three days worth of food in their home, and likely very little water, as most are dependent on their local city for this essential commodity. As with any major disaster, like hurricanes or earthquakes, panicked people will immediately make a run for the grocery store, either before or at the onset of crisis, looking to acquire any non-perishable goods. They’ll buy everything they can in one trip, which leaves less food for the next guy. Our just-in-time inventory management systems ensure that there will be no reserves in the back of the grocery store, so once the store shelves are cleared, it will be a while before they are restocked. (LINK)
3. Looting will be rampant. Until all of the food, water, diapers and HDTV’s have been cleared from store shelves, looters will be breaking into retail businesses in search of goods. In Egypt, most of the population is not armed. In the U.S., however, it’s a different story and the general rule on looters is: shoot them. Regardless of whether you are trying to acquire food for your baby or a free Xbox, you will be considered a looter if you enter a private business. (LINK ; New Orleans LINK)
4. If the rioting and looting gets bad enough, expect full deployment by the military. As we are currently seeing in Egypt, and like we saw in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina saga, government is prepared to restore order by whatever means are available. There will be heavily armed soldiers, tanks and unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling your city. (LINK)
5. When rocks start getting thrown, Molotov cocktails start exploding, and citizens take it upon themselves to shoot at military and law enforcement personnel, soldiers will fire back - and the firing will be indiscriminate, just like we’ve seen in Egypt and during the Iranian riots of 2009. One report out of Egypt indicates that President Mubarak of Egypt has issued shoot-to-kill orders giving the military authority to open fire on anyone it deems a threat. (VIDEO LINK)
6. Hospitals will run out of basic medical supplies. We saw this in Haiti and we’re seeing it in Cairo. As the injured and wounded stack up, medical personnel will be overwhelmed. Basic medicines like hydrogen peroxide and antibiotics will disappear, and minor injuries may lead to amputation or death in a matter of days if supplies are not restocked. As more dead bodies stack up, this could potentially lead to widespread outbreaks of disease like it did in Haiti. (LINK)
7. The internet will get shut down. Governments have realized that the internet is the communication medium of choice to organize protests and riots. When Iranians protested their Presidential elections in 2009, Twitter and other social networking sites were used to organize, as well as to broadcast pictures of the events in near real-time. This gives the government ample reason to shut down all digital means of communication, the most important being that government is unable to stop mass gatherings, nor are they able to control the news propaganda of the event itself. Egypt is the first country to have taken steps to completely shutdown everything from traditional internet connectivity via ISPs, as well as phone and text communications. Expect the same in your neck of the woods if and when it hits the fan. (LINK)
8. Banks will be closed and ATM’s will be out of money. With no law enforcement, banks will be unable to operate. There will be no one to refill the cash in ATM’s, and it’s possible that even if they do have money you will not be able to withdraw it because problems with electronic processing will prevent it. Those who don’t have cash or barterable goods on them will be left with no way to transact. (LINK)
9. The real value of gold and silver against most other assets will rise. Though only anecdotal reports exist at this time from the streets of Egypt, it’s clear that anytime governmental, economic or social instability hits a particular region, the value of these precious metals rises. The 2010 riots in Greece prove this point, as the price of gold on the street rose to a reported $1700 per ounce, even while gold in global commodity exchanges was trading at $1100. When there are no open banks or working ATM’s, precious metals will become the de facto reserve currency on the ground. (LINK)
10. The ‘important’ people will probably get the heck out of Dodge. If you’ve got money and power, you’re going to be fast-tracked out of the region. President Mubarak’s sons quickly fled Egypt when the riots broke out. In Tunisia, the President’s wife made a beeline for the nearest international destination - with a ton of gold in tow. While the elite will have access to evacuate a disintegrating regional riot or collapse, everyday folks will likely be stranded. Expect that wherever you are when it hits the fan is where you’ll stay, so be sure to be stocked up on the essentials. (LINK , LINK)

The EcoloBlue 30 & 30s™ are sleek, state-of-the-art atmospheric water generators that can provide your family with up to 8 gallons of pure drinking water a day.  These units pull water from the humidity right out of the air, and then filters it into pure drinking water.  The water is incredibly pure and absolutely delicious, and Ecoloblue says that water produced by their units costs an average of approximately 20 cents a gallon.

EcoloBlue units are perfect for a home, an office, an RV or even a boat.  Their units even have a solar panel option so that they can potentially keep providing water in the event of an emergency or natural disaster.

The truth is that we are not always going to be able to count on clean, fresh water.  In the event that your current water supply was cut off, what would you do?  Where would you get water for your family?

In addition, there have been a number of scientific studies recently which have revealed all of the horrible things that are in our drinking water.  Even distilled water from the grocery store has plastic chemicals leaching into it.

Wouldn't you like to drink some clean, pure water that is good for the environment for once?

The following video has even more information about these amazing units....

It seems like everyone is hopping on the Ecoloblue bandwagon.  A while back, one ABC News affiliate posted an absolutely glowing review of Ecoloblue water generators....

Soon, our kids were demanding their filtered water like toddlers after cookies. They homed to it after exercise and filled their bottles on comings and goings. Returning from a vacation, they insisted the Ecoloblue (generically known as an Atmospheric Water Generator) be immediately re-engaged. They wanted that cool and clean-tasting H2O.

Guests were mesmerized, too. They remarked that this water condensed from air was greatly refreshing. Yup, we nodded, smugly: It were good. And there was enough for all of us to drink,  with some leftover every day for the pets and for cooking.

Are you excited yet?

Are you ready for the cleanest, purest water that you have ever had in your life?

Ecoloblue is the real deal.  I would not be writing this review if I did not believe in Ecoloblue so strongly myself.

So what are you waiting for?  Visit the EcoloBlue Life & Energy website for more information.

A Well Stocked Emergency Food Pantry

Picture Credit- The Wonderful Lust Journal

It is important to prepare while we can.  Time is quickly running out.  The following are 10 signs that the U.S. economy is already starting to fall apart....

1 - Unemployment in the United States is completely out of control.  According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one person that is looking for a full-time job.  Not only that, the number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has risen over 60 percent in just the past year.  To get an idea of just how rapidly unemployment in the U.S. is spreading, take 38 seconds to watch the absolutely amazing video posted below....

2- Personal bankruptcies continue to soar.  Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12 month period ending June 30th.

3 - The U.S. housing market is coming apart at the seams.  In July, existing home sales in the U.S. plummeted 27 percent, and sales of new homes dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.  Meanwhile, foreclosures continue to spiral out of control.  One out of every seven U.S. mortgages was either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

4 - Poverty is spreading like a plague in the United States.  The number of Americans on food stamps rose to a new all-time record of 40.8 million in May.  In fact, the number of Americans receiving food stamps has set a new all-time record for 18 consecutive months. 

5 - The Social Security system is melting down much faster than anticipated.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes in 2010.  That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.

6 - Our financial system has developed a derivatives bubble that is so gigantic that it is hard to find the words to even describe it.  Nobody knows exactly how big the derivatives bubble is, but low estimates place it at around 600 trillion dollars and high estimates put it at around 1.5 quadrillion dollars.  Once the derivatives bubble pops there simply will not be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

7 - The trade deficit is bleeding the U.S. economy dry.  Every single month, tens of billions of dollars more leaves the United States than enters it.  This represents an almost unbelievable transfer of wealth.  At the end of every single month, the United States is poorer than when the month began. 

8 - American consumers have accumulated an astounding amount of debt.  The total amount of consumer debt that Americans consumers owe now stands at a total of approximately 11 trillion dollars.

9 - State and local governments across the United States are literally drowning in debt.  Some state and local governments are in such a financial mess that they have actually starting cutting off even the most essential services.

10 - U.S. government debt is completely and totally out of control.  The U.S. government has accumulated a national debt that will soon surpass the 14 trillion dollar mark.  Things are deteriorating so fast that according to one member of Barack Obama's national debt commission, the U.S. government will be paying 2 trillion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2020 if nothing changes.

Are you starting to get the picture?

It is time to prepare for the very hard times that are coming.  When the U.S. economy implodes a lot of people are suddenly going to be scrambling for survival.  You do not want to be one of them.

For much more on building an emergency food supply and preparing for hard economic times we recommend the following resources....

#1) Thriving During Challenging Times: The Energy, Food and Financial Independence Handbook

#2) The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide: The Smartest Money Moves to Prepare for Any Crisis

#3) Starting A New Life In Rural America: 21 Things You Need to Know Before You Make Your Move

In Vietnam, this severe drought is shaping up to be the worst in a hundred years.  The truth is that there has been very little rainfall across the entire nation since last September.  Over half of Vietnam's estimated 44 million person workforce is involved in agriculture, so if this drought continues much longer it is going to be a horrific disaster.

The drought is also extremely severe in Thailand.  Thailand accounts for approximately one-third of all global rice exports, and analysts are now forecasting a decline of at least one million tons for this year.

That is bad news, but hopefully world food supplies will not be impacted that severely.  However, a few more body blows like this and we could start looking at a global food crisis.

It is now being projected that global demand for food will more than double over the next 50 years.  Right now there are over 6 billion people on earth.  Around 2040 or so there will be 9 billion people on earth.  By the 2060s, there would be over 11 billion people on earth.  So where in the world are we going to get the food to feed all of those people?

A global food shortage is coming.  There is no possible way that the world can produce enough food for that many people under the current system.

Already 1 billion people in the world go to bed hungry every single night.

Already somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds and 3/4 of them are children under the age of 5.

Already approximately a third of all children in the world under the age of five suffer from serious malnutrition.

And the bad news is that the world simply does not have enough water to grow much more food.

Just consider the following quote from IWMI director general Colin Chartres....

"Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years time, by when the current food crisis may turn into a perpetual crisis."

Not only that, but because of overfarming and pollution, we are rapidly losing farm land.  Today almost 25% of the world’s farm land is affected by serious environmental degradation.  That is up from 15% two decades ago.

In some of the biggest countries in the world the environmental situation is absolutely nightmarish.

For example, it is estimated by authorities that 75 percent of India's surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste.  The truth is that there is over a billion people in India, but sanitation is still only just starting to be developed in many areas.  So many people there just "use the toilet" wherever they can.  In fact, according to a UN study on sanitation, far more people in India have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet.

But it just isn't places like India where rampant environmental degradation is a problem.

It is happening in the United States too.

It turns out that many big American cattle farms actually feed chicken manure to cattle because it is so inexpensive and because we produce far too much of it to properly dispose of as fertilizer.

So are you eating beef that is from cattle that were fed chicken manure every day?

How would you know?

Not only that, but the world cannot get much more food out of the oceans either.  29 percent of world fisheries are in a state of collapse according to Canadian scientist Boris Worm, and in the years ahead the world fishing industry may actually produce less food rather than more food.

But much more food will be needed in the years ahead.

The really sad thing is that we waste so much food right now.  In developed countries we throw away anywhere from one-third to one-half of all food produced.

Considering the fact that so many people in the world are suffering from a lack of food, that is absolutely criminal.

In the years ahead we won't be wasting that much food.  That is for certain.  We will look back on these days when there was plenty of food with longing.  These are still good times.  Even though the world economy is starting to spin out of control, the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet.  A devastating world economic collapse is on the way, and a global food shortage will follow shortly thereafter.

Are you ready?